“I can’t see everything.” She climbed onto the bed and sat beside me. “I’m learning more all the time, but I can’t see it all.”
“You saw us coming to this place, right?” I smiled at her. “You’re doing great by my standards.”
Her brow furrowed as she stared out the window. “I think this is what I saw, but I’m not sure. Fergus found me today.”
“He what?” I gasped.
“Nothing bad. I mean I still don’t trust him, but he just wanted to let me know they were looking for you.”
“Who is?” I pulled the blanket up higher around my waist.
“Everyone.” Vorie’s eyes suddenly glossed over as she turned to the door. “I have to go now.”
“Don’t!” I cried out as she disappeared. Great, now I’m never going back to sleep.
There was a loud knock that caused me to jump off the bed. I scrambled to the door quietly and peeked out the eyehole. Brayson was standing in the hall. My heart returned to its normal pace as I undid the chain latch.
“Mind if I sleep on the couch tonight?” he asked. “I don’t want to be alone.”
I pulled the top blanket off my bed and tucked him in on the sofa. He fell fast asleep instantly. Not me. I tossed and turned most of the night dreaming I was being chased by wolves.
Chapter 6
∞
The next few weeks passed quickly in a blur of work. There wasn’t much time to think as it seemed I was always moving. I learned that in the spring we plant most of the crops and harvest the winter vegetables as they ripen. Fallon used greenhouses and his hundred-acre farm to rotate through the different growing seasons. We plowed fields and weeded the rows. There were animals on the farm too. I shoveled hay and cleaned the coops.
As the days grew warmer, the work became more methodic. My skin darkened under the sun. I never realized how pale I’d always been. The muscles in my tawny arms grew stronger. I felt more powerful and more alive every day.
On Saturdays we worked at the market. Theo began to come talk with me after my shift at the stall. I only saw him on market days because he spent the week driving goods between the towns. The small villages spread throughout the Northwest traded with each other using travelers.
“I’ve been trying to get Juniper to make a more centralized market like this one so all the villages could come together.” Theo leaned back against the wooden bench and crossed one leg over the other.
It was a seriously hot day. My tank top clung tightly to my back and I pulled my hair into a ponytail to get it off my neck as he spoke. He’d talk for hours about his grand ideas to make something big out of this go-nowhere village. Mostly, I just nodded my head. I didn’t agree with a lot of his plans, but he was a nice enough guy and it seemed he needed someone to talk to. He didn’t fit in with anyone there.
“Even after everyone left for the realm, they still realized we needed places to congregate. And the money the mafia makes from it…” Theo paused to whistle. “They sure knew how to take advantage of that market.”
“But look at the problems it comes with.” I shifted my legs up off the warm bench. “Just being together isn’t enough. People always want more. They need more vices, more control, more competition. People suffer because of it.”
“We could do better.” Theo smiled fondly at me and I shook my head. He always seemed so childlike in these moments.
“Fawn!” Juniper stood waving me over from across the street. I excused myself from our conversation, leaving Theo alone on the bench.
“You’ve been spending a lot of time with him lately.” She looked at me from the corner of her eye.
“It’s not like that.” We walked together under the shadows of the abandoned diner’s overhanging roof. “I just feel sorry for him. He seems so out of place here.”
“Don’t feel sorry for him,” Juniper scoffed. “He’s had an easy life. Too easy probably. He doesn’t think anything bad will ever touch him.”
We stepped behind Fallon’s stall. Brayson stood up after placing a crate of onions under the table. His t-shirt stretched thin across his biceps. His hair had grown longer and was hanging into his eyes. The sun had kissed his face and hardened it, making him seem much older, but laughter lit up his eyes a little more each day. He reached out a calloused hand to shake Juniper’s hand.
“You two are doing well,” she nodded. “I was a little nervous at first to see how you’d do, but I had a feeling it’d turn out alright.”
“Hey Fallon.” Juniper caught him in a rare moment of silence as he drifted from one customer to the next. “Do you mind if I steal these two tomorrow? I think it’s time they learned some more skills.”
Fallon put on a dramatic business face as he pretended to weigh his options. “I suppose,” he finally said while winking at me. His wink was awful too and I giggled. “We’ll be slowing down for the next month or so anyway. Might as well teach them now before the real work starts with the end of summer harvest.”
Brayson and I locked eyes. Real work?
*
The open desert stretched before us as we drove further away from the base of the mountain where the sleepy village sat. We kept the windows shut due to the trail of dust the ATVs and Juniper’s dirt bike kicked up.
They stopped at the edge of a small ravine. Juniper taught us to shoot one of the M16s and the 30.06 before moving onto the smaller pistols. I preferred the 9mm because it had less of a kick, but I still wasn’t very good. Once Brayson figured out the scope, he wasn’t half bad. A real smile brightened his face as the men clapped him on the back.
After the guys had their fun teasing me and firing off a few more rounds, they loaded their ATVs up to head home. Juniper told us to hang back as they left.
“Well, it’s been almost two months, and no one has come looking for you.” She stood with her arms crossed as Brayson and I sat on the tailgate of the truck. “I’ve been asking around, but there doesn’t seem to be much interest in two runaway orphans. That tells me you’re either really lucky or not important enough to care about.”
“We told you they don’t own us anymore,” Brayson said as he studied the mountains on the horizon.
“I wasn’t born yesterday. You wouldn’t have cut out your trackers if you weren’t on the run,” Juniper sighed. “Fawn sucks at shooting. I’ll need her to get better at that to defend this place if trouble ever comes looking for you. I also wanted to get you both out of the hotel, but Mrs. Shaw said she wouldn’t hear another word about it.” I stared hard at her, wondering where all this was coming from.
“The town held a vote last night and decided to keep you both here if you want to stay for good.”
My breath caught in my throat. “They voted to keep us here. Like, they want us to live here?”
Juniper nodded. “You’ve proved your worth. Just let me know what you plan to do so I can see about making arrangements if you’d like to leave the hotel.” She turned toward her bike. “And when you’re ready, you can tell me why you really ran. I’m pretty curious about that.”