place to sleep, even though he didn’t have to. But . . . well, he was still a stranger, and a wildcat, and a person of interest in a murder investigation. Not to mention, lots of bad things in this world had happened to girls because they were worried about appearing rude. She grabbed the weapon and walked up his steps and through his door, closing it behind her.
“Thank you. I, um . . . you won’t even know I’m here.”
He looked confused. “I’ll know you’re here.”
“I just mean, I won’t be any bother.” She considered the three empty beds, but none of them had mattresses, and sleeping on bare metal springs didn’t seem comfortable at all, and so she sat on the floor, leaning against the wall and laying her gun on the floor next to her. She wrapped herself in the blanket again and let out a pretend yawn so he’d know she was all taken care of. “This is very nice of you,” she said. “If I can repay your kindness in some way, let me know.”
She swore she saw his lips tilt slightly, but then he turned away, lying on his own bed, his back to her. “If you could try not to shoot me in my sleep, that would be good,” he said without turning, and she swore she heard a smile in his voice. Was he joking with her? The idea shocked her, but it also caused a burst of pleasure too.
“I promise I won’t,” she said, and she could hear the smile in her own voice before she realized there was one on her lips.
His shoulder moved slightly but he didn’t answer, and after a moment she closed her eyes, reveling in the warmth enveloping her, her shivering ceasing completely.
She was comfortable, but she knew she wouldn’t sleep. Harper had trouble sleeping in general, much less sitting against a stranger’s wall with said stranger sleeping twenty feet from her. Yet, despite the cabin and its lack of refinement, she felt comfortable. Was it the fire? The man? The deep, enfolding silence of the forest surrounding them? Or was it that she felt peace? Always together, never apart.
No, she wouldn’t sleep, but thank God she was warm. Content. And there were only a handful of hours until dawn.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Ribbons of powder. Puffs of wind. Both dancing across the frosty field. Jak stepped through it, moving around the buried rocks and hidden holes he knew by memory.
Driscoll’s house came into view, smoke trailing from the chimney, and Jak picked up his pace, moving quickly through the falling snow. He didn’t like visiting Driscoll. He did it as little as possible, but there were some things he didn’t want to do without, now that winter had arrived.
Especially matches.
He could cook now but chose not to. When he did that, he couldn’t taste the life in it anymore. He remembered his baka had talked about vitamins and minerals, and maybe those were the same thing. Now that words were hardly ever in his mouth, Jak had learned that pictures in his head explained things better. He saw vitamins and minerals like tiny grains of life that flowed through the living being and when you ate them, you could taste all the things that animal had experienced. Its life flowed into you and in that way, never really stopped living. Life went on and on and on. Never stopping.
But he didn’t want to go back to a winter without the warmth of fire, even though he now had a roof over his head, a blanket, and Pup’s body heat. Warmth was worth the walk—and worth a few minutes with Driscoll. Jak didn’t like him though. He got a cold, sweaty feeling whenever he was around him. He hated how Driscoll’s eyes got all squirrely and the way he watched Jak’s every move. Jak had learned to tell when there was a predator nearby, not just by the snapping of a twig under its step, or the stink of its fur as it drew close. He knew from the whispery feeling inside and the way the small hairs on the back of his neck stood up when something dangerous was stalking him.
He got that feeling when he was around Driscoll.
The man had never done anything other than trade supplies with him, and yet . . . that feeling stayed. Jak figured that whatever Driscoll did in town to get supplies, it was probably sneaky and full of lies.
But Jak wasn’t going to think too hard about that. His baka once explained that people did what they had to do to survive during wars. And he needed matches. That was all.
Jak had let Pup out of the house at first sunlight and he still hadn’t been back when Jak left, so he was alone on this trip. He wanted it that way, though, and always went alone to Driscoll’s. Pup was loyal and faithful to him, and he didn’t fear him in the least, but Jak had no idea what he’d do if he saw a stranger. Especially one that put off the stink of a predator the way Driscoll did.
The few times that Jak heard a car on the road in the near faraway, or what might be people walking in the wilderness around him, he turned in the other direction, and moved away, quiet as a wolf. Quiet as Pup. He figured doing that had taught Pup to fear humans other than Jak. And besides that, he didn’t know how Driscoll would act if he saw a giant wolf approaching him, whether he looked nice or not.
Driscoll opened the door before Jak had even knocked, like he’d been watching for him, which made those tiny hairs stand up on Jak’s neck.
“Jak. How are you? Come in. Get warm.”
Jak went inside the small room, thinking as he always did, how much he wanted to leave, just as he was getting there.
He reached in the bag he’d made by stitching together two rabbit skins with long pieces of thick grass. It wasn’t very strong and couldn’t hold anything too heavy, but it worked for his needs, and it’d kept him busy for three full days. Jak pulled out the fish packed in snow and wrapped in another skin. He’d caught the fish that morning by banging a rock through the ice and dangling small pieces of rabbit meat into the hole. It’d taken him all morning, but he’d caught four. Two to trade, one for himself, and one for Pup.
When he looked up, Driscoll’s squirrely eyes were moving between the fish and the bag, a small smile turning his thick lips up. “You’ve been working hard. Figuring out how to survive with what’s available to you.”
“What other choice do we have?” he asked. “Until the war’s over.”
“Yes. What are you looking to trade for?”
“Matches.”
“Ah.” He sighed. “Matches are a precious commodity.”
Precious commodity. His mind whirred, working quickly through the meaning of those words. He remembered precious. Important. Matches were an important thing? A commodity was a thing. An important thing.