out of being careful, but because it was all he could do. His body was still healing; he could feel a trickle of blood from the barely closed-up tear on his side, sliding down his skin.
His feet hit the bottom with a crunch, and he moved toward the glint of what looked like blue metal from this closer place. He blinked in surprise when moving the thick leaves aside showed a . . . car. It took him a minute to put together this large thing from that other world, with the one he lived in now. What is it doing here?
Had it been someone trying to escape the enemy, who’d driven far into the wilderness and over the edge of this canyon? How long has it been here?
Glass crunched under his feet and he bent, looking inside the broken window, and pulling back when he saw the skeletons inside. Clothes hung on the bones, and by their look, he could tell that the one at the wheel had been a man, and the other one, a woman.
Another beam of sunlight caught something shiny lying on the seat, and Jak reached for it, bringing it out of the car and opening his hand. A silver necklace with a tiny opening thing on the side. Jak used his thumbnail to pry it open, showing a tiny picture of a man, a woman, and a baby inside. A family. Jak’s stomach knotted up with wanting as he stared at the three smiling faces.
His eyes moved over the people one by one, the man wearing a small smile, one hand sitting on the woman’s shoulder. The woman’s smile was big and shiny, her blonde hair pretty and bright. But it was the baby who drew him in. It was the baby who made him stop and stare. There was something about her eyes . . . something that made his heartbeat go faster and his skin feel sweaty. He gripped the necklace in his hand and moved to the back of the car where the trunk was opened a crack.
He pushed on it, the metal creaking as it went up. There were piles of wet leaves inside, something that looked like it had once been a blanket but had rotted with wetness. He pushed that to the side and found that under it, there was a blue bag, mostly not touched by weather.
He unzipped it and looked inside. A few paper pads with writing in them. He wanted to know what they said, but he made himself wait, putting the things back into the bag, zipping it closed, and swinging it over his shoulder.
Something that felt like excitement sang inside him. It’d been so much time since his mother had dropped off those kids’ books, the ones he could now say by heart. The ones he still took out many times a day to read so he would remember what words looked like. What they felt like in his mouth, and in his mind. Maybe what he had in the bag wasn’t a story, but to have something new to read . . . new words . . . they were . . . light in the dark.
He turned toward the canyon wall and started to go up. He could figure out a better way to die tomorrow. Today, he had new words. And he didn’t feel as alone.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Harper knocked at the door that was now becoming a familiar sight. She stepped back, her heart skipping several beats as it seemed to do whenever she would soon be in his presence. The door opened and he stood there, staring at her with a look on his face that was slightly less wary than it’d been the first two times she’d shown up unannounced. Not that she really had any way to announce herself other than the sound of her truck a few minutes before she arrived but . . .
“Hi.”
“Hi.”
She reached inside the large purse she had slung over her shoulder and retrieved the notebooks that had once belonged to her mother. “These are yours.”
Surprise flickered over his face. “They’re not mine. I only found them. They belong to you.”
Harper shook her head and took the book she’d brought out of her purse. She handed The Count of Monte Cristo to Lucas and watched him as his eyes flared with surprised pleasure. “I also thought you might want this so you can make more sense of those notes.”
He didn’t attempt to reject the book as he’d attempted to reject the notes. He took it and held it to his chest as though it were precious.
Harper looked over his shoulder at the dancing firelight on the walls. “Can I come in? I won’t stay long.”
He didn’t answer, but he stepped back and she went inside, shutting the door behind her. She put the notebooks on the empty bed closest to the door and his gaze remained on them for a moment before he met her eyes again. “I want you to keep my mother’s notes.”
“Why?”
“Because . . . I think they were meant for you.”
He frowned. “What do you mean?”
Harper sighed, moving closer to him. “I’m not sure what I mean. I just . . . have this feeling.” She shook her head. “And I’m not always one to follow my gut, or my intuition, or whatever you want to call it, but I think those notebooks belong with you, and that’s all. I didn’t think it through. I drove them out here, and I hope that’s okay. Also, I found something out this afternoon and I wanted . . . well, I wanted to ask you about it, to see what you think because—”
“Harper.” He said her name, nothing more, but there was a gentle beseeching in his tone—slow down, breathe, I’m trying to understand you, it seemed to say—and that one word was enough for her to stop her aimless rambling and gather herself. She felt seen by him in a way she hadn’t been seen by anyone in a long time, even if he didn’t always understand her words.
“Agent Gallagher called me this afternoon and told me they’d found evidence that my parents were shot.”
“Shot? With an . . . arrow?
“No, no. With a gun.”
“I thought they died in the car accident.”
Harper sat on the bed next to his, the metal springs making a soft creaking sound. “I’ve always believed that. I’ve always assumed the three of us were involved in an accident, and the car had never been found. I believed that all my life. Despite the location being odd”—she wrinkled her brow—“finding the car at the bottom of that canyon was confirmation of that. I’m so, so confused, and . . . I don’t know how to feel.” She paused for a moment. “Did you see anyone near that wreck? Or know anything that could explain what happened to them?”