Winter, White and Wicked - Shannon Dittemore Page 0,82
a lie.” He flips onto his side, his boot knocking Mars’s. Mars elbows him away without opening his eyes and the two settle in, comfortable in their mutual discomfort.
It reminds me so much of Lenore, hot tears sting my eyes. I don’t know what it is—if it’s my need to make things right with her or the threat of telling Kyn anything honest about myself—but I know now that I was right to leave myself another way out.
“You’re the last person on Layce who needs options,” Lenore once told me. “You need a map and a road. You need someone to tell you where to go. Options get you into trouble.”
She was wrong then and she’s wrong now. Options are going to keep both of us alive. My pathetic resistance to the kol and our unplanned lack of twyl changes everything. Taking the Seacliff Road is no longer simply a dangerous endeavor. It’s a deadly roll of the dice. And I know, better than anyone, how a gamble like that can turn out.
By the time I’ve caught sight of the mines at North Bend, the blisters on my gums are gone and I’ve made a decision that burns like sick in the back of my throat.
I can’t stay. If I do, I’ll forget why I’ve come. I’m not out on the road in the middle of the Flux for Kyn-the-Shiv, and I’m not here to fight Winter. I’m here for Lenore. That’s it.
If I can get her back to Whistletop, everything else I’ve done, everything else that’s happened . . . none of it will matter.
AND THERE ARE OTHER RIGS, Winter says, her voice kinder than it’s been in miles.
My hands shake because she’s right. The only way to do this is to leave the Dragon behind.
I COULD HELP YOU GET HER BACK.
She’d do it too. I wouldn’t even need to ask; Winter looks for reasons to fight Mars. But that’s an argument for later. Now, I make peace with goodbye. The first real goodbye I’ve ever chosen.
My eyes sting with the cruelty of it, but that’s all I allow myself. I’m not big on checking your mirrors to see if the pothole you hit is still there. We have to keep moving. And from here on out, I do that alone.
We’ve reached North Bend, the mines yawning tall and narrow before us. I crank the wheel to the left, pulling the Dragon into the first of the two entrances. It’s emptier than I expected, and I push slowly through potholes filled with slush toward the back of the cavern, the Dragon’s smoke stack bumping a swinging cable strung with electric bulbs.
Dead ahead is the lift that once dropped miners deep into the island. I kill the engine mere feet from the cage doors. In the dark I can just make out the shape of a generator and what looks like a control panel for the lifts. I wonder if the generator will power the overhead lights?
My only knowledge of these mines is secondhand. Drypp passed along some of what he knew, told me it was one of the places I was sure to find stores of fuel if I was ever out this far. I got the impression he’d been out here on occasion, but he never would talk about it. Mostly Drypp’s stories were old, stories of what the mines used to do, used to be. Family members who knew family members who told stories about family members whose hard-earned sweat called to the monsters out on Seacliff Road.
I don’t know what I expected, really. Their ghosts to be lingering about? A list of their names on the wall? But mostly it’s just a large, empty space. Taller, wider than the Shiv caves, but with that same dank, closed-off feel. I prefer the sight of wide-open snow-capped mountains, but here, inside, there’s no wind beating against the trailer, no danger of ice cracking beneath the tread. And despite our proximity to the famed Seacliff monsters, I feel almost safe.
There are things that need doing and wasting time is dangerous, but I have to sleep. Even if it’s just for a few hours. I flip sideways in my seat, stretching my boots out over Hyla’s legs. Gently, avoiding any contact with her arm or shoulder, holding my breath and hoping I don’t wake her.
A pang of regret shudders through my body and I realize the Dragon isn’t the only thing I’ll miss. I’ll miss Hyla. I will. This brazen