Crazy Eights (Stacked Deck #8) - Emilia Finn Page 0,2
to her neck, then her floppy ear. “You could keep me company,” I rasp out. “You could help me.”
Annie’s muzzle is almost exclusively gray. Her teeth are stained and worn away. But she heard ‘walk’… or, more accurately, she heard the desperation in my voice, so she rolls to her stomach, and then makes her way to her feet with a tired grunt. She’s larger than a typical Labrador, tall enough that her head rests against my hip when she’s standing.
With a nod of acknowledgment, I pat her ear and start walking again. Toward the wooden fence surrounding my uncle’s home, toward the few slats of wood we long ago loosened so my sister and cousins had a way to sneak out of the property without alerting our parents.
Of course, in our children brains, we figured we were smarter than them. But as I grow older, I realize that maybe they knew more than they ever let on.
I look over my shoulder, an old habit that manages to draw a smile to my lips, then I move the slats of wood aside and follow Annie through the gap until I find myself standing in the forest that surrounds our estate.
The temperature drops as soon as I step into the trees, but there’s no wind in here, no sound of cars, no sound of anything except birds high above, and Annie’s breath coming heavier than it should.
“We’re not going far.” I pat her ears again and keep my pace slow so she can keep up without trouble. “But if you wanna lay down, you can, okay?” I look down into her dark eyes. “If you need to rest, just lay down, and I’ll sit with you.”
We make our way through the dense area, over fallen logs, and under low-lying branches. We pass the treehouse my cousins and I built as children, but I don’t stop to climb up.
That’s not my space anymore. Not my place to snoop inside.
“You met Cam, right?” I glance down as we walk. “You met her, so that means she’s real… right?”
Of course the old girl doesn’t answer me, but my desperation means that I swear she nods. I swear she understands.
And I swear, if someone utters the words ‘Cameron Quinn doesn’t exist’ one more fucking time, I’m going to do something that will land me on that same ‘Wanted’ list that Will is allegedly on.
We walk for only minutes – six, maybe seven – before I step into a tiny clearing and find what I came looking for. Here once stood a tree, strong and true, but one day, another grew in its place. The second was stronger, more determined, so it pushed the first aside, knocking it over, so now it lays on the forest floor, and right beside it, the victor stands tall and proud.
A romantic notion, I suppose. But the downed tree isn’t the reason I came out here today.
I glance down when Annie grunts her way to the ground. She lays on her belly, sighs, and flicks her ears, but her eyes remain on me. Watchful. Protective.
I feel like she’s considered herself the protector of all Rollin On children over the years. She did a fine job, considering I’m not sure a single one of us have ever been hurt on her watch. But I feel like she’s yet to acknowledge that we’re grown. She considers her job incomplete, and hell, maybe that’s why she’s still around. Maybe that’s why she defies the rules that say large dogs should pass before their fifteenth birthday.
If her sense of duty is what keeps her with us, then for as long as she’s not in pain, I won’t tell her any different.
“Here it is, Annie.” I step away from her, and make my way to the fallen tree. My heart throbs in my throat, an ache settles deep in my belly, but I swallow it all down, adopt the bravery that Cam seems to always overflow with, then I kneel in the place I once rested. I turn and place my body in the Y that the trees make, then I lay back so my head rests where it once rested before.
I laid here with Cam once. We touched, tasted, explored… More importantly, we trusted. Or I thought she did.
Angling my head, I look up and find exactly what I knew I’d find. The words I carved into the tree myself, the nicks left behind from Cam’s pocketknife.