horrible to her. Red didn’t want to think such a thought, that her own father might have to kill her mother out of some kind of mercy but Red would rather that a million times over than any one of those men getting their hands on Mama and making her suffer.
The stand of trees looked like it was a thousand miles away, but that was only because her heart beat so hard she thought it would come out her eyeballs and her eyeballs bulged and her lids felt peeled back and everything had narrowed to just that last twenty feet, fifteen feet, ten feet and then suddenly she was just there like magic, like teleportation but she heard the harsh rasp of her own breath and felt the burn of adrenaline in her veins.
Red knew that just because the trees were overhead, that didn’t mean she was safe, so she kept moving as fast as she could. There was no sign of Adam and she wondered just how damn far he’d gotten without her and then all of a sudden he just emerged from behind a tree trunk.
She halted and then she did fall, because his appearance was too abrupt and she lost her balance but she didn’t face-plant, just came down hard on her right knee and both elbows.
“Goddammit, Adam,” Red said, picking herself up and dusting pine needles from her sleeves.
He didn’t say anything, which was unusual, because he rarely missed an opportunity to take a dig at her. She looked at him and saw he was just standing there with tears running out of his big brown eyes.
“I didn’t mean to,” he said.
“Didn’t mean to what?” she said.
“I didn’t mean to leave them. I didn’t mean to leave you.”
She didn’t say anything, which was unusual, because she rarely missed a chance to tell him he’d been a dolt. But there was nothing she could say this time, so she walked into his arms and they held each other tight because they were all that was left of their family, just Red and Adam in the woods.
CHAPTER 6
What’s Done Is Done
After
Red woke in the cabin with that heavy slept-too-long feeling. She couldn’t see the position of the sun outside the window, but it was bright, which meant it was long past sunrise. It had been quite a while since she’d slept through sunrise, or had gotten more than a few hours of rest at a stretch. Instead of feeling refreshed she felt thick and sluggish, like she could go back to sleep despite having snoozed for twelve hours or more.
She blinked and then the sun was much less bright than it had been before she blinked and she realized she must have dozed off for a few more hours. Red probably could have slept for a while longer but nature was urgently telling her to get the hell out of her sleeping bag, so she put her prosthetic leg back on and pulled her boots on without tying them.
She shuffled to the door in her long underwear, rubbing her arms when she opened the door and felt the blast of cold from outside. All the dead leaves outside the door were dusted with frost and it felt noticeably colder than it had the day before. Red hurriedly dealt with her business, not for the first time contemplating how much easier this would be with male equipment. At least her butt wouldn’t be flapping in the cold breeze.
Once inside she put all of her layers back on except her rain jacket and then set up the camp stove and propane that the owner had left behind. Soon the little cabin was filled with the smell of tomato sauce bubbling in the pan. Red’s insides twisted with hunger—she hadn’t been able to eat the stew that she’d made before the coyote came to her fire—and she had to force herself not to jam a whole package of pasta into her mouth.
It was only off-brand tomato sauce and cheap dried pasta but she couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten something that tasted so good, so luxurious. Eating spaghetti felt downright decadent after weeks of canned stews and trail mix and dehydrated meals mixed with water.