who explained what happened in the world outside the forest—what was safe, what was not, and who and what to stay away from. He’d given Jak shelter, fire, so he had no need to leave.
But what if Isaac Driscoll was crazy?
What if he was lying?
But why would he? Jak couldn’t figure out a reason, so he wondered if asking the question made him the crazy one. He didn’t think so.
He’d thought about trying to walk into town, into the faraway, however many days or weeks that might take. His old fear about the enemy killing children could be behind him now. He wasn’t a child anymore. He was a man. His body was hard and muscled. He knew how to use a weapon. He could fight. He could kill if he had to.
Whenever he’d had the thought before, he’d always talked himself away from it. Even though he was lonely, he’d found some peace in his life, and there didn’t seem like there was a good reason to walk away from everything he knew into a war. He still fought and struggled because there was nothing you could always count on about nature, but he’d learned to get ready for the winters as best as he could, and he was the master of his small world. Why risk it?
But now . . .
Now things had changed and Jak had to know.
He moved quickly from one tree to the next, a wolf in the shadows, as he kept looking for cameras or anything else that might not belong, something he’d never looked for when he’d gone to see Driscoll before. After he’d watched the house for a time, he put on his flat shoes and walked out into the snow like he’d come to trade something or another. He didn’t think Driscoll was home, but he’d rather be sure before breaking in.
In the bag hung on his back, he had a hat made from soft rabbit fur that he’d tell Driscoll he wanted to trade for matches if the man was home.
He stepped sideways as he walked up the steps, not removing his flat shoes so he wouldn’t make any footprints. He knocked on the door, his gloved hands making the sound soft, but not enough so Driscoll wouldn’t hear if he was inside. Jak waited a minute before knocking again to be sure. When there was still no answer, he tried the handle but it was locked. He stood there for a minute, trying to figure out a way to open the door, other than breaking it down. Unsure, he stepped carefully down the steps and walked around the side of the house, trying each window along the way. The second window on the side slid up when he pushed hard. “Yes,” he murmured. He untied the flat shoes and left them on the ground. In a minute, Jak was standing in Driscoll’s living room.
He walked through the room, not making a sound. Jak knew how to be silent, quick. His life depended on it. There was no one in the main room, and the kitchen area was empty. Jak blew out a breath and started looking around. Things looked the way they always had when he’d been there to trade. Except . . . he spotted a pile of notebooks on a small table next to the one chair. He opened the one on top and a pile of pictures fell out, dropping to the floor. Jak began taking his deerskin gloves off when he stopped, the face looking up at him from right next to his foot . . . familiar. He’d seen it before, staring back at him from a clear patch of water. And he knew the clothes. He was wearing them now. Shocked, he reached for the picture, turning a few of the others over and freezing when he saw that they were all of him.
He stood slowly, looking through the pictures, insects starting to buzz in his head as his skin got cold. In one he was dragging a deer through the forest, a long trail of blood left behind it, in another he was sitting on a rock on the riverbank taking off scales from a fish. He went through them faster, blinking. They went back to when he was just a young boy, still in the same jeans he’d been wearing the night he was taken and woke up on the edge of the cliff. Pup was in most. Driscoll had known