thought had happened to him once, twice. The whole world had ended.
There’s a war.
“We were on our way back from dinner in Missoula. I fell asleep.” She shook her head. “I don’t know what happened. That’s one of the worst parts about it. I remember the crash, I think, very vaguely. I remember falling. I remember being wet and freezing. It was winter. But then the next thing I remember is waking up in the hospital. I’ve tried to piece it all together, but there are just . . . hazy flashes that I can’t put into context.”
I can’t put into context . . . context. Understanding? I can’t . . . can’t make fit? Come together. Yes. Like a puzzle. That’s what she meant. Context. He stored the word away. A new one among so many new ones in the last few days. “How were you found but not the car?”
“Lost hikers found me.”
“Out here?” He’d never seen anyone. He’d thought he’d heard people a few times. But that had meant danger to him, so he’d hidden until he was sure he was safe.
They’re killing the children.
She shot him a glance. “Yes. They were out snow hiking, looking for caves friends had told them about. Two college guys. It was suggested they might have gotten lost because they had smoked a copious amount of marijuana. Apparently, they reeked of it, but no one was very concerned about that, considering the circumstances. It’s surprising they got us back to town at all.”
That was a lot of words he didn’t know. He only understood half a language, he realized. Maybe less. His head ached.
“Anyway, they left a statement but didn’t know where they’d found me, or any other details. The authorities in the area formed a search party, mostly based on the roads my dad would have likely been driving, but without any landmarks, they didn’t really know where to specifically direct it. I was in the hospital for a long time and when I woke up, I could barely remember anything.”
“You were lucky,” was all he had to say to that long string of words.
She squinted into the faraway for a minute. “I guess I was.”
Lucas stopped and so did Harper. He dug in his bag, bringing out a piece of wrapped fish and handing it to her. “Hungry?”
She took it, though she looked unsure. “Starving. What is it?”
“Smoked red-throat fish.” He only ate smoked fish in the winter, because he’d found that that made it last longer and he could store it. He liked fresh, raw fish better, but he’d brought the smoked kind because he thought Harper might like that kind more.
She gave him a strange look but unwrapped it and broke off a piece, putting it in her mouth and chewing. Her eyes widened and she chewed some more, talking around the food. “This is good.”
He smiled, pride filling his chest. He liked the sight of her eating the food he’d caught, cleaned, and smoked. He liked the look of the pleasure in her eyes and the way the oil from the food made her lips look shiny. He thought about licking her lips, tasting the oily salt on her skin.
He thought about hunting and fishing for her, bringing her things to eat, and keeping her warm and safe. He thought about her looking to him to do those things. He liked the picture in his mind, but it confused him. She couldn’t live there.
“Ready?” he asked, dropping the rest of the wrapped food into his bag and turning away from her. She said something around another bite, and he heard her footsteps behind him.
As they moved, he took some fish out and ate it quickly, watching the sky as it changed from lonesome gray to blue, the fiery sun burning away the morning clouds, the mist in the treetops fading. Dripping sounds were all around them, the snow turning to water that would freeze again tonight, making silvery waterfalls of every size and shape, and long, sharp icicles.
“Trout,” she said.
“What?”
“The speckled fish with a red stripe on their throats. They’re called trout.”
“Trout,” he said, then repeated it so he’d remember. When he looked at her, her eyes were soft like the sky. “Thank you.” She nodded, a look on her face he didn’t know what to call.
They walked for a while longer, Harper falling behind as the ground got rougher.
“It’s there,” he said when the canyon came into view.
Harper joined him, looking down into the snow-filled