seen a few moments before, back in his gaze. “I hope being able to bury your parents, to have a place to visit them, will help you find some closure.”
“I hope so too,” she said quietly. “I hope so too.” Because she’d always yearned for a place to take her grief and loss. A place to say goodbye.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Jak hadn’t eaten in three days. His belly ached, gnawed at itself, hunger making him feel weak, sleepy. But he couldn’t sleep, not if he wanted to live. Live! Pup had gone out over and over during the long hours, but even he, a natural hunter, hadn’t had any luck. The weather was miserable outside, the animals hidden away in their dens, covered by snow or blocked by ice. Many of them would die there before the winter was over. He wondered if he’d die too.
Jak’s heart seemed to slow, like it was getting ready to stop. Thump, thump. Maybe it would. And who would care? No one. No one would even know.
He had had enough food to last him through four days of the storm that was still blowing, but no more. He’d run out a week ago.
Jak had tried to catch a fish but couldn’t break through the thick ice even after hammering at it with a sharp rock for hours. He’d waited by the water, hoping a deer would come out for a drink, but the cold grew so painful Pup had started whining, a low sound of hurting that Jak understood even better than his fur-covered friend. He’d had no choice but to go back inside, starving and empty-handed.
“We’ve gotta try again, Pup,” he said, and the animal raised his head, looking at Jak for a minute and then lowering his head again as if to say, no way.
“We have to,” Jak argued. “The longer we stay in here, the weaker we’ll get.” Sometimes Jak wondered if it was a meanness to keep Pup inside with him, wondered if his wolf instincts would get . . . less if he didn’t always have to use them. Pup was supposed to have a pack, a family of wolves who could help each other survive. Instead, Pup only had Jak, but Jak still needed him to help catch food, and mostly . . . mostly, he needed his friendship. Pup was his only friend in the whole world, and he knew he wouldn’t want to live through the war for this long without him. Jak might want to give up, but because of Pup, he never would. Pup had saved his life that awful, terrifying night, and many times since then, and now Jak would keep Pup safe and fed, or die trying.
Jak put on his warmest clothes, animal skins he’d stitched together, and a few items he’d traded with Driscoll for. He would have suffered through the walk to Driscoll’s place if he had something to trade for food, but not only did he not have anything he could give up, but Driscoll had told him that was one item he could not get. There wasn’t a lot of food in town, and even Driscoll had trouble getting enough to feed himself. Jak wondered if the war went on for many more winters and food grew less and less, if townspeople would start coming to hunt animals and gather the other food the forest could give.
Even now, when he thought of the war and the people Driscoll had told him were killing the children, that deep voice repeated in his head: Survival is your only goal.
A small tremble that had nothing to do with the storm raced through Jak as he stepped outside, squinting away from the stinging cold that burned his skin.
He gripped the pocketknife in his fur-wrapped hands, ready and willing to kill any small animal or bird he saw. The forest was still, though—quiet—even the winter birds too cold to sing.
Jak stopped at the top of a small hill, Pup a few steps behind, and saw what looked like a deer lying in the middle of an open area.
Jak’s eyes widened and for a minute he simply stared. Had the animal frozen to death right where it was? But no . . . he could see its blood soaking into the snow. He moved toward it. Had another animal killed it and then left it there uneaten? Why would they when food was so hard to get?
Jak’s stomach panged with hunger and he sped up his