Page 78 of Citadel

I eventually fall into a painful daze of effort and discomfort and exhaustion. My legs are still moving automatically, but I’m honestly not sure how.

I’m so out of it I have no idea how many hours have passed. The only details I’m aware of are the broken pavement, weeds, and dirt beneath my feet and the sweat stain on the back of Cole’s shirt, shaped roughly like a map outline of Australia. Nothing changes except the size of the damp patch on his shirt until he stops walking so abruptly I bump into him.

He reaches back to stabilize me, moving me to his side. I’m about to ask what’s wrong, but I close my mouth at the look on his face. He gestures down to the hill we just crested. I peer through the shadows at the bottom of the slope, squinting to see what he’s seen.

I catch a glimpse of motion but can’t make out what it is. For all I can tell, it could be a deer or bad guy or an army tank or a circus clown.

“Is it them?” I ask, mouthing the words rather than speaking them.

He nods curtly, nudging me over until I’m off the old highway and completely hidden in the trees.

I wipe some perspiration off my forehead and neck, torn between relief and rising fear.

We caught up to them. Which we’ve been trying to do for days.

But that means we’ll soon have to act. Do something.

Risk everything.

Cole waits until they’re too far to see us, and then he pulls me back out onto the paved road. We follow at a distance for several more hours, resting when they do and staying just out of sight, until late afternoon when they stop and set up camp for the night.

Like we always do, they move off the road and toward the river so they can access the water. They put up a tent and build a fire. One of them wanders off into the woods with a rifle, probably to hunt.

Cole and I find a vantage point that’s out of sight but still allows us a view of their main camp. We crouch down and watch them for a long time.

Breanna takes some clothes to the river to wash. The hunter comes back with a dead rabbit for their dinner. Two of them have taken positions on either side of the camp, clearly acting as guards. They do chores. Roast the rabbit. Eat. And not much else. When the sun sets, Breanna and two of the guys go into the tent while two men stay on watch.

“Looks like they always have two on guard,” Cole mutters after a long stretch when neither of us have spoken at all. “Probably rotate ’em out.”

“Okay. I assume they’ll do that all night then. Surely we can handle two guards.”

“Yep. I can deal with one silently and then go around and take care of the other. With any luck, we can take out both before the others know we’re here.”

“What will I do while you’re taking care of guards?”

“You’ll provide a distraction.” His mouth twitches very slightly, as if he’s predicting my response.

I curl my lips. “I’d like to do something useful.”

“The distraction will be useful. They’ll think the danger is coming from your direction when it’s really coming from mine. We’ll already have the advantage, and that will give us an even greater one. We can do this. I can take out four guys.”

He sounds confident but not boastful. He’s only speaking the truth.

“So do we do it now?”

“We need to wait until there’s a better chance two of them are asleep. Let’s find a place to rest for a few hours. Then we’ll go.”

That sounds like a good plan to me. I nod as we start walking farther away from their camp, returning in the direction we came from until we reach a cluster of large rocks that offers some protection.

We don’t set up camp. We don’t build a fire. We wash up briefly in the river. Then Cole sits down with his back against one of the rocks. When I kneel down beside him, he pulls me into his arms.

He smells even stronger than usual since he didn’t wash up fully just now. His body is hot and hard and big and familiar. Safer than anything else in the world.

We cuddle for a while until my back starts to hurt from the weird position. I shift, trying to get comfortable, until I finally stretch out on the ground with my head in Cole’s lap.

I like it that way. Nothing feels better. He strokes my hair and rubs his thumb in circles on my cheek and I close my eyes but don’t sleep.

He must know I’m not asleep because after a long time in silence, he asks low and guttural, “Have you forgiven me?”

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