Page 76 of 15 Summers Later

“Why?” Madi asked, her voice hoarse. “Why didn’t you tell him? I thought you loved him.”

Tears welled up in her sister’s eyes. “I do love him. I wanted his love in return, not his pity. I wanted him to see me as a strong, capable woman, not as...as a weak, frightened girl, so afraid that she actually went through with an abhorrent marriage rather than fight. A girl who had to be rescued by her younger sister!”

The tears glimmering on her lashes spilled over, gathering in the corner of her eyes before dripping out. The resentment and anger and sense of betrayal Madi had nursed for weeks, since the release of Ghost Lake, didn’t seem nearly as important when her sister clearly was suffering so much.

“We rescued each other, Ava.”

Her sister scoffed. “Only because you were the one who had the strength to do what I couldn’t. While I was torn by indecision, waiting for the impossible, you went ahead and gathered valerian root and deathcamas while you were forced to forage for food with the others. You were the one smart enough to remember what you learned about it from Grandma and Mom, then brave enough to hide it, to dry it, to crush it into tea.”

“I couldn’t let you stay married to that evil man. Partly for you and partly because I knew I would be next,” she admitted.

“I know. Which was one of the reasons I finally agreed to your ridiculous plan.”

“My ridiculous plan that worked perfectly, I’ll remind you. James fell asleep. He didn’t die. I wish you had been able to get him to drink it before he...before he...”

“So do I.”

Madi felt the same burning anger she always did when she remembered that dark time. She didn’t want to wish anyone dead, but she was glad James had been arrested and that he had died in a prison brawl six months after his conviction.

“It worked. Somehow it worked. For the first night since we arrived at camp, you weren’t locked into a room. You were able to sneak out and get me.”

She frowned at Ava. “You did nothing wrong. I don’t know why you couldn’t tell everything to Cullen.”

“Believe me, I’ve asked myself that over and over.”

“I also can’t understand how you could keep everything from your husband, the man you love more than any other, yet still go ahead and pour every single detail into that damn book.”

“It’s...complicated.”

Ava lapsed into silence. The squirrel had moved away and the mountainside echoed in the quiet.

Then, distantly through the forest, Madi thought she heard something. A faint cry that didn’t belong among the hoots and calls and chatter of the mountain’s usual inhabitants.

A dog’s whine.

“Shhh.” She held out a hand to Ava.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Be quiet,” Madi hissed.

Ava fell silent, her eyes going wide. “What’s wrong?”

Madi strained her ears and heard it again. A faint, unmistakable whine.

“Did you hear that?”

“It sounds like a cat or something. Is it a cougar?”

The whispered fear in Ava’s voice and her sudden wide eyes and trembling lips were visceral reminders of one of the most terrifying incidents during those days they spent in the wilderness, trying to get to safety. They had been making their way up a slope when they realized they were being stalked by a mountain lion.

They had faced an impossible choice between staying quiet to avoid discovery by their pursuers or making as much noise as possible to scare away an apex predator.

The abject terror in Ava’s voice now gave Madi pause, especially when her sister curved an arm over her abdomen.

She touched her sister’s hand, trying to reassure her. “I don’t think it’s a mountain lion. It sounds more like a dog.”

She heard it again, that distant yelp, and unbuckled her seat belt. “I have to go check it out.”

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