Page 76 of The Unlikely Pair
“Good thinking, Robin,” I say.
“I think you’re confused about who is the sidekick in this scenario,” he mutters as he scrambles down the tree.
I exit the tree after him, and Harry has already opened the survival kit and grabbed the multitool and paracord.
Fire at night is something we’ve avoided until now, but if it comes down to a choice between Kade and his friends or wolves, I’m picking the terrorists.
At least they’re human.
The wolves seemed like beings from another world. The unnaturally silent paws. Those green, unflinching eyes. Demon wolves.
I shiver again.
“Don’t worry, we’ll get the fire going soon,” Harry says, misinterpreting my shiver.
Harry and I know how to make fire now, so I hold the torch steady with one hand while helping him slowly add pine needles to the flame.
Within a few minutes, the fire is crackling away.
Harry moves to retrieve the sharpened sticks he used to cook the fish, handing one to me wordlessly, then coming to sit with me on a log by the fire, his shoulder pressing into mine.
“Wolves will be naturally afraid of fire, I’m sure,” he says.
Despite my agreement that Harry is probably correct about wolf behavior, I’m aware there’s no way sleep is happening anytime soon. Instead, I focus on building the fire up.
Even though it’s warm with the fire going, Harry doesn’t leave my side. We continue to sit shoulder to shoulder, Harry’s pressing into me like he’s drawing strength from our connection.
I feel the same way. I need the comfort of touching a person right now.
Even if it is Harry.
Chapter Twenty
Harry
The light of the fire makes everything seem more bearable.
As the fire grows, Toby’s breathing evens out. He’s sitting so close to me that I can feel the subtle changes in his breathing as he begins to relax.
“I’ll sharpen some more sticks for us in case they come back,” I say.
Toby’s breathing stutters, but then he rallies. “Good idea.”
I collect some sticks and whittle away the top to sharpen them. Toby watches me shave off curls of wood with the penknife.
“So, this bushcraft thing you’ve got going on, you learned all of it at boarding school?”
I don’t pause in my whittling. “Yes.”
“What boarding school did you go to?”
I keep my voice steady as I answer. “I went to a place called Dentworth.”
Toby’s forehead furrows. “Dentworth? Isn’t that one of the schools where there was an inquiry into the running of it?”
My mouth is suddenly dry. “Yes. There was an inquiry. It was spearheaded by my father, actually.”
The memory is back in my head. The one time I’d ever seen my father shaken was when he’d read the report that summarized the interviews from my classmates.
