Page 130 of Bones
He told me he loved the chill of autumn nights, sitting beside a campfire watching the embers burn, the smell of apples and peppermint and lavender, the feel of galloping on a horse with the wind in his hair, and the adrenaline of sparring with an evenly matched partner. Then he paused, and I glanced back to see him staring ahead with a furrowed brow.
“Damn. I can’t think of any more.”
“Pity,” I said dryly.
He laughed. "Oh, I'll think of another eventually."
“I don’t doubt it.”
“I know you’ll be on the edge of your seat til then.”
“Don’t know how I’ll sleep at night.”
I stole another glance back to see he wore that sunshine smile, and I realized how much I liked being the one to put it on his face.
* * *
It took several hours to reach the ridge we'd been walking up to. The mountain grade got even steeper, the snow powdery one moment and frozen solid the next. I moved slow, breathing hard and trying not to wince at the pain in my back with each step. Trey stayed behind me just in case I fell again. In the last bit, we had to take off the snowshoes to climb over huge rocky boulders. As I slid down from the last one and stepped out onto the top, my body trembled with exhaustion. We both sat, catching our breath and gazed out at the valley below. The snowy viewwasbeautiful. We could see for miles up here, and it wasalmostworth the way my back ached and my legs burned. I couldn’t help turning to look back the way we’d come. Mountains and trees had swallowed the Vault. I couldn’t even see the watchtower. Several plumes of smoke coming from behind the mountains were the only hint it existed.
“See that smoke over there?” Trey pointed to our left as I turned back around.
I followed his finger to see the faint wisps of smoke curling up from behind a thick grove of trees.
“That’s a trading post. There’s a family who lives there and runs it. It’s not huge, just one building that has a store and lodging up above. It’d be a good place to spend the night.”
“Tonight?” I asked, looking at the long, long way down the mountainside.
“No, that’s too far to make before nightfall. I assumed we’d camp tonight.”
"I was hoping Madame would think I went South." Anxiety slid through me that my barely thought-out plan was too simple. "Since it'd be easier traveling. That's why I'm going North."
“That’s smart.” Trey grinned. “I think you’re right.”
My cheeks warmed under his praise.
"Well if you want to keep going north, I know there's a big settlement that way. We'd need to find some sort of transportation though ’cause it'll get deadly cold and it takes a couple of weeks to get there on wheels. Probably longer on horseback. Otherwise, if we go Northwest there's a smaller settlement. There's less snow and cold that way, but more mountains to cross. It's a shorter distance but might take the same amount of time due to the mountain passes."
My gratitude for him surged as I realized exactly how unprepared I’d been. I hadn’t even tried to steal a map. I’d approached this escape the same way I’d approached my escape from Juck, focusing only on the first step, getting out. If Trey hadn’t been here, I probably would’ve gotten myself lost in the snowy wilderness.
“I’d vote northwest,” I said. “Maybe we could get some horses.”
“That’s my vote too. How’s your back feeling?”
I fought back the instinctual urge to dismiss the pain. “It hurts,” I admitted.
His eyebrows rose, the only indication that my honesty surprised him. “Going downhill will be easier. Maybe we go until noon and then make camp?”
I squinted up at the sky. The sun was still a few hours from noon, but I could do that. “Ok.”
* * *
Trey was so wrong.
Going downhill on snowshoes wasworsethan going up. I slipped and slid more times than I could count, stopping only when I crashed into something, usually Trey. My wrists rubbed raw from frozen bits of snow under my coat sleeves, and my socks soaked up the melted snow in my boots. The cold seeped through my skin and into my very bones, and my back ached in a way that made me nauseous. Trey fared better, but I knocked him over a few times when I crashed into him. The only bright side was with all the sliding, we got farther than expected by noon.
“You see those big boulders?” Trey pointed up ahead to where I could see large rocks between the trees. “Probably a good place to find some shelter.”
We made our way there. The deep snow would have been up to my waist if I didn’t have the snowshoes. Four or five giant boulders were nestled in the snow, standing at least three times Trey’s height. I followed him, watching as he inspected each one. He picked one that sat at an angle, creating a clear area at its base.
