Page 87 of My Revenant
The pillow we were sharing shifted as he turned to look at me, and I pulled back to look at him better. I expected to see… something, some emotion he was choking back. Instead, I just saw a crushing amount of nothing. Whatever panic and fear he’d felt earlier was now absent, like just thinking about who this person was had scooped the emotions out of him. No, that wasn’t it. They were still there, shielded behind a wall to keep him safe from them.
He searched my eyes for something, and I didn’t know what it was, but he must have found it because after a long moment he spoke again. “I’ll take you to him.”
That wasn’t the response I was expecting.
“When?”
“Now,” he said, surprising me again, but I didn’t have time to question it, because Dex was already pulling away from me and rolling out of bed. I scrambled to follow him.
I didn’t know what was going on, but as he pulled the drawers of his dresser open, yanking out the first items of clothing he found, I rushed to get dressed as well.
Once we were clothed, I was running to catch up to him as he charged down the stairs and out the front door without a backward glance. Wherever he wanted to take me was his only mission, and it was urgent enough to him that he didn’t even spare the time to lock the door.
When he reached his bike, he took the helmet and thrust it wordlessly in my direction.
“You wear it,” I said, not taking it.
“Just put it on,” he sighed.
“No, you put it on.”
This time, instead of speaking, he stepped in closer and shoved it into my chest with enough force that I grunted. I pushed it back at him. “You wear it, Dex.”
I was expecting him to fight me more on it, but he just snatched the helmet and flung it to the side where it crashed into a pile of junk. Neither of us was wearing it then.
“Wh—”
“If you won’t take it, then we’ll both risk dying from grievous yet preventable head wounds.”
“If you’re dying, then I’m dying. You don’t get to leave me,” I told him, my words teasing softly, trying to coax out his regular self. Because he was being too serious, and I didn’t know where he was taking me, and I didn’t want to ask because I wasn’t sure I’d like the answer.
The ghost of a smile pulled at his lips, his eyes softening just slightly as he swung his leg over the bike. “You saying I’m your ‘ride or die,’ Rabbit?”
There it was. My lips pulled into a slight smile as I stepped forward, resting my hand on his shoulder as I pulled my leg over the back of the bike and settled into him.
Delilah’s engine roared to life, and a few minutes later we were tearing down the highway.
By the time we arrived at what was apparently our destination, we were a long way out of Port Skelton. I couldn’t ask Dex questions while we were riding; the wind was far too loud to compete with. My face stung from the cold of it, my hair no doubt a tangled mess just like his.
He stared at the forest as if he were mentally preparing himself to enter it. Like it was a danger to him. Given that we were allegedly here so he could take me to the person who’d hurt him, I was starting to feel the same.
“Why are we here, baby?” I asked cautiously.
The wind rustled through the trees in the early-morning light. This place felt foreign. Undisturbed. Unwelcoming. Foreboding. Like something big and heavy waited here to be discovered, and yet something inside me was reaching out to meet it. Some unspoken knowledge seeped into me that I should have been afraid of, but I wasn’t, because I was with him. Whatever secrets and terrible things undoubtedly waited for us, I didn’t fear him. I didn’t fear what I’d learn beyond the veil of the trees. Not if he was the one to lead me there.
“This way.” He spoke softly, like he didn’t want to disturb this place any more than we already had. Then he was following a path I couldn’t see, and I was right there behind him.
My leg ached from the uneven terrain, but I kept up with him, leaves and twigs crunching underfoot as he led me through the dense foliage.
The forest opened up again into a clearing, shielded by a wall of trees. There was a slight ditch in the center where maybe a river had once carved out a path through it, but all that remained in it now was dirt and leaves and the burned-out shell of a car.
Dex stared at it for a moment before continuing onward.
“Here,” he said, staring at the ground.
I followed his gaze, but all I saw was dirt and the remnants of cigarettes. Some that looked recent.
“What’s here?” I asked him, but I already knew.
