Total pages in book: 123
Estimated words: 119597 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 598(@200wpm)___ 478(@250wpm)___ 399(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 119597 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 598(@200wpm)___ 478(@250wpm)___ 399(@300wpm)
She must’ve collected every empty can in Hoss. Since Denver didn’t make our last supply run, we have months of recycling piled up. Months of soup cans sitting amongst our garbage. It must’ve taken her days to sift through all of it.
I’m fucking impressed.
“You’ve been busy.” My stomach lifts, feeling a little less hollow.
“You’re working so hard on the power problem, and when Kody isn’t chopping wood and rebuilding his strength with the crossbow, he’s out there trying to solve Denver’s riddle. So I thought…” She shrugs. “I could at least fix one problem. I mean, it’s not a life-or-death problem, but you can’t work in the dark and—”
“Come here.”
She walks straight into my arms, and just like that, I’m home. Settled. Whole. Maybe not complete—without my little brother, there will always be a missing component—but complete enough in this new life we’re fighting for. Together. No matter where we land or how painful the journey, as long as I’m with her and Kody, I’m where I’m meant to be.
“You did good.” I curl a finger beneath her chin and lift her stunning, rosy-cheeked face. “Thank you.”
“Wish I could do more.” She blinks rapidly—her attempt to stifle tears. “I feel useless so much of the time, like dead weight. Too weak to do heavy labor. Too limited in my skills to hunt or hot-wire a plane. I’ve been tearing the cabin apart, searching for the key to the plane, but I don’t have the strength to remove the flooring and—”
“Stop right there.” My touch becomes a firm grip on her jaw. “Where would we be if you hadn’t fixed Kody’s hand? Or his leg? We sure as fuck don’t know how to administer a blood transfusion. Without you, he would’ve died that night. We have a long winter ahead of us. We’re bound to get more injuries.”
“I hope the hell not.”
“Well, I’m feeling a lot better about it, knowing we have our own personal trauma nurse. It’s an invaluable skill in a place like this. Fixing people is critically more important than fixing snow machines.” I raise my voice. “Am I right, Kody?”
“Spot on.” He lumbers past us, hauling buckets of water from the hearth to the bathroom. “Let’s go, ladies.”
“Tell me you understand.” I put my face in hers, tempted to kiss that pout off her lips.
“Yeah. I hear you. Thank you for always being so…blunt.”
“Water’s ready.” I give her a nudge toward the bathroom, one she doesn’t need.
Nightly baths are her thing. If left to our own devices, Kody and I wouldn’t bother with it. Too impractical in these conditions.
But after sleeping between us and complaining about armpits, she made bath time a rule.
For the record, we don’t like rules. However, Kody and I are learning to make exceptions for her.
In the bathroom, he’s already stripped down to his boxers, standing in the empty bathtub, illuminated by candlelight.
Buckets of fire-heated water line the edge. Clean laundry hangs around the perimeter. We wash what we can in the tub. Another miserable chore we could’ve avoided if only I’d built that steel door quicker. If I’d finished it even one day sooner, I could’ve caged Denver before he tampered with the power.
I have a lot of fucking regrets.
Kody removes his boxers while Frankie and I hastily shed our clothes. Nothing sexy about it. The subzero temperatures attack exposed skin like scathing needles.
I lift her into the tub and follow her in. Out of habit or maybe instinct, the three of us lower to our knees and crowd together, seeking body heat. Then Kody starts pouring.
The water is barely warm by the time it hits our bodies. We pass the soap, each of us focusing on our own hygiene, clinically scrubbing and rinsing, hurrying it along, wishing it was over.
It’s a humbling exercise. Makes me vulnerable in ways I’ve never been vulnerable. I can’t remember the last time I was this scrawny. Maybe when I was a boy? Maybe not even then.
Frankie and Kody aren’t faring any better. I can see every sharp bone in their thin frames, every hollow dip where flesh used to be. They both wear the unsolved riddle scribbled on their arms in the black ink of Wolf’s last sharpie.
I turn away, but her hand lands on my shoulder, guiding me to face her, wordlessly asking me to let her look.
Denying her feels wrong. So I hold still while she inspects every inch of my deteriorating physique. She does this every night, probing and prodding, feeling my abdomen, checking my breathing, looking for bruising, abnormal swelling, or…I don’t know. What is she afraid she’ll find?
As much as I hate this, I also treasure it. These uncomfortably intimate moments peel away our shields, divest us of our egos, and bare us to one another on a level most people never experience. We’ve been reduced to half-starved, physically weak, brutally exposed, feral creatures in survival mode. Impossible to hide from one another when we’re like this.