The cannibal men had bitten his cheeks, but the worst damage was done to his throat, leaving scarlet craters. Blood gurgled from his open wounds. Air whispered from his lips. His voice was gone, but she understood well enough. His lips moved and he mouthed the words “Kill me.”
Though only fourteen at the time and small for his age, he gripped her flesh hand with the strength of a man twice his size, holding on as if she were his last tether to this earth. Westie was in agony as he crushed her fingers together, but she refused to pull away.
Heavy tears fell from her eyes into his wounds. She’d thought about strangling him with her new powerful arm, but looking into his glittering eyes, she couldn’t bring herself to end his suffering. After losing her family to cannibals, Westie knew losing someone else—even a stranger—in the same violent way would be too much for her heart to bear. And so she begged him to live. She kissed his forehead and begged and begged.
Nigel came back covered in the blood of the cannibal men and looked like a creature out of her worst dreams. She turned her begging on him and asked him to save the boy’s life.
He slid from his saddle and crouched over the boy, examining the wounds.
“You have to save him,” Westie demanded, tears blurring her vision.
Nigel smoothed the boy’s hair and whispered. “Westie, I don’t know if—”
“No! You have to,” she cried, her voice echoing off the trees.
He let out a long sigh and nodded. “I’ll try.”
Alistair sat on the edge of death for weeks after infection ravaged his body, but Nigel managed to save him. Westie stayed with Alistair through his recovery, through his nightmares and sorrow. She never once left his side. Like a silly girl, she believed he lived for her, so he was hers and she was his.
“Don’t go,” Alistair said, interrupting her memories. “Creatures and bandits are all that travel the wagon trail now that the trains and airships have come back from the war.”
Westie closed her eyes, memorized how his touch felt against her skin before shaking him off.
“I have to.”
“I am going with her,” Bena said. “She will be safe.”
Alistair wouldn’t give up that easily. “Why are you going back there?”
It wasn’t the first time Westie had tried to get into that cabin to learn more about her family’s killers. Once, two years ago, she and Bena had ridden out to the cabin in search of clues. An old man had made the place his home and refused to let them in. This time Westie wouldn’t take no for an answer.
“Proof,” Westie said. “Solid evidence is the only way I’ll convince Nigel that the Fairfields are cannibals, and Nigel’s word is the only way the sheriff will believe it.”
“It’s been seven years since your family died in that cabin. What do you expect to find?”
“A photo, a piece of paper with their names—I’ll know it when I see it.” From what Westie had seen of the old man living in the cabin, he didn’t throw anything away.
“What about Emma? Nigel needs the Fairfields’ money to finish it.”
Westie glanced at Bena, who checked her paint’s hooves and acted like she wasn’t paying attention, though Westie knew better.
“I won’t say anything till they hand the money to Nigel. That’ll give me enough time to gather the evidence I need to build a case against the Fairfields, one as solid as a steel wall that neither Nigel nor the sheriff can deny.” She mounted Henry and pulled the reins to face Alistair. “We need to get on before Nigel wakes up.”
Alistair took a deep breath that made his mask hiss. “I’m going with you.”
It had been so long since they’d spent any length of time together that she wasn’t sure how to act around him. She tried to breathe around the lump in her throat.
“Suit yourself.” She clicked her tongue, urging Henry out of the barn.
Ten
They left as soon as Alistair’s bags were packed. The shock of him wanting to travel to the cabin with her had yet to wear off. She’d been making bad decisions all her life and he’d never been concerned before. She wondered what the real reason was for him wanting to go, and refused to let herself believe it was because he’d missed her.
Bena rode ahead, leaving Westie and Alistair alone. Westie started to think about the red huntress. She thought about James too, wondering what part he played in the family, and if he was one of them. Shaking her head, she rid herself of the thoughts before they consumed her.
She needed a distraction, a way to pull herself out of her head and away from the Fairfields and James for a time. She looked at Alistair. Despite the oppressive heat, he wore a bowler hat atop his thicket of dark tangles, a black wool duster buttoned up to his neck, black leather riding gloves, black trousers, and his mask. He looked like a henchman. Sweat spilled down the sides of his pale face into his mask.
“You’re looking a little green, Alley,” she said in a goading tone.