“But you shouldn’t be. I ask a lot of you. More than I should.”
“Shhh.” I held her tighter. “You need to rest.”
Rose didn’t answer. She leaned her head against my chest and gazed up at me. She reached to stroke my cheek the way she always did when my head was hurting, and for some reason, that made me feel terrible, like a terrible person. Well, I suppose the reason I felt terrible was because I’d lied and cheated on her. Because I was still lying. But I couldn’t understand why she was asking me these questions in the first place. It wasn’t like I was going to confess to anything then.
“Is this about Archie?” I whispered.
“In a way,” she admitted. “But not like how you’re thinking.”
“Then how?”
“He’s the one who told me about you and Avery. How you two went off into the woods today. Alone.”
I tensed. “Come on, Rose. You know he’s full of shit. He’s a total dick.”
“But I already told you. I’m fine with it.”
I didn’t want her to be fine with it. “Can we stop talking about this? Please?”
“Archie says you two hung out over the summer. Maybe that’s when this all started. While I was in Peru.”
“We did not hang out! We talked once. About my car. Hardly enough to make her like me.”
Rose shrugged. “I liked you before we even talked.”
“That’s your problem!”
“You’re right,” she said. “It is.”
I rubbed my temples, pushing in small circles at the pressure points. “I spent my whole summer alone, Rose. I swear. While you were gone, I didn’t go out or see anybody. I didn’t do anything fun. Not once.”
“Why not?” she asked.
“Because you weren’t there!”
“So your happiness depends on me? On my telling you to do the things you enjoy?”
“What I enjoy is being with you.”
“The way you enjoy being with your mother so much it makes you physically ill?”
My mouth went dry. “What?”
“You spend more time with her than you do me, that’s for sure.”
“I don’t have a choice. And are you talking about my migraines? Those aren’t her fault.”
“But stress makes them worse. Your doctor told you that. And I know he thinks you’re depressed. You don’t deserve to feel bad all the time like you do, Ben. I promise. It’s the being depressed that makes you believe that.”
“He just wants me to take more drugs. They all do. And I got a migraine today. What was I stressed about then?”
“You tell me.”
I took a deep breath. Forced myself to calm down. Rose was hurt and sad and scared. Like a wounded dog biting its owner’s hand, she didn’t mean what she was saying. So I kissed her forehead. Then her hair. And I told her I loved her.
Rose melted at my touch.
“Ben,” she said softly. “Your mother. What she does to you. It’s not right. And what she said you did to your stepfather, that’s—”
“Don’t.” I was starting to tremble. I felt like I might get sick. “Don’t do this now. We’ll talk later.”
She nodded, her eyes heavy with pain. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I don’t want to upset you. Let’s sleep. Okay? We both need sleep.”
—
I woke to a hint of daybreak. The air was wet and drippy. More fog had settled, but the sun was just barely rising, pushing back gloom and setting the world aglow with a pinkish char. Beside me, Rose breathed deeply, her eyes shut tight. After checking her wound, I slipped from beneath her and got to my feet. I walked around the fire, poking the flames with a stick as I eyeballed the remaining wood. It would last the morning but not much longer. That was enough, though. Soon we’d be gone. Off this mountain.
For good.
Beyond our clearing, the world was still and silent. Deathly so. I spied Archie sitting beneath a tree not far from the tent, with a blanket slung across his knees. He was snoring loudly. The Preacher’s rifle still lay in his lap, and I fought the urge to swipe it from him. My teeth chattered. It felt as if the temperature had dropped twenty degrees during the time that I’d been sleeping, and more than anything, I needed more clothes. So I shoved my hands into my pockets and marched out toward the spot where we’d dragged the bodies of the Preacher and the dead woman.
It wasn’t hard to find. I followed the trail of flattened leaves and mud. What had seemed like an endless slog during the night turned out to only be a short walk through the trees and down a fern-lined gully. I stopped once to piss against a tree and lamented the sight of heat leaving my body, in any form. When I was done, I jogged the rest of the way despite aching muscles and the nagging bite of queasiness.
We’d rolled the Preacher into the gully first. Meaning he lay beneath the woman and only the bottom half of him was visible. Cupping my hand over my mouth and avoiding looking directly at either of their faces, I crouched and strained to pull her off him. Her limbs had gone stiff and cold, and I tried not to get blood or whatever else there was on my hands.
Dropping her unkindly into the leaves, I went for what I’d come for, wriggling the Preacher’s jacket off his body. The coat was leather and lined and it felt good to slide it on—a pleasing heft. I flirted with grave-robbing guilt as I pried off his shoes to take his socks, but the payoff wasn’t worth it. Anything I did to the Preacher now wouldn’t hurt him. Plus, I figured he kind of owed me.
Sidestepping away from the bodies and not bothering to slide the shoes back on his bony feet, I rummaged through the jacket’s pockets and found a few items of interest: a roll of cash—there had to be at least a thousand dollars, just rolled up and loose in there—a receipt from a Denny’s down in Santa Cruz, and a scrap of paper with the letters EUR AMTK followed by a bunch of numbers written on it and the words For Jules scrawled at the bottom. I had no idea what that meant, but maybe it had to do with euros. After all, the stolen bank money would have to eventually be laundered overseas, as far as I knew about things like that—which was really nothing but phrases and concepts I’d picked up from television and heist thrillers. “Overseas” was about as tangible a place in my world as Jurassic Park.