“Rose, he’s right. He’s been good to you.” She turned back to me and beckoned for me to come inside. “You should still feed her. She loves her oats, so she’ll love you.”
I had no interest in feeding a horse or walking into the stable where her shit was in the corners, but I couldn’t resist the woman who made the request. I opened the door and joined her.
Raven held out the bucket. “Get a handful and flatten your fingers.”
Rose released a quiet snort, like she was telling me to hurry up because she was hungry.
I grabbed the oats then opened my hand wide to feed her.
Her teeth dragged across my palm, and her lips slobbered all over my skin. She ate them quickly and lifted her head to look at me, like she was ready for the next handful.
“Rose, you’ve had enough. I’ve already fed you too much as it is.” Raven rubbed her hand down the horse’s backside.
Like Rose could understand, she released a neigh.
Raven said goodbye before she walked out of the stall with me and put the oats away. We both washed our hands before we left and headed to the house together.
At my side, she walked down the pathway in her barn boots, looking cute in her jeans and plaid shirt. “How’d it go?” Her voice didn’t carry her infectious happiness anymore. She was somber, like she already knew what my answer would be.
“I need more time.” I kept my eyes on the lit pathway before us as we made our way back to the house. The conversation was painful for a lot of reasons, but Fender’s resistance was the most painful of all. “I didn’t expect to be successful on my first attempt anyway, but it was still shitty.”
She didn’t try to give me advice or rush me into a resolution. There was no reason to, when she had faith that I would fulfill the task I said I would complete. “Maybe I can talk to Melanie. Maybe I can get her to convince him.”
I shook my head. “Unlikely.”
“He wants to marry her, so he obviously values her opinion.”
“I think Fender has a low opinion of himself, but there’s no incentive to be good. He can’t be redeemed, so what’s the point?”
“It doesn’t matter if he’s redeemed or not. He should still do the right thing…even if he goes to hell anyway.”
I slid my hands into my pockets and looked at the lit-up house. There were lights in the distance around us, but we felt isolated from the world. “He said he wouldn’t stop. Then he asked if I would kill him if he didn’t…”
Raven was quiet for a long time, the pause in her speech profound. “Would you?”
I wanted to do the right thing and amend all the wrongs, but my brother’s blood on my hands would haunt me forever. “No. I would be no different from our father if I did. And I think telling him that…is what’s going to bring him back to the right side.”
“Are you sure about this?” I stood outside in the driveway in front of the pond. My car was there, my bag of essentials in the trunk.
She was in her gray work pants and black tank top, her hair pulled back and her makeup gone. There was less joy in her gaze because she knew she had to return to a life of misery for a month before she could come back here. “Yes.”
“Because I would understand if you didn’t want to come with me.” I wanted her beside me every night, but what I wanted more than anything was for her to be happy. “It’s a long time to be apart, but I know you’ll be waiting for me.” I knew she would be committed and faithful during those long stretches of time, and we would make up for what we lost every time we were reunited.
The resolution in her eyes didn’t change. She was as determined as before, just a little morose. “I don’t want to be at that camp. But I want to be with you, wherever that is.”
The camp was as I remembered. It was a timeless place, where nothing ever changed except the seasons. The only way we knew how long we’d really been working there was by the subtle changes in our appearance as we aged. The girls only knew how much time passed by the weekly Red Snows. When a girl was executed, that marked the passage of time.
When we entered the clearing, Raven immediately got to work and took up her post. She never told me how the girls felt about her having a relationship with me, leaving the camp monthly, and returning after two weeks. If she had friends, she didn’t tell me. We deliberately kept the girls apart from each other so they wouldn’t be able to organize a coup.