I closed my eyes and hated myself for wishing I could go with him. I hated myself for missing him. I hated myself for the fact that there was even a choice, two things I wanted at the same time.
I looked at the fire and took a breath, unsure what would happen in the next few days or weeks. Whether I’d be alive. Whether I’d be dead. Whether I’d be free—
A knock sounded on the door.
No one ever knocked.
My neck actually ached because I turned my head so quickly. “Raven?”
“Shh.” Raven’s hushed voice was on the other side.
Oh. My. God.
I rushed to the door.
“Come on, don’t be a bastard right now…” She used some kind of tool to pick at the lock. A click sounded, and the lock came free. “Oh, thank god.” She opened it and looked at me, a bow slung over her back with a pack, two flashlights in her hands, her hair pulled back. She was ready to take on the wilds, to leave this camp and run to her freedom…or death.
“Oh my fucking god.” I couldn’t believe my sister had managed to accomplish all this, and while I was terrified in that moment, I was also proud. I was proud that she never gave up. Ever.
Raven kept her voice low even though she was inside the cabin with the door closed. “We’ve got to go. Got to get a head start before the storm hits.”
“I…” I looked around my cabin, feeling the hesitation like chains on my ankles. If I stayed there, I would be warm and comfortable. Fender would come back and take me with him. I wouldn’t be out there in the snow with nearly no chance to survive. And if we got caught, Raven would be killed, and I… I wasn’t sure what would happen to me. There were a million reasons to stay put. But my love for my sister was a stronger reason than all those other ones.
“I’m not sure if this will make you feel better or not, but I’m scared too.” She didn’t look scared, not when she was decked out for the wilderness, not when she broke in to my cabin just minutes after Fender left.
My eyes shifted back and forth as I looked into hers.
She pulled the flashlight out of her pocket and placed it in mine, along with a bottle of water and a plastic bag of nuts. “We can do this.”
“Did you get a horse?”
She shook her head. “It’s bolted.”
“How far can we get on foot?” I whispered even though no one was around.
“We just have to hide from them. They’ll eventually give up, and we can take our time.”
“Raven, we won’t survive long enough to take our time—”
“I’m going. Are you coming with me or not?”
I hesitated again.
“Don’t make me leave you here…but I will.” It wasn’t a bluff. If there was a chance of freedom, she would take it even if I wouldn’t. I watched her look at me like she assumed my answer would be no, like I wouldn’t be brave enough to do this.
I would never be brave. Not in my nature. But she made me brave. “Alright.” I put on my boots, pulled on my jacket, and then opened my drawers to stuff my pockets with the extra food I had, since Fender gave me everything I could possibly want. I had extra water, so I took that too. “Okay…let’s go.”
Raven wrapped her arms around me and hugged me for the first time since Paris, giving me that maternal warmth, giving me love that I didn’t deserve. She squeezed me tightly. “We’re gonna make it.”
I clutched her harder and felt my eyes water. All I could do was nod.
“Let’s go home.”
This was a mistake.
The snow slapped our faces in the wind. It was so dark we couldn’t see our noses. My lips instantly cracked because it was so cold and dry. We continued to move forward, but we had no idea where we were going. Raven pretended to know, but I knew it was a lie. She would fake it until she made it.
She’d always been that way.
The snow was different from the mounds that arrived in the camp after a storm. It was as tall as we were sometimes, and we had to push through it and hope we wouldn’t suffocate. Our flashlights were practically useless. Clouds covered the starlight because we were in the middle of a blizzard.
A fucking blizzard.
But Raven said it was our best chance because they wouldn’t be able to find our tracks.
They wouldn’t be able to find our bodies either.
“Raven, we have to go back—”
“We aren’t going to die.” She screamed into the wind so I could hear her. “And even if we do, we’d die if we went back anyway.”
“Not if they don’t know we’ve left—”