Page 9 of Red

“My grandmother’s been on an archaeological dig in a forest outside Ferry Vale for the last two years, on and off. She’s there now, with her grad students.” I struggled to keep my voice from rising, to keep my panic from making itself embarrassingly obvious. “I need to find her, first. I brought her…” I glanced around and realized my bag was still out there in the forest somewhere. In a hollowed out, mossy tree trunk. “I brought her some things, but I guess they’re collateral damage. Left them in the woods.”

“You were running,” Jack reasoned. “We’ll try to find them, but I’m sure she won’t mind.”

She would mind very much, but not that I hadn’t brought her snacks and tea—that I’d been chased through the forest by a cannibalistic maniac. And then I realized: “Oh god, what if she ran into him, too?”

He frowned. “We’ll try and find her. There’s been someone kicking around the hilltop just outside the forest; crows told me about them.”

I shivered and swore under my breath. Then shoved some more of the hot, good stew into my mouth to keep me from saying something bitchy. Like, right, sure, fucking crows. He was trying his hardest, and he’d saved my damn life; I could at least be grateful. A few more bites, and he started eating too. And then the silence grew longer but comfortable, just the crackling of the fire before us and the sound of our wooden cutlery.

Before I knew it, I finished my bowl. “Thank you,” I said. “That was delicious.”

He smiled and shot me another sideways look. He had a nice smile, very playful, very full-lipped. A small dimple in his left cheek appeared as the smile stretched a little wider, and I realized I was returning the expression.

“What?” I asked.

“It’s good to see you smile,” he said with unselfconscious earnestness. “I know you’re frustrated. The forest can be frustrating. But it’s beautiful, too.”

I snorted but was suddenly in no mood to argue. I shivered again, then said, “If you say so, I believe you. Can I help you clean up?”

He blinked his long, dark eyelashes slowly. Then shook his head. “No. Get warm. You need your rest.”

He took the bowls and spoons and disappeared again, and I burrowed as deep into the blanket as I could. But instead of drifting off to sleep, I shivered periodically and wondered how the fuck I was supposed to go anywhere with my ribs on fire and the rest of my body acting like I was a suffering Victorian orphan child. I felt weak. Weaker than I ever had in my life, which was saying something.

The day before this cabin began to arrange itself in my mind, the blanks in time and space filling in little by little. I still didn’t understand what had happened, but I understood how fucking stupid I’d been. I should’ve known. I shouldn’t have gone anywhere with a strange man who smiled like that.

Eventually Jack returned with a handful of white flowers. As he passed by the couch, the smell of them triggered the memory of Wulfric’s strange cigarette, the sickly sweet smoke smell. I pushed myself up, wincing at the pain, and said, “What’s that?”

“Some herbs and flowers for the fire. They help you sleep.” He held them out to me for inspection.

I shook my head. “No.”

He frowned. “They won’t hurt—”

“That smell. He used it to knock me out. No.”

Jack nodded and set the handful of herbs on the mantel. “Right. Sorry. But you need sleep for your ribs to heal. You’ve got some mean bruising. Don’t think anything’s broken, but it’s not pretty.”

I shivered and grimaced.

He frowned. “Still cold?”

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Maybe it’s shock,” I murmured, burrowing back down into the couch.

“I was going to offer you the bed,” he said. “But the fire in my room is smaller. Warmer out here.”

“No,” I said, too quickly. And then, feeling guilty, because it had actually been a very good suggestion—if not for the fact that the last person who touched me had tried to eat me. “No, thank you. The couch is fine.”

He nodded, frowning so his dark eyebrows knitted together. “Will you be all right out here?”

I doubted that very much, but said, “Yes.”

“There’s an outhouse just out the kitchen door, if you need it.”

I nodded. I’d hold it, if the need arose. I would not be going out into the forest in the dark, thanks very much.

“Come find me if you want me to go with you,” he said as if he’d read my mind.

I sighed with relief.