CHAPTER FIFTEEN
"I'm not hiding anything." My throat was dry with terror. If he searched me, he'd not only find the pocketknife; he'd discover Calvin's map too. If they had the map, they wouldn't need me. They'd kill me.
"Damn weather!" Shaun cursed loudly, his voice carrying through the patrol cabin's open front door. "It's snowing again. Get out here, Ace, and help me dump the body!"
More snow? I looked to the window to confirm it. Large, wet flakes flurried down. How was I going to escape if the weather worsened?
"I can't believe you're going to dump his body in the woods,” I told Mason. I said it in hopes of pricking his conscience, but also to shift his focus away from searching me. "Think of his family. He deserves better. What Shaun did was awful."
If Mason planned on defending himself, he didn't get his chance. A gale of bitterly cold wind rushed into the cabin, slamming the front door back against the wall, jarring us out of the conversation.
With one final torn look between me and the snowflakes flying through the doorway, Mason made his choice. He marched outside, banging the door closed behind him.
I went to the window. Shaun pointed at the game warden's body, then at the snowdrifts at the edge of the trees. They were going to shovel snow on the body and hope no one stumbled across it until they were out of the mountains.
I closed my eyes, calming the dizziness creeping in from the corners of my brain. I had the knife and the map. I would run. Tonight, while they slept. If I stayed with them to the highway, Shaun would kill me. I knew it as surely as I knew that snow was cold and fire was hot.
I would have one chance. If they caught me trying to escape, Shaun would either kill me on the spot, or let me live just long enough to wish he had.
I sat on the sofa, rocking back and forth, partly to keep warm and partly to steady my nerves. As cold and unfeeling as it was to do so, I had to push the game warden's death from my mind and rationally plan my next move. He was dead, I was alive. There was hope for me, but I could do nothing to change his fate.
I thought these words, but the image of his body pitching forward eclipsed everything. For the first time, I looked down through my splayed hands at my jeans. They were splattered with his blood. A dreamlike sensation floated inside me. It was like standing in the ocean's tide as it pushed and pulled; that strange, tipsy realization of being powerless against a much stronger force.
The cabin door slammed. Mason and Shaun peeled off their wet coats, hanging them to dry on the backs of the kitchen chairs. The fingers of their gloves bore sleeves of ice from digging in the snow.
"What are you looking at?" Shaun sneered at me on his way to the fireplace. He shoved a log into the flames, sending angry sparks flying from the grate. "Maybe the snow isn't such a bad thing,” he said to Mason. "It will cover our tracks. It'll clog the main roads again, and it'll take time for them to plow. If we can't travel, they can't either. It buys us time. For now, we hang out here and wait for the snow to stop."
In the evening, Mason heated three cans of corn on the stove. He and Shaun ate at the kitchen table and I sat by the fire, soaking up heat before I braved the forest alone tonight. I ate the food but hardly tasted it. I chewed slower and slower. I tried to shut out their voices in the background and lose myself in another memory of Calvin, a new one, one I hadn't already played over and over in my mind to keep from going crazy here in this awful place.
Calvin had hurt me, and I hadn't forgotten that he'd kissed Rachel behind my back, but during the trauma of the past twenty-four hours, I'd curiously forgiven him. I couldn't focus on the negative right now. I had to stay positive and hopeful, even if that meant clinging to the good memories and blocking everything else. I needed a beacon to fix my sights steadfastly on. Right now, that beacon was Calvin. He was all I had.
When Mason came to collect my bowl, I saw a shadow of sympathy in his eyes. I looked away, purposefully rejecting his compassion. I would not ease his conscience. I would not let him think any of this was okay. It made me feel better to treat him with frigid hostility. I wanted to hurt him more than I wanted to hurt Shaun. Despite his protests, he was the better of the two, and that made me expect more from him.
Icy snow pelted the ranger patrol cabin throughout the evening. Even though the fire had warmed the three small rooms, I stayed bundled in my coat, boots, gloves, and scarf. It would save time later, when I would have to run at a moment's notice. I also had the knife stowed in my pocket. I hoped I'd know when it was the right time to use it.
I figured that when Mason and Shaun discovered I had escaped, they would expect me to head straight for Korbie, which ruled out going back for her. It wasn't an easy decision to come to, but if I wanted to keep us alive, I had to go for outside help. I wished there were some way to let Korbie know I was coming, that she just had to be patient. I could only imagine how isolated and terrified she must feel.
In the bathroom, I studied the map. I wouldn't have a compass tonight, not unless Shaun or Mason left one of theirs out in the open where I could easily grab it, but Calvin had detailed the map with enough landmarks that I could connect the dots to the ranger station, roughly six miles away. I could do this. I had to do this.
I rehearsed my plans, standing quietly by the window. It was only a surface calm. Deep down, I grew more and more frightened. How long could I last in the freezing woods without water, food, and shelter?
Shaun yawned loudly and closed himself in the bedroom, leaving me alone in the living room with Mason.
"I found a pair of wool socks in the bedroom,” Mason told me, extending a pair of black Wigwam ski socks. "You might want to swap out the ones you're wearing so your feet stay dry."
"You found them-you take them,” I said, snubbing him. "I thought I'd offer them to you."
"Why would you do that?"
"Because I know how uncomfortable wet feet are."
"I don't want the socks." But my feet were damp and cold, and I would have given almost anything for fresh socks-almost. Just not myself-respect, in accepting a gift from the man who held me captive.
"Have it your way,” he said with a shrug.
"If I had my way, I wouldn't be here with you."
"Take the sofa tonight,” Mason offered, ignoring my biting tone. He threw his blanket in the rocking chair, claiming it, and peeled off his fleece jacket, leaving on his fitted gray thermal shirt. Next he took off his belt, presumably so it wouldn't grind into his h*ps while he slept. It was a harmless action, but some how his undressing made the air in the room feel thicker.