Chapter 14

Chapter 14

I 'm pretty much only focused on Grey until afternoon, though that doesn't keep me from asking myself a few basic questions. What supplies will I need in order to escape into the wilderness, and how do I collect them without Brendan noticing? I wish I could sit down and make a list, but I'm afraid Brendan would find it. Maybe I could put it in my closet, tuck it in among the newspaper articles. Brendan's never looked in there. Why would he? On the other hand, do I know for sure that he doesn't check up on me? He may have rummaged through there while I was in the bathroom or something. Then I have another idea: I could carry the list around with me, since he's promised not to touch me.

I peek outside through the open side door. Brendan's not far from the camper, gathering tinder for the fire. He prefers dry birch bark when he can find it, but there's nothing in this area but spruce, pine, and a couple of larches. I doubt he's about to go down to the lakeshore and leave me here by myself for that long.

I look down at Grey, who just finished some milk and is slumbering peacefully in the "baby sling" Brendan fashioned from an old sheet. Moving as cautiously as I can, I open one of the kitchen drawers. Plastic forks, knives, and spoons that Brendan washes and reuses, plus a couple of dull butter knives and a can opener that's not particularly sharp. No pens, no pencils. I'm pretty sure I've already gone through every drawer in here and haven't found anything usable, but this is also the first time I've gone looking for a pen. I open the next drawer: sandwich baggies, trash bags, spices, kitchen rags. I hesitate. Brendan probably doesn't count the sandwich bags, and I'm going to have to keep my escape supplies somewhere. But where do I put the bag? Under the mattress? But what if Grey pees on it again and Brendan wants to re-make it?

I pull out a baggie, close the drawer, and stuff the baggie into the wardrobe underneath the newspaper articles. My fingers brush the dry paper. I'll need to make the list somewhere. As if on autopilot, I slide the bottom article out from the pile. I folded it so that the article itself is on the inside. Carefully, very carefully, I tear a small strip off the edge. It'll have to do. I can only take a few essentials with me, just what I'll need to survive in the wilderness. And what I absolutely cannot do is think about all the things that could go wrong. I don't have any idea where I am. I'm not even sure how many miles it is back to the main road Brendan turned off from. Plus, I've never been alone in the forest. If I get lost, I'll probably freeze to death or die of thirst or... No, if I start seriously thinking about potential what-ifs, I'll lose my nerve.

I fold the scrap of paper and stick it into my jeans pocket. Then I stand at the wardrobe uncertainly, still holding the rest of the article. I don't know why, but something forces me to unfold the page. Ethan stares back at me. STILL MISSING , it reads underneath in giant letters, and beneath that, Louisa's brother holding out hope.

I don't bother with the article itself—I just stare at Ethan's face. His heartbreakingly thin face, his sunken cheeks, the dark rings under his reddened eyes. He's lost at least twenty pounds. His skin looks as thin as vellum that might tear the next time he moves. And he looks like he'll never be able to laugh again, never crack another smile.

Tears blur my vision, and I'm almost glad of it. Ethan looks so haggard—almost like worrying about me is literally eating him up inside. Like it's too much for him to handle. Like life is too much for him.

That's when, for the first time ever, I really and truly understand how much he's already been through in life. First he lost Mom, then Dad. No wonder he was always so strict and hardly let me do anything: losing both of them made him vulnerable. He was terrified of losing someone else he loved. And then, out of nowhere, that nightmare became a reality. And from what I know of Ethan, he'll even blame himself. He insisted that I come camping with them. It's probably tearing him apart, thinking about how nothing would have happened to me if he'd just let me go to modeling camp with Ava and Madison instead. But he doesn't know how obsessed Brendan is with me. Brendan would have gotten me anywhere.

I tenderly run my hand over his printed face. All the horrible things I said to him about Mom and Dad seem a thousand times worse to me now. God, I must have hurt him so much.

"I'm coming back to you," I whisper hoarsely, blinking the tears away. "You're not going to lose me. I promise. I'll find a way back to you."

I fold the newspaper clipping without reading it and stick it back underneath the folded stack of pants. Then I stand on the bed, still cradling Grey in the sling, and forage through the overhead cabinet where Brendan put the "girl stuff." I'm pretty sure I saw tampons and pads and even makeup in there, the one time that I went through that cabinet. I've never used any of it, though—I didn't get my period this month, probably thanks to the stress, and makeup was pretty much the last thing on my mind. But now I rummage through the toiletries: pink and yellow nail polish, extra bottles of orange-blossom shower gel, blonde shampoo. Finally, I find some sky-blue eyeliner, brand-new, nice and sharp. I stick it in my pants pocket along with the bit of paper, and then carry Grey down from the bed with me.

I take a quick peek through the window. Brendan's still traipsing along the tree line with a bucket. I pull out the eyeliner and the thin paper strip again, and use the wall as a writing surface—carefully, so I won't smush Grey between my body and the wall. I write down everything that comes to mind:

Lighter

Birch bark

Water – bottle?

Food – cookies?

Warm clothes

Rain protection

Hiking boots/wear

Scissors/knife

Rope

I pause. There's no way I'll be able to hide all of that from Brendan. I'll have to have the warm clothes and the boots on already. I won't be able to carry a bunch of water bottles, either, so I should probably bring one empty bottle and refill it from the creek... or put creek water in a sandwich baggie, like we do with Grey. That would be the best. But is that water drinkable? I need to find out. And how do I know I'll keep finding water along the way? The rough forest road runs in a different direction than the water—but then again, I can't keep going parallel to the road anyway, because that's the direction Brendan will expect I've gone. He'll probably be driving up and down that road looking for me. So wouldn't following the water make more sense? It has to lead somewhere, and then I'm not just wandering aimlessly. That's probably the best plan.

I peek outside again. I don't see Brendan anymore—and I hear him walking directly beside the camper. Hastily, I tuck the eyeliner and the paper away.

"Hey, Lou," Brendan calls inside. "What do you want to eat tonight?"

I don't care , I'm about to say, but catch myself in time. "Spaghetti with tomatoes and pine nuts," I call out loudly. My heart's pounding in my throat. Please, God, let him not have seen me! How would he have, though?

" Excuse me?" My response seems to have surprised Brendan so much that now he's coming up the stairs into the RV. I hope I wasn't laying it on too thick. "Did I miss something?" He's in the hallway, peering back at me? Fine droplets of sweat gleam on his forehead, and the corners of his otherwise-stern mouth are turned up in a smile that actually reaches his eyes.

"I just thought maybe," I mumble, avoiding his intense gaze. "I'm getting sick of grilled stuff."

Brendan laughs. It sounds genuine this time. "Okay. If you help."

By evening, I've fed Grey a bunch more times, and I swear he's bigger than he was this morning. When I tell Brendan that, he merely grins in reply. Only later do I realize why. He probably wasn't smiling about what I said so much as about the fact that I spoke to him on my own initiative.

Later, he goes with me to the lake so that I can wash Grey's baby sling. He peed in it again, and it soaked through the towels I put down inside it. As I wash the cloth carefully, trying to keep the rest of the sling dry, Grey lies on Brendan's lap and watches me with his clear blue eyes. Brendan's sitting on the tree trunk by the shore, scritching Grey's ears. The pup looks perfectly content. He probably thinks we're his parents.

"If he keeps gaining weight, we'll be able to switch him to solid food soon," Brendan says thoughtfully. "Normally, once the pups reach eight to ten weeks, the parents feed them regurgitated meat."

I stop working the soft soap into the cloth and give him a sidelong glance. "If you think I'm going to puke bits of rabbit up for Grey, you've got another think coming," I say. "But you go right on ahead."

"Maybe I will!" Brendan takes a pack of cigarettes out of the breast pocket of his black linen shirt. The top two buttons are undone, revealing his smooth, tanned skin and a hint of his collarbone. Somehow everything about him is perfect, if there's such a thing as dark perfection. He regards me, squinting. Here in the pale daylight, between the trees and the water shimmering in the sun, his eyes glisten with that deep intensity, that strange mixture of strength and vulnerability, the way they did at the visitors' center. My stomach tenses up.

What if he hadn't kidnapped me? What if he'd just invited me out for a drink and then brought me home to my brothers?

His eyes never leave my face as he sticks a cigarette into his mouth with one elegant motion and then removes his lighter from his pants pocket—carefully, so he won't startle Grey.

I need that , I realize, and that thought drives the others from my mind. The lighter is the first and most important item on my escape list. Brendan is always talking about how essential fire is in the wilderness, even though we have the camper to protect us while we sleep. Not long after we got here, he told me about a group of hikers that got hopelessly lost in this part of Canada. One night, their fire died for some inexplicable reason, and they all froze to death.

At first, I thought Brendan was only trying to scare me, but now I believe he was telling the truth. We must be awfully far north, based on how early the sun rises and how late it sets. It has something to do with the Arctic Circle, if I remember my geography lessons correctly.

I gaze at the lighter as though hypnotized. "What are you going to do when you run out of cigarettes?" I blurt out. "Or lighter fluid?"

Brendan's face twists into that strange smile again. "I can also start a fire with two rocks, don't worry. But I brought plenty of extra lighter fluid, too. And as far as the cigarettes go..."

I can't meet his eyes any longer. I turn my attention back to the cloth in my hands.

"Don't you mean, ‘When will you need to go to a grocery store?'"

I hear the lighter flare up, and the first cloud of cigarette smoke envelops me. "The smoke isn't good for Grey," I say in what I hope is a disparaging tone.

"He's not going to get lung cancer," Brendan replies dryly. "Wolves don't live that long."

I dunk the soapy cloth into the lake and swish it around. Maybe I should keep the conversation on the grocery store—at least then he won't start wondering if I'm planning to run off through the wilderness. Whatever I do, I have to make sure he doesn't suspect I might try to escape again. At any rate, now I know that he usually carries his lighter in his pants pocket, and that he makes sure it doesn't run out of fluid. I might be able to steal it while he's asleep. It shouldn't be a problem if my chain is long enough. And if he notices it's missing, he might assume he just dropped it somewhere. Maybe.

"So when will you need to go to a grocery store?" I ask casually, looking over at him. If this escape plan doesn't work out, that will be my next best chance.

Brendan takes what seems like an extra-long drag on his cigarette. "Never, if I put my mind to it."

"What?"

He must see the horror written all over my face, because his eyes turn another shade darker. "We have meat and wild herbs. Spruce needles for tea... raspberries, blueberries, rosehips... And not far from here, there's a wild meadow with edible berries you've probably never even heard of. In the winter, we won't need a freezer for the meat, because it'll be cold enough outside. And you can even eat the bast layer of some trees—that's the moist layer between the wood and the bark. Did you know that?"

Nope, but thanks for the tip, in case I'm ever in danger of starving while I'm running away from you!

"But what about toilet paper, soap, and pads?" I ask weakly.

"You can substitute cloth and natural products. People haven't always lived in this much luxury, you know."

"And water?"

Brendan points toward the lake. "Freshwater. There's plenty of it around here."

I keep my eyes on the cloth as I wring it out. "So you mean we can drink from the creek and stuff?"

"I've done it."

"We won't get sick?"

"There could be bacteria in it, but if it makes you feel better, we can boil it first. And I brought tons of disinfection tabs."

"Oh? I hadn't noticed." I go on wringing out the cloth. My stomach is twisting in knots. He's so perfect. And I'm so naive and confused about my escape plan.

I don't think Brendan senses how nervous I am. "We haven't had to use them yet. I still have gallons and gallons of water in the storage hatch."

I stand up, knot the sling, and slip it on again, arranging it so that the wet spot is against my back, between my shoulder blades. "Can I have Grey?"

Brendan stands as well, holding a cigarette in one hand and the wolf in the other. Grey hangs there in his hands, a helpless little bundle of life. "Sure."

I carefully transfer Grey back into the sling. He wriggles around, which is a good sign—he was mostly apathetic before. Eventually, he lands on his back with his short legs waving in the air clumsily. I flip him onto his stomach so he'll be comfortable, and then gather up my courage, preparing for what I'm about to say.

"I know where you found me." My voice is firm, and this time I hold his gaze.

Something like insecurity flickers on his face, but only for a moment, and then his usual superiority returns in full force. "Did you figure it out from the photos in the newspaper?"

I nod.

"Good." His tone is almost admiring, and for the first time he looks at me like I'm an equal, or at least like I'm someone he needs to take seriously, instead of just the cute, colorful butterfly flapping around helplessly in a cage, dependent on his kindness.

"I don't want to talk about that," I say. I don't even want to think about how he stalked me, how maybe he was looking at my pictures and touching himself, thinking about how my body would feel underneath his. I don't want any deep insights into his sick thought processes. But there's one thing I do need to know.

"How long did you spend preparing to kidnap me? When did you decide that you were really going to do it?" I'm amazed that my voice is steady. Maybe I'll understand him a little better once I know when and how he decided to kidnap me. If I want to get away from him, I have to know what makes him tick. It suddenly strikes me that I've barely given that any thought before, and it might be the key to my escape.

He regards me for a long time, seemingly trying to decide how to respond. "I wanted to have you. All to myself. Forever. Once I made up my mind about that, I started preparing. I estimated how much of everything I need for an average summer in the wilderness. And then I multiplied that by... a number you wouldn't like. And I added in everything girls need, plus what we'll need in winter. I'll probably realize over the next few months that there's something missing—but if I had to go pick it up after the fact, it wouldn't be the end of the world."

"And when did you decide to kidnap me?" His single-minded focus is starting to unnerve me after all.

"You suddenly disappeared from the Internet. It was like you'd left me. I couldn't allow that."

"My brother made me deactivate my Facebook account." As I say it, I suddenly understand what he meant weeks ago . So I don't lose you again. "You wouldn't have kidnapped me if you'd kept on seeing me on Facebook?" I wrap my hands around the outside of the sling to cradle the wolf-bundle.

Brendan takes a step toward me, and all at once, there's something threatening about him again. There's something in him that I don't understand, something dark. The thing that emerged the night of the thunderstorm. And I probably need to figure it out if I'm going to have a chance against him. Right now, though, it just terrifies me. I scoot away; twigs brush against my cheeks, and suddenly I feel a tree trunk at my back. My heart is racing.

"D-don't come any closer, please," I stammer in a thin voice.

He stops immediately, even steps back a few feet. Sunlight gleams on his dark hair. His expression softens so much that I can barely believe it's still Brendan. "I wouldn't put it quite that way," he says to answer my question. "I got the idea long before that, for a totally different reason."

"What... reason?" My voice is shaking.

"I'm obviously not going to tell you now, when you're already practically hyperventilating." He nods toward the camper. "We should go back and make dinner. If you still want to, I mean."

I lift Grey up inside the sling and press him close. "Yeah," I whisper. But I don't want to, I have to.

The walk back to the camper is unusually quiet. After a minute, I realize that only one of the many bells on my wrist is jingling. As Brendan pushes his way in front of me, I take a closer look at the cable-tie bracelet. The bells are full of water, and apparently it's keeping them from making noise. I can barely believe my luck. Now I know that I can not only drink the creek water, I can use it to escape silently. Discreetly, I release Grey and shake my arms a little at a time, so that the water will gradually run out of the bells before Brendan notices they're stopped up.

As Brendan puts the pasta water on to boil and I chop sun-dried tomatoes, my fear fades again, mostly because I'm keeping busy. Grey is crawling around in his pullover "nest" beside me, sniffing at the fleece. He's getting more animated by the hour. Every time I look at him, I have to smile. Brendan has noticed, too, and now he seems a lot more approachable.

"We still have to toast the pine nuts," he says.

"You want me to get them?" I ask in what I hope is a casual tone. I know they're underneath the camper.

Brendan raises an eyebrow suspiciously. "They're in a box in the storage hatch, right in front. The box says Kitchen 5 on it."

"Okay." I don't sound breathless, do I?

Brendan unhooks a key from his carabiner and hands it over as if it's the most natural thing in the world.

Without another word, I walk down the stairs and around the side of the camper. Past the Travel America logo. What if I just ran away now? It's late, the sun's already going down, the trees are like grey watchmen. I could dunk my wrist bells in the lake again and hide in the forest until Brendan comes out of his flashback. He'd go searching for me, but as soon as he left the area, I could come back and grab everything I needed, and then leave in a different direction.

It takes an inhuman amount of willpower to make myself unlock the rear hatch on the RV. Not yet, Lou, I tell myself as I open it. Anyway, you're wearing flip-flops, how far do you think you'd get? Plus he might be watching you...

I peer inside, reading the carton labels in the dim light. The one that says "Hunting" catches my eye immediately. It's near the back, all the way to the right, so I'd have to climb inside partway to get at it. On second thought, I've gotten more than enough new information for one day. Better not push my luck. This could be Brendan's way of testing me.

I open the box directly in front of me, which is labeled "Kitchen 5." Brendan must have reorganized everything in here, because the pine nuts were in a box near the back before. I know that because I remember the exact moment that he said he didn't have any fresh basil, but he had jars of garlic and pine nuts.

I discover gigantic quantities of flour, sugar, nuts, almonds, and trail mix. The smaller packets of pine nuts tumble around in between them. Where did Brendan get the money to buy all these supplies? What did he do for a living? Was he in college? Or did he pay for it with the money he won in that fight, the one where he killed his opponent? But he said that was three years ago. I haven't even been on Facebook that long. He must just have happened to have the money, then—he didn't go out and specifically earn it so that he could kidnap me.

I fish two packets of pine nuts from the box, close the hatch, and lock it.

When I turn to go, Brendan's face is right there, pale and ghostly in the semi-darkness.

"Took a while," he says quietly.

"I poked around in the box a little." I lift the pine nuts up demonstratively and then hand him the key. Hopefully he can't see how much I'm shaking.

"I just wanted to make sure you found the right box."

I walk past him, unbelievably relieved that I didn't try to run. I'm going to have to bide my time, get him to trust me more first.

We eat in silence—in the camper this time, because of all the black flies outside. Now I'm watching Brendan layer wood for the campfire and distribute tinder. I even help him for a few minutes, and once the first tongues of flame are flickering upward, he goes inside and returns with two beers.

He puts a can in my hand without asking, and then drops into his camping chair. I fed Grey before dinner. He fidgeted around in my lap as Brendan and I ate, but now he's asleep underneath a woolen blanket on my camping chair. Carefully, very carefully, I lift both blanket and furball, sit down in the chair, and settle Grey and the blanket across my lap.

Once I've opened the can, I slide my hand under the blanket and rest it on Grey. It's comforting. To him and me both.

"He does you good," Brendan says after a while. "Grey, I mean. You smile more often now."

I take a big gulp of beer. It tastes awful, dry and bitter, but I need the alcohol to loosen up. Ava and Madison and I have snuck a few hard lemonades or Lime-a-Ritas here and there, but I'm kind of a lightweight, so I have to make sure I only drink enough to relax, to work on getting him to trust me.

"He makes me feel less alone," I admit, sipping my beer. It's the truth.

"I can understand that." Brendan nods, and his face takes on that weird mysterious expression again. "I had a dog once. His name was Blackie."

"I guess he was black, then." I know it's a lame joke.

Brendan shakes his head. "He was a retriever mix, he was every color but black."

"So you were always kinda different, hm?" Even this small amount of alcohol is enough to make me bolder.

"How do you mean?" he asks, keeping his expression perfectly neutral.

I take another drink of beer, avoiding his eyes. "Um, I dunno, other people would have named him Goldie or Brownie or whatever. And other people would have asked me on a date, instead of kidnapping me... I assume you know I wouldn't have said no, right?"

"I wanted more than a date, though." His voice is gentle. I can almost hear him smiling.

But I don't want to live with you , I think, wishing I could say it aloud. If I want to find out more about him, though, I'll have to figure out who he is. My heart beats a shade faster as I ask my next question. "Why are you so afraid of being abandoned? How come you get flashbacks just from the thought of losing someone?"

Brendan stares at me, and I immediately regret asking. Maybe this is where he completely flips out and attacks me. I'll kill you… But he lowers his eyes, and his hands tense around the can. His hands that are capable of such terrible strength, it's like they've never known what tenderness is.

"I can't talk about it," he replies after a while, quietly but firmly.

A wave of something close to sympathy washes through me. I hate myself for it. For God's sake, he kidnapped me, I'm not about to start trying to see things from his point of view. "You can't, or you won't?" I ask.

His eyes are fixed on the pine needle-strewn ground. The fire crackles in the silence between us; now and then, a log bursts open in the flames with a loud crack-pop.

"Sometimes it's good to talk about things," I hear myself say. "It helps me a lot."

"I can't," he whispers, so quietly that at first I'm not sure if I imagined it. But then he speaks again, slightly louder this time. "I've tried so many times." He's still staring at the ground.

"Maybe you should start by just talking to yourself out loud about it," I suggest. "Without anyone else listening."

"Good idea, but it wouldn't work," he says with a smile so anguished, it's as if someone's whipping it out of him. "If I heard myself describing it all, it would be like I was raping myself, breaking every bone in my body, grinding myself into dust and ashes. I'd be nothing afterward."

I swallow. The things he's saying are hitting me hard, deep down where my tears are all waiting to burst out. I suddenly wish someone would come by and give him a hug, because I can't do it myself. Maybe that someone could fix him, and then he'd let me go. Maybe he really isn't such a bad guy, apart from kidnapping me.

I pet Grey, and it occurs to me that maybe Brendan ought to have him on his lap, warming him. The way he's sitting there now, surrounded by dark spruces, pale in the glow of the firelight, clutching the beer in his shaking hands, it's like there's a chill inside him that no warmth from outside could ever drive away. Like only an inner warmth could fill the emptiness at his core.

"When you say you'd be nothing..." I start cautiously, as though the words might literally break him. "Who... who are you now, Brendan?"

He lifts his head. "Someone who knows his strengths and weaknesses."

"So what are your strengths?" I think of Jayden. "If you could only name three, which would they be?"

"Determination, self-control, strength," he replies without hesitation.

"And your weaknesses?"

"The opposites of those."

I ponder. "So… indecision, helplessness, weakness?"

He nods.

"I don't think you know how my brothers described me, because I never posted about it on Facebook." I ignore his cynical smile, which has lost a lot of its usual superiority. "Ethan says I'm superficial, difficult, and don't use my head." I pause for a moment before continuing. "Jayden says I'm vivacious, insecure, and full of emotion. It's all the same, it's the light and shadow sides of the same character traits." I don't know where I'm getting this stuff. It's been locked away somewhere deep inside me.

"Maybe you're right." Brendan's gazing into the fire, the way he does so often. As though it's got the warmth he can't find inside himself. "But the shadows are always stronger than the light. When you turn on a light to drive the shadows away, all you do is feed them. It's like every glimmer of hope infuriates them... Isn't it weird how the things that are supposed to help you are what make it extra-clear how weak you are?"

I don't think anyone I know has ever been so honest with me, apart from maybe Jay. I'm not sure what to say, but I know I have to respond somehow. "Maybe the shadows aren't stronger," I muse. "Maybe the light just makes them easier to recognize, and what you see in them scares you, so you don't look. But maybe you should."

He smiles again, less anguished this time. More of a mixture of fascination and guilt. "You make it sound so easy. That's exactly why I wanted you, Lou. You're the light. You're like a sun. You were always so radiant in your pictures, like life was easy for you. You made it look like it could be easy for anyone, even for me. It was like you wanted to get everything you could out of life, without worrying about boundaries or limitations. You looked like you only expected the best in life."

I realize I'm more clinging to Grey than petting him. "You got all of that from my Facebook photos?"

"And the stuff you wrote."

"Wow, I really was the perfect victim," I remark bitterly. "I only expected the best of you, too."

"I'm sorry. I wasn't trying to take advantage of how you are... I mean, you're just... extraordinary, that's all."

"Never heard that one before."

"I'm surprised. I mean, you never knew your mom, and you lost your dad when you were young—sorry, yeah, I do know about that." He grins crookedly, as though stalking and kidnapping me is some cute little prank he pulled, but a moment later he's as serious as ever. "Other people would have complained about their terrible fate, having lost both of their parents. They'd have used it as an excuse every time they failed. You didn't, not once."

"I have my brothers. They're my family. I never wanted for anything."

"Yeah, because that's how you see things. Losing your parents never stopped you from jumping into life with both feet. You didn't waste time worrying about what you were missing."

"You're putting me in way too good a light. I wasn't missing anything. I grew up in a house full of love, everyone took care of me. You're wrong about me."

"Nah." He smiles and shakes his head. "I'm not. If there's anyone in the world who loves life, it's you."

I think about how dissatisfied I always was in Ash Springs, how much I hated being invisible to the rest of the world. It's like all of that happened in a different life, in another reality. The way I used to act suddenly strikes me as completely childish.

Even so, Brendan's not entirely wrong. I was never afraid to live, never afraid I might lose anyone. I always assumed the best about things, unlike Ethan who was worried about absolutely everything. Which is probably why I didn't understand him.

"We should stop talking about this for tonight," Brendan says, jolting me back to the present. "This is Grey's big day, right?" He points to my lap.

I nod, glad to change the subject.

"Why don't you tell me the story that you named him after?" Brendan suggests.

"You mean Jayden's story?" I take another large gulp of beer. The can's nearly empty.

He nods. In the bright light of the campfire, his eyes are black, glittering jewels. I've gotten closer to him tonight than ever. I like the idea of telling the story because I'll feel close to Jayden again, but it seems wrong to tell it to Brendan, the person who's keeping me away from my brothers. Then again, he's revealed a lot about himself tonight, if not anything concrete. And there's this faint voice in the back of my mind that says he did it so that I won't be as scared of his shadowy side, because he generally doesn't enjoy talking about himself at all.

"Okay," I finally make myself say before I can change my mind. "The name of the story is Grey , but it's about a Native American boy, not a wolf."

Brendan puts a cigarette between his lips and leans back with an expectant look on his face.

"I'm not really a very good storyteller," I add, "but this one I pretty much know by heart."

"I don't remember anyone ever telling me a story, so I don't think I'll notice if you do a good or bad job." He nods to me, and I spend a moment gathering my courage and strength and all the words I'm going to need for Jayden's story. Then I just start talking, picturing myself in the middle of the tale, with its magical scent in the air and its unique melody in my ears—I think that's about how Liam would put it.

"Once upon a time, many summers and winters before the ships of the white man brought death to the area around the Big Muddy River, a small tribe of Lakota lived near the river valley. It had lush forests of tall, white sycamores, thick-trunked oaks, and chestnuts as far as the eye could see. Every clearing was carpeted in red flowers, and in the autumns the trees glowed yellow and red like torches.

"The other Lakota had light-brown skin, but this particular boy was born grey, like, literally totally grey from head to toe. A pale grey, like ashes. His mother named him Delsin, which meant ‘he is so.'"

"She didn't call him Grey, even though that's the name of the story?" Brendan breaks in.

I give him an admonishing frown, like a schoolteacher to a student. Blame the beer. "No. She knew that, looking how he did, he would never get a better name, so before the other children could start calling him Dead Skin or Grey Face, she picked Delsin, to show that she accepted him the way the Great Spirit had made him. Young Lakota were allowed to pick a new name for themselves after performing a heroic deed, but she was afraid that would never happen. Even when he was only five, his ashen skin made him seem like an old man. The girls were afraid of him and hid from him, and the boys excluded him and threw stones at him whenever he tried to play with them."

"This is a sad story," Brendan remarks.

I glance at him. He's listening with rapt attention. I realize how lonely he must have been as a child, if this is the first time anyone's ever told him a story. "When Delsin was six years old," I continue, "his mother died giving birth to his sister, so he had nobody left who loved him."

This is the first time I realize that Jayden wove part of his own story into this one. His—our—mom died giving birth to me, his sister.

"Delsin's father, the chief of the tribe, was ashamed of Delsin. He wanted to drown the baby at birth, but the medicine man foretold that it would bring great unhappiness to the tribe if the chief drowned his firstborn son like a deformed dog. But whenever the warriors of an allied tribe came over to plan attacks or negotiate trades, he would say to them, ‘That is not my son. He was sent to us by the Great Spirit, and I must accept this fate and raise him.' But he never brought Delsin along on hunting or raiding parties, not even when Delsin had become a man and it became time for him to prove himself so that he could find his place in Lakota society. His sister, Alaska—which means ‘where the sea breaks upon the shore'—avoided him as well, because she was afraid that the others would exclude her along with him, and then she would never find a man to take her into his wigwam.

"So Delsin was left by himself, and became a grey shadow that slipped from the village to the forest to the meadow lowlands unseen, like a ghost. His father put one bowl of beans in front of the wigwam for him each day. Delsin only crept inside at night to sleep, and rose long before his father so that he would not taint his sight, as the chief always said.

"Eventually, even Delsin began to believe that he was only a shadow, a grey shadow. Since the Lakota refused to speak to him, he went deep into the forest and began talking to the plants and animals. And the sunny days grew longer and longer, and one evening, he simply didn't return to the campsite beside the Big Muddy River. He was living by himself, but he was not alone—he spoke to the oaks and the sycamores, to the owls and the deer. He even spoke to the moon and the stars, because he had so much to tell, so many things he had heard and seen among the Lakota, but never understood. Beneath the great night sky, he spread out all of his stories, across the green-grey hilltops on the far side of the woods, and his words rose up and wove into the firmament like pictures. The moon he called ‘yellow friend in the black ocean'; the stars he gave shimmering names that seemed to twinkle in his mouth when he spoke them."

"Like what?" Brendan asks.

"I asked Jayden the same question," I respond with a genuine smile. "He said he knew the names, but he couldn't say them or write them, because they were too beautiful, and if he tried, their letters would shatter like glass. For Delsin, the stars he named were droplets of silver that the Great Spirit had daubed into the sky. And sometimes, in his most secret dreams, he wished his skin was the color of the stars. Silver, rather than grey."

I look at Brendan. "When Jayden first told me this story, I hated him for not telling me the names."

Brendan laughs. A strange feeling creeps over me, and the longer I look at him, the stronger it gets. It's completely out of place here, fluttering like a butterfly under glass. It wants to fly off, but not necessarily to freedom. Whatever the feeling is, it horrifies me so much that I immediately push it back into the furthest recesses of my mind.

"When the animals came to him," I continue, "he gave them names according to their temperament. And after spending many, many winters living among them and talking to them, he suddenly found he could speak their language as well. It must have been an amazing morning for Delsin—imagine how he woke up and realized he understood the whispers in the forest around him! For Delsin, it was as though he'd awakened in a brand-new world. He ate nuts with the squirrels, he sang with the birds and the grasshoppers, he walked with the deer. And deep inside himself, he heard a voice saying, This is how you are. This is your place. Here, nobody laughed at him, nobody stared at him. All the animals spoke to him. At night, he listened to the music of the stars, watched his yellow friend the moon, and thanked the Great Spirit for finally giving him a home."

"Is that the end?" Brendan asks when I pause. He's like a kid—his eyes are even shining. I know I shouldn't be, but I'm moved at how simple little things are enough to make his eyes light up with joy.

I shake my head no. "The story's not over. Like I said, many winters and summers passed."

Brendan leans back again in his chair.

"Delsin could have been happy, but after a while, he started longing for a partner. He wandered back to his tribe's summer campsite, but kept himself hidden in the bushes. It seemed that everyone had forgotten about him completely. Nobody mentioned him, nobody used his name. His father and sister happily went about their day.

"Head hanging, he snuck back toward the forest, but then he came to the small stream, a tributary of the Big Muddy River. Several girls were there, fetching buckets of fresh water. Delsin froze as if he'd been turned to stone. He spent several days hiding in the bushes, but none of them noticed him. One of them was especially beautiful. She always came later than the others, but stayed longer. Her name was Istu, which meant sugar. Everything about her was sweet, from her small, full mouth to her smooth, black hair to her perfectly formed breasts that looked like they would fit right into Delsin's hands. After spending several days almost in a trance, he returned to the forest. He forgot the moon and the stars and the animals, and he wished he was not Delsin, more than he had ever wished for anything. He wished he were different, wished he had a name that was worthy of Istu. But he knew with every fiber of his being that that day would never come. He withdrew into the forest, grieving for something he would never have, and became very angry with the Great Spirit. The animals came to comfort him, but he sent them away in a rage. He told the moon they were no longer friends, and then he was all alone again. A grey, lonely shadow, just like before.

"But one cold morning, the call of an owl roused him. The owl was screeching about a massive army of warriors coming from the north, preparing to attack the Lakota. When Delsin heard that, his heart was filled with terror. He thought of Istu's sweet lips and her soft breasts. He hurried off, and a pair of does followed him, telling him about the enemy's plans, which they had heard during the night. The enemy tribe was going to surround the village, and then raze it to the ground in a single, terrible strike. They were going to steal the food the tribe had stocked for the winter, and they were only going to leave the unmarried girls alive.

"When Delsin heard that, he was furious, and he ran even faster. He traveled for three days and three nights. When he reached his old village, none of the others believed his story. They circled around him, shoving him and laughing at him. His father's friend, Istu's father, even proposed killing him, believing that Delsin had returned to bring a curse upon their people. He suggested that perhaps Delsin himself had revealed their location to the enemy out of revenge, because they had shut him out. But his daughter, Istu, stepped in front of Delsin and protected him from her father with outstretched arms.

"In that moment, Delsin knew that Istu's name was about more than just her sweet lips. She managed to persuade the Lakota to listen to Delsin. His father, the chief, demanded that he prove he could talk to animals, so Delsin spoke to a lame horse, and discovered that it was limping because it had stepped on a stone and developed an infected sore on its hoof—but the stone was too small to be visible from the outside.

"The Lakota were astounded. Delsin demonstrated his talent several more times, and the tribe was filled with respect, because none of them had ever learned to converse with animals. They began to set traps for the enemy, and brought their winter stock elsewhere to keep it safe. The women and children were brought to a neighboring tribe, whose young, able-bodied fighters joined the Lakota's own warriors. And thus the enemy arrived to find the village empty—and themselves surrounded.

"Not a single Lakota died that day, but the enemy warriors fell. It was a miracle.

"That evening, as the few remaining leaves on the trees glowed even redder than usual in the setting autumn sun, Delsin's father fell to his knees at his son's feet. ‘I always denied that you were my son,' he said in a heavy voice. ‘And I was right. I am not worthy to be your father. A man like you comes from the Great Spirit. Today, you saved our tribe. Without you, our people would have perished.' When he said that, the rest of the tribe sank to their knees as well, and bowed their heads.

"‘From now on,' Delsin's father said, ‘you will no longer be Delsin, Son of the Great Spirit, but Silver. For what is grey? Grey is silver that does not shine. And today you were radiant, Silver. Every person here saw it.'

"Tears sprang to Delsin's eyes, and he was not ashamed of it. He drew his father back to his feet and said loudly, ‘My name is Delsin: He Is So. If I were not so, I would never have learned the language of the animals, and you would have perished, don't you see? I could only save you because I am so. My mother chose this name well.'

"And so Delsin kept his name. One month later, he took Istu for his wife beside the shore of the Big Muddy River, which today is called the Missouri. Istu, whose breasts and lips were sweet, but her heart was the sweetest of all.''

With that, I end the story. The fire crackles between us, and in the distance I can hear the rushing waterfall. The pack of wolves we heard the first evening howls somewhere deep in the forest, so far away that it's only a notion of a sound.

Jayden said once that every story should leave behind a stillness, a moment of contemplation. Maybe that's what makes us both fall silent. Grey, on the other hand, suddenly springs to life on my lap underneath the blanket. He sniffs my hand and starts licking it like he's expecting milk to come out.

"Nothing in there, Grey," I say and giggle because his nose is tickling my fingers.

"You can stay there with him, I'll get the milk." Brendan stands up. He regards me for a moment, the story echoing in his dark eyes like a curtain of dreams. He hesitates.

"What?" I ask.

"Grey is silver that doesn't shine. It's the same, like the light and shadow sides of the same thing. Is that why you told me that story?"

"I told you that story because you wanted to hear it," I reply in astonishment. "If I'd been telling the story in order to make something specific happen, I'd have put in a part about Delsin kidnapping Istu."

"How would the story have ended then?"

Grey's suckling on my thumb, and I can feel his baby teeth, not sharp enough to hurt. "I don't know. That would have depended on Delsin."

Brendan raises an eyebrow, but doesn't reply. Then he takes the beer can from me and goes into the camper. Dishes clatter—he's probably washing them while he waits for the kettle to boil.

Suddenly, a piercing alarm echoes through the forest. It's so loud that I almost fall out of my chair.

"God fucking dammit!" I hear Brendan snap.

"What?" I call. Grey whimpers.

Through the open side door, I see Brendan reach toward the ceiling and shut the alarm off. "Just the smoke alarm!" Brendan laughs in relief. "For a second I thought it was the propane gas alarm."

"What would you have done then?" I ask loud enough that he can hear me. He said something about that once.

"I'd have had to turn the gas off, and you would have had to get yourself somewhere safe."

I sit there for a while, gradually realizing what he just said. You would have had to get yourself somewhere safe... what does he mean? "So where is that gas canister? I mean, in case the alarm goes off and you're not there?"

"It's in a compartment on the far side of the camper, about level with the side door. But don't go messing with it, or you might blow us both up."

Now he almost sounds like Ethan! My heart starts beating slightly faster. Not because he thinks I'm inept, but because for the first time, I finally have an idea for how I might be able to escape. Once I realize that it might actually work, I immediately feel completely calm—but there's also a heaviness in my chest, and I'm not sure why. I think about the feeling I got earlier when Brendan laughed. I try to call it up again, but I've buried it too deep, it's out of reach. Probably just as well. I definitely can't let myself get pangs of conscience over this. He made his bed, he can lie in it. If he hadn't kidnapped me, I wouldn't have to leave him. It's all his fault.

Even so, that butterfly under the glass bell jar keeps circling through my head—and part of me feels completely, totally empty.

Grey wriggles around on my lap, which is a nice distraction.

"You'll have to be there for him when I'm gone," I whisper and lift the blanket a few inches. Grey is still sucking and biting on my finger, kicking the inside of my hand with his little paws as if to say , I'm hungry, right this second, don't go acting like anything else is more important.

I have to smile. "Be there for him the way you've been there for me."