Chapter Twenty-Nine

The snow sparkled under the silver-gray sky, fat flakes floating down and melting on Jak's skin as he slid across the open field. The long, flat shoes he'd put together made it easier to walk over the ice-crusty ground without sinking into the soft, fluffy snow beneath. He wished he'd thought of making something like these a long time ago. But how could he? He learned the best he could as he went along, figuring new and better ways to survive. These shoes weren't a…what was the word? He didn't need to have them, but they were nice to have.

His mind drifted, the words of the woman in the picture going around in his head. He talked to her sometimes, asked her questions, tried to guess what her answers would be.

Sometimes, like today, when his mind wanted to drift from the cold of winter, he'd say the words that brought him peace. He'd say them over and over again until his heart settled and he could find something good about the day. About life. About his presence in a world that only made sense in a physical way. To Jak, the writings of the woman were his friend; she was his priest from the story that he'd never actually read and his teacher. He loved her, even though he'd never met her. He visited her sometimes too, in the bottom of that canyon. He sat outside the car where she'd died, said words to her and the man. He wondered if they'd died right away or if they'd suffered. He wondered where their child was—the girl. He felt so much sadness. He wished he could have saved them. He wished they were alive and he could meet them. He would ask the woman all the questions in his mind and heart. She had so many more words than he knew.

In his pretending, she answered. He closed his eyes and heard her speak, clearer now than the faded voice of his baka.

It had been five winters since he'd found the car and the blue bag, and while he would never say his living was easy, the writings he'd found had made things…better. He wasn't sure exactly why. He only knew that the writings had changed his mind about wanting to die. Had he really wanted to die though? No. He had wanted the pain to end, the loneliness. The writings had made him care about living.

His muscled legs pushed one board forward, then the next, sliding across the snow, his breath puffing white in front of him for only a brief second before it was snatched up by the wind.

Movement caught his eye, and he slowed, his muscles tensing as he spotted a person far off to his right. Hide? Slink? No. He crouched low as he loaded an arrow into his bow, looking through the scope.

It was…a woman?

Jak lowered the bow and arrow, standing back up, his fast heartbeat slowing down, questions circling in his mind. Fear .

The woman was fast-walking toward him, taking big steps in the snow, sinking down and then, with a lot of trying, lifting her foot again and again. Jak was still with shock and confusion. As she got closer, Jak saw that she wasn't wearing any winter clothes and much of her skin was showing. And she looked like she was crying, big chest-moving wails that came to where Jak was standing.

Jak took two steps toward the woman at the same second that she spotted him. She stopped and then moved toward him again, picking up her footsteps, tripping and getting back up. "Help!" she called. "Help!"

Jak moved toward her quickly, and she tripped again, pulling herself up, her wails getting clearer the closer she got. "Please, please!" she cried. "I need help!"

"What happened?" Jak asked as the woman collapsed in his arms, shivering and crying, her skin purple-red and covered in goose bumps. Her wide gaze moved over his face, her lips shivering so hard her whole jaw was shaking.

"Lost… The enemy chasing me…" Another big shiver went through her, stopping her words, and Jak's skin prickled with unease. The enemy? He looked behind her, from where she'd come. He'd always felt mostly safe from other people in this wilderness, safe from the war and whatever might be going on out in the world. Nature had been his enemy…any other danger seeming very far away. But now…here was a woman running from this enemy that he'd only thought of as the booming voice behind him telling him the only goal was survival.

"Please help, " she cried softly, looking at him in a strange way. Jak took off his animal-skin jacket, the one he'd made himself, held together with long strips of the tough, stringy parts between deer muscle and bone that he'd bleached and dried in the sun. He wrapped the jacket around the woman as her knees gave out, but he caught her, lifting her easily into his arms and heading toward his cabin.

When he got there, he set her down in front of the open wood stove, wrapping his blanket around her bare legs and throwing another log on the fire so it leaped and grew, the warmth traveling farther into the room.

The woman began to move, pushing her long red hair out of her face and sitting up slowly. "Where am I?"

"My cabin. Who's chasing you?"

Her eyes flew to the window. "I don't know who they are. I think I lost them, but"—her gaze moved quickly to the side—"uh, I got all turned around, and then I just kept walking."

Jak had an odd feeling about the woman. It was like…he sensed danger, but…that was stupid. This woman was half his size. No threat to him. But he felt…not right, and he wasn't sure why. "What happened to your clothes?"

"The enemy took them before I got away."

Jak frowned. "Tell me about the enemy."

She blinked. "What?"

"I—" He ran a hand over his jaw, trying to figure out how to explain things to her. "I don't know anything about the war. I've been living here since I was young." He sat on the edge of the bed next to where she sat against the wall. "Can you tell me what's going on? Does anyone talk about when it might end?"

She stared at him for a minute, a line coming between her eyes. "I don't know a lot either. I'm, uh"—she did that weird moving thing with her eyes again—"from somewhere else."

"Somewhere where the war is not being fought?"

"Right."

"Do you know why we're fighting? And who we're fighting against? There was a time when they were killing children. Is that still happening?"

"Listen, I don't know anything else, okay?" She sounded kind of…mad.

The coat Jak had put around her shoulders slipped, showing the white skin of her breast, and Jak's breath stopped. He'd never seen a woman's body before, and he wanted to take the coat from around her shoulders and the blanket from her legs and look at her naked, study how she was different than him. Suddenly he wasn't thinking about war or the enemy or anything else outside his cabin. His body felt hot, tight.

But this woman, she'd just been running from an enemy who had been bad to her in some way. And she was trusting him to help her. He stood, turning his back on her and walking to the window where he looked outside. The snow glittered, white gray and not touched except for the lonely footprints that led to his door. His own. At least if anyone came here, they would think it was just him. He could protect her. He looked to the place where he stored the bow and arrows Driscoll had given him a long time ago. He had spent hours and hours getting good with the weapon, becoming so good with it that when he used it, it felt like another part of his own body. He'd shoot to kill if he had to. His shots were strong. He never missed.

He smelled her approaching. She tried to be quiet but was not. She was no wolf. He waited…tensed and felt hands come around his waist. He turned fast, the woman very close to where he was. She'd left the coat and blanket on the floor and now stood before him naked. Surprise shivered through him, along with a jolt of heat. His eyes moved over her body, confusion rising like pinpricks on the inside of his skin. What is she doing?

"What's your name?"

She seemed surprised that he'd asked the question, but after a second pause, she said, "Brielle. What's yours?"

"Jak."

She stepped closer and then ran her hands up the front of his shirt, over the muscles of his chest. "You're different than I thought," she said so quietly he almost didn't hear.

"Different? What…do you mean? How would you know about me?"

Her gaze shot to him, and she laughed in a nervous way. "I mean, from when I first saw you out there in the snow. I thought you were uncivilized, but you're not."

Uncivilized.

He didn't understand. And she was still standing in front of him naked, and though it was making his body feel too heated, his mind was able to stay away like he'd learned to do when he stalked and hunted. It was easy for him now.

A naked woman was touching him, but that whisper of confusion wouldn't let his thoughts quiet.

"What are you doing?" he asked her, his gaze moving over her nakedness again, seeing the pinky-brown tips of her breasts, the way her waist turned inward, the tiny black dots between her legs that showed she'd removed the hair there. He wondered why she would do that. That's where the scent was that told a male whether he wanted to mate with the female. Those smells told the male if the whispers spoke between them, if their offspring would be healthy and strong, and other things Jak didn't know because he hadn't smelled his mate yet.

"I'm thanking you for rescuing me," she said, taking the bottom of his shirt in her hands and pulling it up and over his head. Her eyes ran over his chest, her gaze stopping on each scar one by one. Something came over her face, and he didn't know what it was. She swallowed and took a step back, reaching out to run a finger along the worst of them, the ugly raised skin on his side that had come from the wild boar's tusk, the one that had almost killed him. He watched her like she was a snake and he wasn't sure whether she was going to slither by or strike at him.

Her finger moved slowly, and he hissed out a breath, the feeling of being touched by another human for the first time since he was a child making him want to fall to his knees. He wanted to push this woman—this stranger he didn't trust—away, and he wanted to beg her not to stop. "You've been to battle," she said.

He looked at her, taking his own finger and running it along the pink scar right over the removed hair between her legs and then lifting her arms where scars crossed the skin on the insides of her arms. "So have you."

Their eyes met, and her face went lighter. She looked sad. She dropped her hands. "I…yes." Her voice came out choked, and the smile she wore looked like a lie. She took a deep breath and moved forward again, returning her hand to his naked skin. "Do you want me, Jak?" Before waiting for an answer, she stepped forward and put her lips on his, running her tongue along his lower lip. She gripped his head in her hands, dragging her fingernails through his hair. He wanted to pull away, but he didn't know why. He should want this. To mate. Shouldn't he?

The feeling of her soft, wet tongue on his mouth sent lightning shooting between his legs, making him swell and harden. But even though his body wanted , there was something not right in the way she smelled to him. She smelled like berries, but ones that were too ripe and had already dropped to the ground. Too sweet. Too much. He didn't like it. He didn't want to mate with her. And she was shaking again, but there were no goose bumps on her skin, and his cabin was warm from the fire.

Something was wrong. Very wrong.

He wrapped his fingers around her small wrist, taking her hand off him, and her lips came away from his. "I'm not like them," he said, rough sand in his voice, taking her by the upper arms and setting her away. He brought the blanket to her, wrapping it around her shoulders again and covering her nakedness. He didn't know exactly who "they" were, but whatever enemy she'd run from had taken her clothes and made her scared enough to run mostly naked out into the snow, made her offer her body to him though he had not asked for it or done anything to make her want to give it to him. He hadn't fed her or hunted for her or brought her gifts that made her dance.

She stared up at him, and he saw tears shining in her eyes. She nodded and walked to where she'd dropped her clothing. He grabbed a pair of jeans and a shirt he'd outgrown long ago and handed them to her. "The seams are gone in places because I used the thread, but they'll keep you warm. You can stay here for a little while if you need to. I have weapons."

She smiled, and to him, it seemed sad. "You'd fight for me, wouldn't you? A stranger."

"Yes."

She smiled again and used her hand to touch his cheek. "You're very attractive, you know that? Not just here"—she turned her hand over and ran it down his face and over the bone of his jaw—"but here." She patted the place where his heart beat under his skin.

Jak didn't know what to say to her, was unsure why she seemed so sad suddenly. He was confused about all of this. Part of him wanted her to leave right away so things would go back to normal, and the other part of him hated his normal. "Do you think they might need me to fight in the war? Are they looking for soldiers?"

"No, I don't think so. I really have to go. My family will be looking for me."

He frowned, not understanding how she suddenly knew her way back when they hadn't even stepped outside his house, but before he could ask, she said, "You're not uncivilized at all, Jak. Don't ever let anyone tell you that you are, okay?"

He didn't answer. Who was he going to tell? As far as he knew, he might go his whole life never talking to anyone except Isaac Driscoll again.

"Let me walk you to—"

"No." She took a quick glance around the room they were in, her eyes moving over the ceiling like she was looking for something. "I'm fine now." She walked to his front door and opened it, turning around after she'd stepped onto his porch. He stood in the doorway, watching her. She gave him a shaky smile, reaching her hand out. He looked at it, not knowing what she wanted. "Shake my hand, Jak. This is what people do."

He reached his hand out and took hers, and she grasped his hand, holding on and moving her eyes up and to the side like she was telling him to look somewhere with her eyes. But before he could figure what she was telling him to look at, she pulled him to her, and as she hugged him, she whispered, "There's a camera in that tree behind me. Don't make it obvious you know it's there. I saw one down by the river too as I was on my way to you."

On your way to me? "Camera?" he whispered. A camera took…pictures. He remembered. He remembered that word.

"You're being watched. Please don't tell anyone about me."

Before he could ask her anything, she turned and ran away, going through the trees toward the road in the not too faraway.

He watched her until she disappeared, his heart pounding. They're watching you. What did that mean? Watched by who? I saw one down by the river too. A camera. A camera watched.

Jak closed the door and then sat in his cabin, doing the numbers his baka had taught him in the long ago as he tried to clear his mind and slow his speeding heart. What is going on? He counted to one thousand, twice, and then took his bow and arrows and his coat and went back outside. He took a few steps in the snow and then bent down like he was fixing something on his boot, but while his hands moved on a tie, he looked upward through his hair that hid his face.

He didn't know what he was looking for, and it was a few minutes before he saw a small flash of something dark that was not a material found in the forest high up in the branches of the tree. He stood, putting his bow and arrows on his back again and walking toward the river.

His thoughts rolled and jumped like a downhill stream as he tried to make sense of what was happening with what was too little knowing.

Should he ask Driscoll? Maybe he was being watched too. But Jak threw away the thought. He hated the man, and he'd been trading with him for less and less as the winters had passed. Jak had either figured out how to do without things he'd gotten before from Driscoll, or he'd learned to make them himself using things he could find in the forest.

For all he knew, Driscoll was the one watching him. His skin prickled. Driscoll is bad. He'd known that, though, figured it out a long time ago. But…what did Jak have to fear from Driscoll's badness, whatever it was? Jak was way stronger than him now, though he'd never tried to hurt Jak even when he wasn't.

The river came up, the low roar of the icy water splashing over rocks and around small raised pieces of land in the middle. He'd bet there was a name for those, but he didn't know what it was. He'd bet there was a name for everything, if he only knew where he could find the answers. The notes had given him lots of new words, ones he had to figure out the meaning for by how they were used. But he was good at figuring things out—he always had been.

Jak took off the bow and arrows from his back and sat on a fallen tree. He took out one of the arrows and picked up a flat rock from the ground and started pretending to sharpen the arrow as his eyes moved around, looking here and there, in a way someone watching him couldn't tell.

It took him a long time before he saw the tiny flash of dark something that didn't belong. It was in another tree to the side of the river bank. He'd have never seen it if he wasn't looking for it. It was high up in one of the evergreens—just like the one in the front of his house—that stayed green all year round, so it'd never be uncovered by falling leaves.

His head spun. What does this mean?