Chapter Thirty-Three

The white car he'd seen parked next to Driscoll's house was gone, which meant Driscoll was too. Jak watched the house from the low light of the forest for a few minutes, making sure he didn't see movement through one of the dusty windows. His gaze moved to the trees, squinting into the light as he looked close at those too, looking for that tiny flash of something that didn't belong. He didn't see it, but the day was overcast and cloudy, and he wasn't sure if he'd see a camera, even if one was there.

He'd have to take his chances.

He'd spent the last few days going over the things the redheaded woman had told him, the way she had made him feel, the questions she'd brought to his mind. He'd felt like she was lying to him, and he didn't have enough understanding of the world to make sense of it. But he felt in his gut that it led to Isaac Driscoll.

Isaac Driscoll was the only one who gave information to Jak. Isaac Driscoll was the only one who explained what happened in the world outside the forest—what was safe, what was not, and who and what to stay away from. He'd given Jak shelter, fire, so he had no need to leave.

But what if Isaac Driscoll was crazy?

What if he was lying?

But why would he? Jak couldn't figure out a reason, so he wondered if asking the question made him the crazy one. He didn't think so.

He'd thought about trying to walk into town, into the faraway, however many days or weeks that might take. His old fear about the enemy killing children could be behind him now. He wasn't a child anymore. He was a man. His body was hard and muscled. He knew how to use a weapon. He could fight. He could kill if he had to.

Whenever he'd had the thought before, he'd always talked himself away from it. Even though he was lonely, he'd found some peace in his life, and there didn't seem like there was a good reason to walk away from everything he knew into a war. He still fought and struggled because there was nothing you could always count on about nature, but he'd learned to get ready for the winters as best as he could, and he was the master of his small world. Why risk it?

But now…

Now things had changed, and Jak had to know.

He moved quickly from one tree to the next, a wolf in the shadows, as he kept looking for cameras or anything else that might not belong, something he'd never looked for when he'd gone to see Driscoll before. After he'd watched the house for a time, he put on his flat shoes and walked out into the snow like he'd come to trade something or another. He didn't think Driscoll was home, but he'd rather be sure before breaking in.

In the bag hung on his back, he had a hat made from soft rabbit fur that he'd tell Driscoll he wanted to trade for matches if the man was home.

He stepped sideways as he walked up the steps, not removing his flat shoes so he wouldn't make any footprints. He knocked on the door, his gloved hands making the sound soft, but not enough so Driscoll wouldn't hear if he was inside. Jak waited a minute before knocking again to be sure. When there was still no answer, he tried the handle, but it was locked. He stood there for a minute, trying to figure out a way to open the door other than breaking it down. Unsure, he stepped carefully down the steps and walked around the side of the house, trying each window along the way. The second window on the side slid up when he pushed hard. "Yes," he murmured. He untied the flat shoes and left them on the ground. In a minute, Jak was standing in Driscoll's living room.

He walked through the room, not making a sound. Jak knew how to be silent, quick. His life depended on it. There was no one in the main room, and the kitchen area was empty. Jak blew out a breath and started looking around. Things looked the way they always had when he'd been there to trade. Except…he spotted a pile of notebooks on a small table next to the one chair. He opened the one on top, and a pile of pictures fell out, dropping to the floor. Jak began taking his deerskin gloves off when he stopped, the face looking up at him from right next to his foot…familiar. He'd seen it before, staring back at him from a clear patch of water. And he knew the clothes. He was wearing them now. Shocked, he reached for the picture, turning a few of the others over and freezing when he saw that they were all of him.

He stood slowly, looking through the pictures, insects starting to buzz in his head as his skin got cold. In one, he was dragging a deer through the forest, a long trail of blood left behind it; in another, he was sitting on a rock on the riverbank taking scales off a fish. He went through them faster, blinking. They went back to when he was just a young boy, still in the same jeans he'd been wearing the night he was taken and woke up on the edge of the cliff. Pup was in most. Driscoll had known he wasn't wild. He'd known he belonged to Jak. He'd killed him on purpose.

Jak gripped the pictures, deep confusion and anger rocking through him. He set them aside and started reading the journal on the top of the pile…about a possum and a deer and a wolf. All the journals were the same. He read a few of the entries, a lump filling his throat. He stuck the pictures in his pocket—they were his, proof of everything he'd done to survive. Looking at them brought him back to those times and made him feel dizzy. Sick.

He put the journals back where they'd been and then stood, holding his hair in his hands. Driscoll had watched. He'd watched, and he hadn't helped. Jak felt a howl rising in his throat, but he swallowed it down, made himself stand still instead of tearing the house to shreds, breaking furniture—

He heard a noise from the bedroom and went into a crouch, a low growl coming from his throat, too soft for anyone to hear. He turned his head so his ears faced up, sniffed the air.

He let out a slow breath. Just a tapping bird in the near faraway.

He stood slowly, walked to the bedroom on legs that felt stiff like tree trunks. The room was empty. Jak moved to the dresser, pulling drawers open, looking for what, he didn't know. He opened the drawer of the table by the bed. There was a hand-drawn map with some shapes on it…three squares, two Xs, a wavy line, and a word at the bottom he didn't know. He thought he knew what the map might be of, but he didn't think more about it right then, even though that sickness rose in his throat.

There was another piece of paper next to the map that had the name Peg's Diner at the top. It listed eggs and bacon and had a price next to each thing. Peg's Diner? Were food places open during wars?

Jak didn't think so.

He shut the drawer so hard the small table almost fell over.

He looked around the room, trying to understand something, when he saw the picture over Driscoll's dresser, the one he'd gone on and on about. Jak remembered his eyes and how they'd been filled with so much…excitement. He walked toward it slowly, standing in front of it, a man now, when the last time he'd seen it, he'd been a boy, not much taller than the dresser.

His gaze moved over the fighting men who held spears and shields and…bows and arrows. What had Driscoll said all that time ago?

Survival is the greatest training of all.

Jak's brain was buzzing again, and he couldn't grab hold of his thoughts. He looked around again but didn't see anything else. What he already had was enough though. Enough to tell him something awful was going on. Something that could turn his whole world upside down.

Again.

He left the house in the same way he'd come, closing the window behind him and walking to the road. He'd always stayed away from it because Driscoll had told him to. Driscoll told him a lot of things. Too many things. His head hurt, and his skin felt itchy all over, but he ignored the feelings, pulling his heavy coat around himself and walking on. He found the road and followed it, walking for hours, until he came to another road and then another. No cars passed him, but he was ready to hide if they did.

That third road led to a bigger road that was made of hard stuff. He left his flat shoes leaning against a tree, ducking behind it as a car zoomed by, stepping out after it was only a speck in the close faraway. He walked again, hiding when he heard a car coming and then stepping out when it was gone.

After a while, cars came by every few minutes, and Jak spotted the tops of buildings just over a hill.

He was hungry and thirsty, and he'd been walking for hours, but he moved toward those buildings, his heart beating quickly in his chest like he was walking toward death. Maybe he was. His soul felt like it was dying with each step, each car that drove by, the drivers not looking scared, even laughing.

Jak walked into the town of Helena Springs at almost night, the lights of the town blinking on and glowing bright. He wondered if maybe he was dreaming. If he'd fallen asleep by the riverbank under the warm sun and later he'd wake, Pup licking his face and telling him it was time to hunt.

Helena Springs , he repeated in his mind as he read the sign. It sounded like he'd known it a long time ago maybe, but he wasn't sure. He'd lived in Missoula with his baka. And Missoula was in Montana. Montana was in the United States. The United States was in the…world. That's all he knew. His baka had given him a globe once, and he knew about a few other places, knew the world was round, but mostly, he didn't remember.

He ducked into a dark doorway, looking across the street at the place named on the little piece of paper in Driscoll's house: Peg's Diner. It was bright inside, and a woman in a pink dress with an apron stood behind a counter, pouring something for people sitting in front of her. Off to the side, there was a glass case filled with…pies. His eyes moved slowly, his vision blurred. Sitting at a table at the window were a woman and a little boy, the boy bringing some kind of food to his mouth. A burger. He knew what it was— remembered eating one himself—and even as his head swam, his body would not go quiet, and his stomach growled loudly. The woman smiled at whatever the boy had just said, picking up her own food and taking a bite.

Jak was hungry. Hungry and hurting and alone.

Scared. Confused.

A sound came up Jak's throat, something he'd never made before.

A couple walked by the diner, holding hands and talking, the man throwing his head back and laughing at something the woman said.

There was no war.

No enemy.

It was a quiet town on a peace-filled night.

Jak had been lied to.

Tricked.

Why, why, why?

The world started spinning.

He fell down to the ground, holding his head as his body began shaking. It had all been a lie.