Chapter 70

CHAPTER 70

I got up before dawn. We'd spent the night back in Rocky Start because bathrooms. Dawn because that's when you start a hike. Maggs looked at me like I was a betrayer. I looked at Rose, sleeping peacefully in her bed under her pink-striped comforter—I'd been sleeping under a pink comforter, there was an attack on my manhood—looking warm and flushed and smiling in her dreams.

I'd told myself over and over that I had to leave, I had to finish the mission, I had to prove to myself I could make it sober to the end of the Trail. That was important. A commitment I had made many months ago. I just was having a hard time remembering why. It was kind of a deal with the entity that controlled me, that if I could do this, things would work out.

You can't build a future on a month of good sex, especially when there had been so much adrenaline flowing from people trying to kill us. We needed some peace to know what we wanted from our futures before we could put them together. We needed to figure out who we were before we started new lives. Leaving was the right thing to do. Finish the mission.

Except I was leaving her in Rocky Start. Anything could happen here.

I'd done what I could, set her up with a safe space in the woods where she could think and read and make art. A safe space in the woods, Max? In Rocky Start? Well, Fernanda would watch out for her.

And Marley was moving in, that was decided. Marley . . . Marley's a high school kid. Yeah, Marley was a high school kid like I was a retiree. They'd do fine with Marley, although I might have to threaten him with death if he made a move on Poppy. Of course, if he made a move on Poppy and she didn't want it, she'd threaten him with death. Really, no reason to stay at all.

I stood and picked up my ruck and looked at Maggs and jerked my head toward the door.

Maggs looked back, not moving.

"C'mon," I whispered.

Maggs looked back and snuggled deeper into my side of the bed.

I was leaving a place where I had a side of the bed. And a woman who cared about me, risked her life for me. Friends I could trust. Kids who might need me. And for what? To finish a damn mission?

Well, yeah, I had to finish the Trail. But now that leaving was real, not something I was just saying but actually going out the door . . .

I put the ruck down and considered the situation.