“It means strength, Evangeline,” he said softly. “You must draw strength from fear or fear will make you weak.”
“I don’t need strength,” I whispered back to him, holding onto his hand. “I have you.”
He pulled away and looked me up and down, his eyes flitting through a range of different colors—brown to hazel to red to grey. “There is no me. There are only monsters inside of angels and angels inside of monsters. Choose wisely.”
He stepped away from me and his face contorted with pain.
“Papa,” I cried out as his skin turned ashen and pale, his eyes glowing blue. A horrible, beautiful blue. I reached for him but immediately took my hand back when the smell of rotting meat took over.
He grinned at me like a savage wolf. “Which one am I?” he asked in a snarling voice, his words dripping with an animalistic quality, steaming saliva that came from his mouth and hit the snow with a hiss.
He was a monster inside of an angel.
I turned and ran, and like in all dreams, I ran fast enough to fly, and then slow, like I was slogging through oatmeal. Suddenly the cabin appeared in the woods, the hanging lamp by the door wide open and waiting.
I ran into the cabin, still smelling the monster that was my father, knowing he was right on my trail.
I yelled for help from Jake and Tim and stopped dead when I saw Avery lying motionless on the table. I ran for him, trying to speak his name, but the words wouldn’t come and his eyes wouldn’t open.
Then the door behind me slammed shut. Everything went black.
Except for two blue glowing eyes, right where Avery should have been.
Claws dug into my back, ripping me apart like my spine was a seam.
I woke up with a start, covered in sweat and breathing hard. My back ached as if the claws had been real. I couldn’t figure out if I’d been screaming or not, but Tim was sitting by the door, asleep with his head against it. I remembered getting up and looking at Jake as he lay there, deep in sleep. Fear was motivating me and this was how I was drawing strength from it. I lay down beside him, feeling more afraid than proud, and promptly fell asleep.
Now that it was morning and I was right up against him, the fear was gone and the embarrassment came flooding in. I had behaved like a little girl who had a bad dream.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered quickly. I knew my face was growing red despite the chill in the air.
As I made the move to get up he said, “No.” He licked his lips. “Stay. It’s still early.”
I paused, wondering why he’d want me to stay by his side. Could he have actually liked the fact that I slept beside him as a wife would do with her husband? I suddenly felt very young.
I got up anyway and looked around the cabin. Dawn was just breaking somewhere beyond the trees, ushering in just enough pastel light. Tim was stoking the fire, and from what I could tell, Isaac was still asleep.
“Did you have a bad scare?” Jake asked.
I turned to see him trying to sit up. I went to him and grabbed his arm. “Lie back down,” I said.
“I’m fine.” He grunted and eyed my hand on his arm. “But I don’t mind you holding onto me.”
“Jake,” Tim said as he came toward us with a steaming cup of water. He held it out for him, his eyes passing briefly over me. “I scrounged up the last of the coffee kernels. You think you’ll be all right enough to make it back home today?”
Jake nodded and took the cup. Before he had a sip he gestured to it as if to offer me some. I shook my head politely.
“I reckon I should be okay. I also reckon we wouldn’t have a choice even if I wasn’t. Hank is apt to come back at any time.” He looked to sleeping Isaac as he said that. “We’re just lucky nothing happened to us last night. We can’t trust a madman.”
“I was up and ready for it if that were the case,” Tim said.
I nearly smiled, knowing Tim had been asleep when I woke up from my dream. His eyes darted to me for a moment but I kept my mouth shut. He may have held a gun to my head the other day, but I wasn’t about to rat him out. Not now. It seemed like everything was so unimportant when we were surrounded by death and snow. Angels and monsters.
And yet I still held onto Jake’s arm, my fingers burning into his bare skin. Somehow that seemed important.
I let go and pressed my hands together. I looked expectantly at Tim. “Should I start packing our stuff up?”
He shook his head. “Not with your shoulder. You did enough for us yesterday. Thank you.” He cleared his throat and ran his hand through his thin hair. “You both just take care of yourselves. Isaac, when the crazy bastard gets up, he and I will pack everything up. Then we’re out of here.”
“I can’t let you do everything,” Jake said with annoyance, his dark brows knit together. “I’m not crippled. It’s just a damn bullet wound.”
Tim shot him a placating smile. “You can go out and get us dinner. We’re fresh out of food anyway.”
Having slept in my clothes, I made my way over to the pot of water that had been warmed by the fire and quickly washed my face and ran a twig brush over my teeth, all while keeping my eyes focused on Isaac. Though he himself hadn’t acquired a taste for flesh, he had been the Dr. Frankenstein to Hank’s monster, a story I had read a few years ago. But while that monster seemed to be misunderstood, Hank had been a monster to begin with, and Isaac had seemed hellbent on making him worse. From what we’d all seen, he’d succeeded.
When Isaac began to stir, I quickly turned and left the area, not sure if I could even look into his eyes after what he’d done to Donna. An immoral part of me wished Hank had eaten him.
I caught Jake just as he came back into the cabin from the outhouse.
“Grab your shawl,” he said.
“Why?”
“Because I said so,” was his answer. He picked up his rifle and headed back out into the snow.
I sighed though I was happy to leave the cabin. I quickly wrapped my heavy shawl around me and slipped on my boots, heading out into the frozen air.
It was a fair morning—the sun was just starting to slice through the trees like golden glass and the sky was a cool blue peppered by dark clouds. It was the kind of weather I knew would change, that any moment a storm could come rolling down the white peaks and across the frozen lake. I had to hope we’d already be on our way.
“Where are we going?” I asked Jake, trotting after him, the air sticking needles in my lungs.
“You heard the man,” Jake yelled back. “We’re getting dinner. We’ll need something to eat when we leave this place.”
I gripped my shawl tighter beneath my chin. “This isn’t exactly safe,” I said as we disappeared further into the trees following what looked like a deer path. I kept expecting to see Hank at every turn.
Or Avery.
Or my father.
I had to shake my head and steady my heart which started to skip over those last thoughts. It had been a dream, that’s all. There was no reason to think that Avery had turned into them. There was no reason to think my father had either.
Except for the fact that they both disappeared. One a few years ago, one a few days ago. But knowing what I knew now, what I’d seen, I couldn’t help but fear for their fates. For fates worse than death.
Suddenly I bumped into Jake’s hard back and gasped from the impact.
He turned around, one hand on my good shoulder and peered at me intently. “Ease up, Pine Nut. Did you hear what I said?”
I shook my head. “Sorry,” I managed to say.
“You have that look in your eyes again.” He leaned in closer, as if he was really examining me. With him so close, it was hard to meet his gaze. I looked down at his scuffed boots. My goodness he had large feet.