Ren hummed. Her fingers didn’t stop dabbing.
The ointment no longer stung.
“When he finally let me in and I could examine Richard, he was long gone. He’d been bitten by a snake. Skeever mauled it, but I guess the damage was done.” She paused again.
“Then what happened?”
Lynn tried to look at her, but again Ren’s hold on her jaw tightened.
“Almost done.”
Lynn settled with difficulty. She didn’t like to sit for extended periods of time. “I buried him and took Skeever. Couldn’t let him die there as well, could I?”
Ren finally let her chin go. “If that’s the truth, then thank you for taking care of Richard.”
Lynn checked her expression. It didn’t look as if Ren believed her. Whatever. “I just did what any decent human being would do.” Truthfully, she had only buried Richard because of the conversation her six-year-old self had had with her father; no one dug a grave for the fun of it.
“Right.” Ren sighed and sat up. “About Dean…”
“If you are going to tell me to forgive him, I can spare you the lecture.” She stubbornly met Ren’s marvelously green eyes.
“I was going to ask you if I have to worry about you getting revenge for that cut.” Ren’s voice wasn’t accusatory. She was simply asking, probably so she could deal with things accordingly—including locking Lynn away until Kate had gotten from her what she needed, Lynn suspected.
Lynn had to admit she had considered taking some kind of revenge. But Dean hadn’t seriously injured her, and he had just lost his father. “If you keep him off my back while I’m here, he has nothing to fear. I won’t be here long anyway, just a bed for the night.” A reminder—a warning. At least that was how it was intended. She hoped it didn’t come across as a plea. To enforce her words, she stood and briskly pushed past Ren’s legs.
Ren had to twist to get her legs out of the way or risk injury.
As Lynn walked to the window and looked out into the darkness, she felt Ren’s gaze prickling on her back. The sensation reminded her that something in her pack had broken during the struggle with Dean, and with the memory, the experience of being choked returned as well. She shuddered and willed her anger to wash away her fear. “If he comes at me again, though, I’ll be ready for him.”
Ren hesitated. “That’s fair. Thank you.” She stood with a groan and put the ointment away in the overhead cupboard. “I should go help the boys. Could you take that?” She pointed to a pot, which contained the fatty tissue she’d been working on when Lynn had come in. The underlying message that Lynn was expected to come up with her was crystal clear, and Lynn resigned herself to the inevitable.
“A good hunter is someone who doesn’t just see their prey but also knows at every moment that they will not become prey themselves.” Her father had taught her that, just like he had taught her how to cast a sweeping glance over an area and analyze it in an instant. She noted the location of every fire, torch, and fat-burning lamp on the rooftop as she came up to make sure no one was hiding in their shadows.
The air was saturated with the scent of smoke and drying meat, which meant everyone was working and not busy plotting her death. Ren walked ahead of her to a makeshift table by one of the fires. Flint sat nearby, busily carving something. Eduardo disappeared into the smoke shed. Dani processed meat in her workstation. Cody, Kate, and the kids were nowhere to be seen.
Is that everyone?
She racked her brain to make sure she had them all accounted for: Kate, Dean, Tobias, Cody, Ren, Eduardo, Flint, Dani. She checked their positions again—of those in view, anyway—and relaxed a bit. Balancing the pot on her knee, she closed the door behind her before she caught up to Ren. As long as she kept them all in sight, she’d be okay.
The birds had fallen silent, but monkeys and other nighttime critters had filled the silence left after their songs had ended. Bats danced overhead. She marked the shape of their shadows so she wouldn’t jump any time one swept by. Time to free her hands.
As she crossed the roof to join Ren at the table, she felt exposed. All eyes seemed to be on her, but when she looked up, no one was looking—not even Dani.
Ren gestured at the table. “Right there will be fine.”
Lynn put the pot down. She lingered.
“Why don’t you cut up the carrots, hm?” Ren suggested.
Stoically, Lynn took up one of the knives on the table and went to work. She ignored the way Ren stared at her now weapon-filled hand before returning to peeling potatoes without comment.
After a few minutes, Ren cleared her throat. “Were you born in Canada?”
Lynn blinked. Canada? She tried to remember what she’d told Ren before, why she would bring up Canada, but her frayed mind refused to recall.
“You mentioned a camp in Ottawa.”
“Oh. No. I uh… I was born near what used to be Detroit. But my parents traveled a lot.”
Ren glanced at her. “I suppose they are…?”
“Dead? Yeah. Long ago.” Lynn didn’t like to talk about it. She didn’t like talking about herself at all.
“I’m sorry.” Ren seemed genuinely sympathetic.
Lynn shrugged. “It happens.” She kept her gaze down. She was so tired that her emotions lay close to the surface, and she refused to cry over her dead parents in front of Ren. It had been twenty years since her father had passed away and even longer since she’d lost her mother. She’d managed without them. She needed to steer the conversation away from her own life because talking about her sorry past wasn’t doing anyone any good.
“Ren, can I talk to you?”
At the sound of Cody’s voice so close by, Lynn whirled around and instinctively leveled the little knife in her hand with Cody’s chest. Her heart skipped, then sped to a gallop.
Ren froze next to her.
Cody’s eyes widened. His hands went up. Then he smirked. “Careful now, girlie. I came to talk to my wife.”
Lynn realized her mistake—Cody wasn’t going to hurt her—and lowered the knife. Her hand trembled, and she pressed it and the blade against her thigh. She turned away. “S-Sorry.”
“That’s what happens when you bring in Wilders,” Cody said. “Ren? Can we talk? Privately?”
Her attention still on Lynn, Ren followed him a small distance out onto the roof. She only turned her head away once Cody started talking.
They were looking at her. Lynn could feel their gazes like pinpricks on her skin. It wasn’t just Cody and Ren; the others were watching her too: Eduardo from the opening of the smoke house, Dani from her work shed, and Flint from across the rooftop as he carved. Were they mocking her? Were they afraid of the crazy girl? The Wilder, as this group seemed to call outsiders? Maybe they should be. Years on the road had made her jumpy. Being here, unsure of what was going to happen to her, playing games and desperately scheming to secure any advantage wore on her.
She was so hungry and so tired—now that the adrenaline had worn off again, she could feel just how hungry and tired she was—that she wasn’t thinking straight. Still, life was pretty messed up if your first reaction to being spooked was to plant a knife into someone’s chest. She shook her head as she straightened and tightened her grip on the blade. It felt foreign in her hand now, as if it had betrayed her. Her hand shook slightly.