Chapter 157: Just the way things go, I guess

I woke up once again reaching for a gun that wasn’t in my hand.

My chest jerked hard enough to hurt. For a second, I didn’t know where I was. The dark pressed in from all sides, but something lighter bled into the damp trees from overhead..

Fuck, my head hurts.

It was…morning?

Might’ve been around 5 or 6, too.

I hated waking up this early.

I silently rubbed the bottom of my eye. My stomach rolled. My pulse was still sprinting. Every shadow looked wrong. Every branch looked like a hand.

The memory of my outburst last night invaded my mind before anything else could.

God damn it.

I dragged both palms over my face and forced myself to breathe. In. Out. In. Out.

The fire had burned low during the night. Embers glowed weak and orange in the pit. Lila’s blanket was tossed aside nearby.

Naomi’s spot was empty.

At first, my brain didn’t accept it. It just looked at the shape of the ground where she’d slept. Then at the missing pack. Then at the missing rifle.

Wait…the hell?

Then it hit all at once.

I was on my feet before I knew it.

“Naomi?”

My voice came out rough and thin.

No answer.

I turned in a circle, scanning the trees, the brush, the slope down toward the creek. Nothing but morning fog and trunks.

“Naomi!”

Still nothing.

Behind me, fabric rustled.

Lila sat up slowly, hair a mess, eyes half-lidded. She looked at me, then at Naomi’s empty space, then back at me.

“She leave a note?” she asked.

I stared at her.

“What?”

“She leave a note,” Lila repeated, calm as ever. “Seems rude not to.”

I crossed the camp in three strides and snatched up the bedroll. Empty. Cold.

“She’s gone.”

“Yeah,” Lila said. “I can see that.”

Something hot moved through my chest.

“When did you know?”

She stretched her arms over her head like we were waking up in an apartment instead of rotting in the woods.

“Couple hours ago.”

I froze.

“You knew?”

“She was loud.” Lila shrugged. “Couldn’t sleep through all that digging around.”

I felt my jaw tighten so hard it hurt.

“And you didn’t wake me?”

She blinked at me, almost amused.

“Why would I?”

I looked away before I did something stupid. My head was pounding already. The dream still sat behind my eyes, raw and ugly. Faces split open. Mouths asking me what kind of man I was.

Now this.

Another person gone while I slept.

Another empty place where somebody used to be.

…Last night was the last straw for her, wasn’t it?

It had to be.

Aubrey leaving me flashed through my head so suddenly it almost staggered me. Her back turned. That feeling in my throat. The certainty that I hadn’t mattered enough to stay for.

I bent over, hands on my knees, trying to steady myself.

“Wow,” Lila said softly. “You’re taking this hard.”

I straightened and looked at her.

“She left because of you.”

Her eyebrows rose.

“Me?”

“You threatened her every five minutes. You stared at her like prey. You kept trying to start shit. You made this place impossible.”

Lila stood up now, blanket falling away from her shoulders. She didn’t look angry. That was the worst part. She looked patient.

“No,” she said. “She left because of you.”

I laughed once. It sounded ugly.

“Don’t.”

“You dragged her around while obsessing over me. You defended me when she hated it. You let her think she mattered, then reminded her every day she didn’t.”

“That’s bullshit.”

“Is it?”

She stepped closer.

“You think people leave because I’m mean?” she asked quietly. “People leave because you make them hope first.”

That landed harder than I wanted it to.

I looked away.

She noticed.

Of course she did.

“She was never staying long,” Lila continued. “Naomi’s smart. Smart people don’t stay where they’re not chosen.”

“Shut up.”

“You’re mad at me because she made the choice you were too scared to make.”

I moved before I thought about it, grabbing her by the arms.

“Shut. Up.”

Her eyes dropped to my hands, then back to my face. No fear. Not even surprise.

Just interest.

“You’re shaking,” she said.

I let go like she burned me.

I was shaking.

My whole body felt thin and frayed, like one more pull would split it open.

“She could be dead,” I said.

“She could be.”

“And you don’t care.”

Lila tilted her head.

“I care that you care.”

I turned and started searching the camp. Tracks in the dirt. Broken grass. Anything. My thoughts wouldn’t line up right. They kept slipping. Dream images mixed with real ones. Naomi kneeling over me last night. Blood in my mother’s kitchen that never happened. Lila smiling beside all of it.

I found prints leading north. Boot tread.

One person. Fast pace.

“She left before sunrise,” I muttered.

Lila crouched beside me. “Mm.”

“You could’ve stopped her.”

“Why would I stop someone abandoning us?”

“Because we needed her.”

“No,” Lila said. “You needed her.”

I stood again.

There it was.

That same feeling. Deja vu so sharp it made me sick.

Standing in front of someone who hurt me, hearing them twist it until I was the cause. Until I was apologizing for being wounded.

I’d lived this before.

Same face. Same trap.

“You know what you do?” I said.

Lila’s expression changed slightly. Curious now.

“You break things, then stand there acting confused why they’re broken.”

She stared at me.

“You push and push and push until people can’t breathe, then you call them selfish for leaving.”

A muscle in her cheek twitched.

“That’s not fair.”

“Fair?”

I stepped closer.

“You tried to kill me. You bit a man and smiled. You terrorize anybody that gets near me. And somehow every time, I’m the bad guy for reacting.”

Her eyes reddened.

“You think I do these things for fun?”

“I think you do them because you can.”

For the first time that morning, she looked hurt.

Real hurt.

But tears never came, not even when I expected them.

“I do them because I love you.”

The words made me tired more than anything else.

I looked toward the tree line where Naomi had gone.

Maybe she was bleeding somewhere.

Maybe she was halfway gone already.

Maybe she was the smartest one of us.

“Listen, honey..”

I never looked at her.

“We don’t need that bitch. We never did. Let’s just…focus on Canada, yeah?” She said.

“We’re moving.”

She studied me for a long second.

Then she smiled faintly.

“Don’t tell me you want to go look for her.”

I grabbed my pack.

Behind us, the dead fire finally gave out.

Lila was already hurrying after me, the words she had been planning to use in deterring me already boiling in her throat.

—

Harry had kept his head down the whole walk back.

The trail into camp was familiar enough that he didn’t need to think about where he was stepping. Mud. Roots. Flattened grass. The same path they’d worn down over days of stopping, packing, moving, surviving.

His mind was elsewhere.

The ambush in the woods. The gunfire. Bill’s face in his head. The boy with brown hair he still hadn’t gotten his hands on.

By the time the camp came into view, people were already in motion.

Tents were being torn down. Bedrolls rolled tight. Cans and dried food sorted into piles. Backpacks passed from hand to hand. Someone cursed because a strap snapped. Someone else laughed too loudly at nothing.

They were moving again.

Closer to Canada.

That had become the answer for everything.

Hungry? Canada.

Cold? Canada.

People dying? Canada.

As if the word itself could save them.

Nobody greeted him when he walked in.

A few people noticed. He knew they did. Eyes slid over him, then away just as quick. Nobody asked where he’d gone. Nobody asked if he was hurt. Nobody cared enough to waste the breath.

That part didn’t sting anymore.

It had become normal.

Harry stepped through the camp like a ghost and ducked into the tent he shared with his mother.

Empty.

Blankets tossed aside. Her bag half-zipped near the wall. The old sweater she slept in missing.

He frowned.

“Mum?”

Nothing.

He stepped back out into the gray daylight. Wind moved through the trees and carried the smell of smoke, sweat, damp canvas.

Strange.

She was always somewhere close. If not talking to someone, then pretending to be useful so people wouldn’t complain about feeding her.

Harry scanned the camp once, then again.

No sign of her.

He drifted toward an old stump near the edge of camp and sat down hard. Elbows on knees. Hands hanging between them. He watched everyone work.

Nobody looked at him.

Of course they didn’t.

Nobody expected him to lift crates or tie down tarps or scout routes. Harry had earned a reputation long before he ever earned respect. Quiet boy. Moody boy. Useless boy. The one who got smacked around and kept his mouth shut.

Fine.

Let them think that.

His eyes moved across the camp again.

Faces. Packs. Fires dying out.

Then they landed on Bill’s tent.

They stayed there.

Not for any real reason. Maybe because hatred needed somewhere to rest. Maybe because staring at that tent was easier than staring inward.

Canvas walls. Closed flap. Rifle leaned against a crate outside. Bill’s boots beside the entrance.

Harry’s jaw tightened.

He pictured walking over there with a knife.

Pictured Bill waking up too late.

Pictured how quiet it would be after.

The flap moved.

Harry barely reacted at first. Someone coming out meant nothing.

Then his mother stepped through.

He went still.

Sheryl froze for half a second when the morning air hit her. One hand moved quickly to fix her shirt. Her hair was mussed badly, flattened on one side and wild on the other. Her cheeks were flushed. She wouldn’t meet anyone’s eyes.

She looked…small.

Not physically.

Smaller somehow.

A woman trying to carry shame in both hands and hoping nobody noticed.

Harry stared at her.

Something in his chest folded in on itself.

Then tore open.

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