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CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

FREYA

I’m on my side, palm on my lower stomach. If I press my eye to the boarded windows, I can see a sliver of the sky. By the position of the moon, I think it’s around midnight. The men in the house haven’t slept. I can tell there are a lot of them, maybe a dozen. They pass the hallway outside my door frequently.

Deacon once said he didn’t want to have to choose between his land and me, but I’m afraid he’s going to have to. And I know what he’ll choose, even if it breaks him.

My finger traces over my belly.

He’ll pick us.

I squeeze my eyes shut and open them. There’s a little glow from the nightlight in the corner, and it brings me back to my childhood.

I don’t have many memories of my mother, but I do remember her putting me to bed. She’d sit on the other side of the crib bars while I fell asleep. I remember the nightlight on the wall. It was a single bulb, the cover made out of a mason jar.

I wonder if she was as scared as I am now.

The floor creaks outside the door. Slowly, I sit up. It sounds different than the heavy tread of the men. It’s cautious, quiet .

The knob turns. My stomach tightens, my mind going right back to when Aiden grabbed my arm and touched my face.

I push back against the wall. The door swings, and I let out a harsh gasp as Bittern steps in.

“Bittern,” I whisper.

He shuts the door. “We have to go,” he says.

A tingle shocks through me. “What?”

“There’s a man waiting for you at the strip of Deacon’s land between ours and the McClaine’s,” he says.

“Deacon’s Hill,” I whisper. “Who’s waiting?”

“His name’s Jack,” he says. “He’ll take you to safety.”

“And Deacon?”

“Deacon is going to…stay behind to clean up.”

The ceiling creaks, boots move. We both freeze, but nobody comes downstairs. Bittern runs a hand over his face, wiping the layer of sweat off his forehead. I wonder if Aiden gave him his pills today.

“I need you to help me get the boards off the window,” he says, reaching into his pocket and taking out a small hammer. He crosses the room and kneels by the windowsill.

I scramble up and tiptoe on bare feet to him. He fits the hammer beneath the bottom board and pulls slowly, trying hard not to make a sound. It pulls off, but it feels like it takes an age to come free. I catch it before it hits the ground, and he starts on another.

“We need to pull five boards off for us to fit through,” I whisper.

He glances up. “I’m not going.”

I shake my head. “No, you’re going. I can’t go without you.”

He eases the second board off and hands it to me. “No, you’re small and quick. I’m slow.”

“I won’t go,” I whisper.

He glances at me briefly. “Yeah, you will. Got a baby, that comes first.”

He’s right. I blink, a hot tear etching down my cheek. Bittern eases the third board off, and I stack it with the others. The fourth board is giving him trouble, the nail running through a knot. It won’t pull free the way the others did .

His hands shake. He wipes his eyes.

“Can I tell you something, Frey?” he says, voice hoarse. “Something I just told Deacon.”

I sink to a crouch. “What?”

He’s in profile, a bead of sweat hanging off his nose.

“I’m not Aiden’s boy,” he says.

My heart hurts so badly, I don’t know how to absorb another hit out of nowhere. Bittern sets the hammer down for a second and takes a deep breath. I scramble up and get the half-empty bottle of water sitting on the floor by the bed. He takes it and has some before he shakes and spills it down his shirt.

“How do you know that?” I whisper.

He glances at me. “Lady came from a real rough place. Her family moved down from up north when her mother married a man who worked in the mountains. Aiden got Lady pregnant with Wayland and Ryland when they were teenagers, and he took her to live with him. But she went back to her family real quick, begging for refuge, and her stepdad… He got her knocked up.”

Sickness rises in my throat.

“Oh my God,” I whisper. “Did he go to jail?”

“Lady was just eighteen when she ran home. She got groomed is my understanding.” Bittern sets the bottle aside and takes up the hammer again. “Aiden was humiliated. Never wanted anybody to know, so he made Lady go back with him and raised me.”

It makes sense now why Aiden never liked Bittern the way he liked Wayland and Ryland. I’m speechless. Bittern spits on the ground, struggling to get the tines of the hammer under the last board.

“Nobody in this goddamn family stood a chance,” he says under his breath.

I’m silent, remembering the disgust on Aiden’s face when I begged him not to touch me. This is why he never acted on his feelings. He’s a broken man, haunted by ghosts.

“Did you ever meet your father?” I whisper .

Bittern shakes his head. “Aiden went to his house with a shotgun and told him if he ever came near his family, he’d blow his head open. Might be one of the few good things Aiden ever did.”

The board starts easing off. Bittern gets excited, his eyes flashing, and the board lets out a squeak.

“Slow,” I say.

He nods and takes a breath.

“Bittern, can I ask you something?”

He nods again. I realize now where I got into the habit of doing that. It’s because Bittern never asks or tells without checking with a person first. I think I just picked it up from him without knowing.

“Aiden hates me because of my mother. But that’s not the whole story, is it?”

He goes still, lids lowered.

“I think because…he was always one wrong move from becoming just like Lady’s stepfather,” he says finally. “He was really fucked up from what happened. I’m sorry he took it out on you.”

He’s right, but my brain is so tired, I can’t absorb his words. The board eases off, and I dart forward to catch it before it clatters to the ground. The window is halfway exposed.

“Take the next board off,” I say, gripping his arm. “Please. For me.”

His jaw works. A second etches by. Then, he pushes the hammer underneath and starts tugging. This one is the easiest. It comes off cleanly, and he sets it aside. Behind it, the window is grimy, like it’s been closed up for a while.

“Alright, let’s go,” Bittern says, digging his fingers in and pushing the glass up. The wood squeaks, but he keeps going until it’s big enough for him to get his broad body through.

Working quickly, he unlatches the screen and puts his head out. A gust of cold air tears through, raising goosebumps on my arms.

“All clear,” he says.

He wriggles himself halfway out, swinging both legs over the edge. Our eyes meet, and then he falls. Heart in my throat, I lean out.

Thank God, it’s barely five feet off the ground. He’s standing there, unscathed, holding his hands up .

“Come on, Frey,” he says. “We gotta go before someone comes out on the porch.”

I swing the lower half of my body out, the cold air biting my bare skin. All I have to cover me is my slip and the chastity belt underneath.

“What if they chase us?” I whisper.

He looks up at me, and for a second, I see him the way he was before the mines—quiet, sweetness in those blue eyes.

“I got a gun in my belt,” he says. “I’m ready to go out in a blaze of glory.”

He says it with a smile, but my heart aches. I drop into his arms, and he sets me on my feet, taking my hand. The ground is cold on my feet, but I don’t have a choice. We get across the yard to the edge of the woods when Bittern stops. He pulls his flannel shirt off, leaving him in just his undershirt, and wraps it around me.

“I got no shoes,” he says.

“It’s fine,” I say. “We just have to get to Jack.”

The front door slams open. Bittern doesn’t wait. He takes my arm and drags me into the shadows. The moon casts enough glow to highlight the worn path ahead, but I cling to him as we move quickly through the dark.

My feet are ice cold when we break from the woods. In the distance, I think I see a figure on horseback. My heart flutters at the thought of it being Deacon, even though I know it’s not.

Click.

My heart leaps. Bittern spins and shoves me behind him.

Aiden stands behind us, pistol up. He’s carrying his father’s revolver, the one he kept his entire life. It’s old, but it works. I know because I’ve seen him use it. His chest heaves, the buttons of his shirt mismatched, like he got dressed quickly.

“Don’t fucking move,” he snarls.

Bittern raises his hand. “Don’t point that at her.”

Aiden’s eyes flash. “What is she to you? Why’re you always sticking your neck out for her? ”

Bittern doesn’t speak for a long time. I see Aiden’s patience wearing thin. Bittern’s hand lowers. He’s sweating so hard, there’s no doubt he hasn’t gotten his pills in hours.

“It wasn’t right, what you done,” he says finally.

“What I did?” Aiden repeats. “What did I do but raise you all?”

“You smashed it,” Bittern says, voice shaking. “You smashed all her shit.”

Voices sound from the woods. I hear horses coming closer with a steady beat. My stomach sinks. We got close, but we’re not getting out of this one. There’s nowhere to run except out into the open field. The men and dogs will take us down before we get halfway there.

Another set of hooves joins the chorus.

Pounding from behind.

Cowed, I turn and tip over onto my ass in the dirt. A pale white horse skids to a halt, grass spraying, and a man swings down, coat whipping around his body. He pulls a shotgun from the saddle as his boots hit the ground.

His body turns in a graceful arc. The shotgun spins in his hand. The butt hits Aiden across the head with a sickening thud.

Someone is screaming. I think it might be me. Quicker than I can see what’s happening, Jack is in the saddle again, his huge ghost of a horse spinning on a dime. A hand comes down and grabs me by the scruff of Bittern’s flannel shirt, yanking me painfully off my feet.

Then, I’m in the saddle, an arm clamped around my body, and we’re riding hard into the dark.

My eyes stream. The air feels like icy cold fingers raking over my half-naked body. Exile runs like it’s the last time he’ll ever run. His huge body takes us through the dark so fast, I can barely focus on the trees flying by.

I squirm, trying to turn. Jack makes a sound in his throat, a harsh warning.

“Stay,” he shouts.

In the distance, the lights of the McClaine house fade. Bittern is back there with the men. He’s a defenseless bird, just like his namesake, and they’ll crush what life he has left in him .

“Bittern,” I scream, sick with desperation.

“He’s got a gun,” Jack says. “He can fight.”

He doesn’t know Bittern. Aiden will beat him and leave him bleeding out on the hill. When the frost comes tonight, he’ll die frozen, far away from his home.

“Where are we going?” I beg through the tears falling fast and hard.

He puts an arm around my body, locking me against his side.

“Hold on tight. We’re going to Sovereign Mountain.”

I think I misheard him—I’ve seen the road signs and heard people talk about that place. There’s no way he can make the run to Sovereign Mountain tonight, not when it’s down the highway past South Platte. By the map, it’s a two and a half hour drive via the most direct route.

I turn my head. In the distance, the mountains loom closer.

My stomach churns.

We’re not going by the map. He’s taking us into the mountains, the ones I don’t trust because they’re nothing like the cradle of the Appalachians. I squeeze my eyes shut and burrow my face into the shoulder of his coat. There’s nothing I can do but let him urge Exile on, the shadows deep from the overhead moon.

Deacon trusts Jack Russell to keep me safe.

That’s all I need to know.