Page 22

Claire

W inter arrived with a vengeance the following day. Soon after we set out, snow began to fall in thick clumps, blanketing the barren forest in shimmering white. Unfortunately, our bikes had taken us as far as they could, and we’d have to finish our journey on foot.

“I know,” John said sympathetically as I gave the abandoned bikes a wistful look. He touched my shoulder, but I shrugged it off.

I was confused and angry. His refusal to share what awaited us in the Valley felt like a betrayal.

At the same time, I trusted him enough to believe that he had a reason for keeping it to himself.

I didn’t believe everything Asha had said—she clearly had some traumatic history she wasn’t sharing—but I was still frustrated by John’s silence, and it showed.

Without his side of the story, it’s hard to know what to believe.

John raised a quizzical eyebrow at my mood, but otherwise let it go. I was glad; now wasn’t a good time to discuss it. Tonight, when we made camp, I’d get answers .

We walked for hours, well into the morning, but as noon arrived, the sky swelled with thick, ominous clouds.

The wind picked up, howling in my ears, and the snowfall dramatically increased.

In the span of ten minutes, it went from light snow to whiteout conditions, with barely three feet of visibility in any direction.

I held my scarf over my face, but it didn’t stop the wind from whipping my skin mercilessly and chilling me to the bone. I was trying to follow John, but I could hardly see him in the swirling storm.

“Head for that tree!” Kimmy shouted above the wind, but I couldn’t even see the direction she was pointing.

Confused and disoriented, I put one foot in front of the other for as long as I could.

Snow kept falling into my eyes, temporarily blinding me, and the voices of the others sounded farther and farther away.

I was going the wrong way, but I didn’t know how to get to where they were.

If they left me behind, I’d never find them again.

I took a breath and tried not to panic. The wind howled so loudly that I wasn’t even certain they’d hear me even if I yelled. I picked a direction and took three rapid steps…and collided with something solid.

“Ouch!”

“Claire?” John called out.

I’d walked into a wooden wall, barely visible through the storm. I touched it, feeling the outline of logs. A cabin?

“Claire! Where are you?”

“Here!” I yelled back. “I…I think I found something.”

“Stay where you are; I’m coming to get you. Keep talking to me.”

His voice sounded closer, so I kept calling him. A minute later, he emerged from the wall of white, his scarf pulled up over his face like mine, his jacket covered in snow.

“I think it might be a cabin,” I shouted over the wind. “We should check it out. We need to get out of this weather.”

John glanced around us, clearly conflicted, but we didn’t have much choice. There was no putting up a tent in this storm, and ours didn’t have space for four people anyway.

“Alright,” he said, “but look for signs of people. If we see any, we leave. And stay behind me.”

I nodded, and he raised his rifle. We felt our way along the length of the wall until it rounded a corner and spotted a set of stone steps leading up to a front door. It was open, and the door was swinging wildly in the wind. Fresh snow had accumulated on the steps, partially blocking the entrance.

We did our best to clear the stairs, and John went in first, rifle raised.

Only dim light came in from the shuttered windows—which remarkably still had glass in them—but I made out the interior of the small cabin, which included an old wood stove, some kitchen cabinets, and a rotted wooden table and two metal chairs.

In the far corner, there was a door that looked like it led to a small bedroom.

Other than that, it was empty, and judging by the dust and the sparse contents, no one had been here in a long, long time.

John went to check the back bedroom, but it was also empty. It was as close to safe as it could be.

“Let me get the other two,” he said to me. “Stay here and keep watch. If you see anyone, you scream as loud as you can, alright?”

I nodded, and he left. I tried to close the front door to stop more snow from blowing inside, but the latch was broken.

I held it closed with my weight until the others returned.

Kimmy and Asha soon arrived, scarlet-faced and shivering.

John tied the door closed with the climbing rope, and then we were safe at last. We huddled close together for warmth as we waited for the howling wind to quiet.

It took hours for the storm to die down.

Kimmy and Asha chatted quietly back and forth, playing games like I-Spy to pass the time.

John tried to talk to me, but I met him with curt answers, and he eventually stopped, shooting me a hurt look.

Guilt roiled in my gut, and I wanted to confront him. I just didn’t want an audience.

Eventually, in the afternoon, the storm abated. We had to dig our way out of the cabin, and by the time we finished, the light had already started to fade.

“We’ll stay the night,” John said, and Kimmy nodded.

“Asha and I will go hunting,” she replied, hooking her arm through Asha’s. To my surprise, Asha gave a very small smile. “You and Claire can set things up here.”

We agreed, and then John and I went to gather firewood. Sticks and branches had been scattered everywhere during the storm, so it wasn’t difficult to find. Wood was the only thing we never seemed to lack.

“So,” John said, attacking a branch with his hatchet a little more aggressively than was probably necessary, “who pissed in your oatmeal this morning?”

“What?” I asked, caught off guard by his directness.

“Baby, I’m not stupid,” John said with a frustrated chuckle. “I know you’re pissed at me. Could you maybe just tell me why?”

His acknowledgement caused the dam inside me to burst.

“I don’t know,” I said with venom, “maybe because the Jamesons are going to hunt me down when we get to the Valley, unbeknownst to me? Maybe because my boyfriend is keeping vital information from me for no reason I can tell? Or maybe because he has skeletons in his closet that are starting to make their way out, and I don’t know what to believe anymore. ”

My voice shook on the last word. John stared at me impassively, but I could practically see the wheels turning in his head.

“Has Kimmy been talking?” he finally said. “I told her not to bother you with this.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, John,” I said, crossing my arms. “Stop avoiding me. I deserve to know what I’m getting myself into! And you lied to me.”

“I never lied to you,” John said defensively. “I told you that you didn’t need to worry about it, which was the truth.”

“Why should you decide what I get to worry about? Hmm?” I shot back. “You think I’m a child? That I’m so fragile that I can’t handle the truth? Do you really think so little of me?”

Each word seemed to hit him like a blow.

“Of course not,” he said softly. “It’s not about that.”

“Then what is it about? Start talking. I mean it.”

John studied my hardened expression and crossed arms, then sighed wearily.

“Let’s finish this and head back,” he said. “Then I’ll tell you everything. I promise.”

We finished gathering firewood in silence, then hauled it all back to the cabin. Once we’d built up the fire in the woodstove, John took a seat on one of the chairs beside it.

“Tell me what you know,” John said at last. “I’ll fill in the blanks.”

I sat across from him in the other chair. “Let’s start with this whole Jameson thing. ”

I told him what Asha had said about the family’s feud and their strong opposition to outsiders. When I finished, he leaned back in his chair, considering me.

“All true,” he said. “They won’t accept you. Wouldn’t matter who you were; you’re not one of us, and the fact that it’s me bringing you home is gonna be a major thorn in the old bastard’s side. He never liked me.”

“Why?” I asked, and he shrugged.

“I never did anything to them personally, but he and Granddad always hated each other, so I guess I inherited the grudge. Having a bit of a wild streak when I was a teenager didn’t help.”

A ghost of a smile touched my lips. I’d heard all about John’s stint as a rebellious teen—the silly pranks he’d played, the trouble he’d gotten himself into. Against my will, it softened me a little, reminded me that I did know him…whatever Asha said.

“What happened when your grandfather died?” I asked, more gently this time. “I…heard that Jameson was supposed to become chairman, but then something happened to change people’s minds.”

John chuckled darkly. “You could say that. That ‘something’ was a bunch of human traffickers.”

I blanched. “What?”

“Yeah,” he said quietly, his eyes glazed with memory. “See, they got a kid to lure Allie to them when the Armstrongs visited the trading post. They get kids to talk to other kids, gain their trust, and then abduct them.”

I shivered at the memory of the woman who’d tried to lure me the same way.

He cleared his throat. “They sell them at slave markets that cater to a certain…customer. The younger, the better. I don’t have to tell you about the kind of people who shop there, because you met them in Little River.”

Just like the man who’d asked him how much I was.

“Anyway, that’s how they got Allie,” John said, and pain crept into his voice. “I’ve known that kid since the day she was born. Held her, fed her, played with her, babysat her countless times.”

I reached across the table and touched his hand. Allie was his favourite of the Armstrong kids, and through the countless stories I’d been told, John had always acted as her protective big brother .

“I wasn’t going to let them have her. I couldn’t.”

“I know,” I said softly. “So you went after her.”

“And what I found will live with me till the day I die.”