“Still don’t, I’d bet,” he points out, and I do look up then to take in his crossed arms and his furrowed brow. He looks as rough as I feel, his facial hair scruffy, his burgundy shirt rumpled, and his brown eyes more tired than I’m used to seeing, though I have to remind myself that I’m not reallyusedto seeing them at all.
“We’re about fifty miles east of Preston. Give or take a few,” he supplies, quickly sweeping his hair back beneath his hat. “You’ve been out a few days. We were startin’ to wonder…”
The longer I look at him, the more things come back in fragments. The conversation with Zeke on the porch of the boarding house. The men at the barn. My hand lifts to gingerly touch the back of my head.
“Does it hurt?” Aiden asks, tracking the movement. “Maybe you should sit?”
“No,” I say, letting my hand fall to my side. I take stock of myself at the same time he does, noting that my ribs, too, are still a bit sore. “I’m all right, I think. My head… I hit it when Jake threw me backward. He was the one who—”
“I know which one he was,” Aiden says, tone agitated, but hisvoice softens the smallest amount as he adds, “You won’t have to worry about him anymore.”
It’s not hard to guess his meaning, not when one of my last memories is Aiden striding toward the stable like an oncoming storm while Cypress and I…
“Cypress,” I murmur, and the sudden worry already has me searching before Aiden can draw my gaze to a campfire simmering a few feet away. Standing near it, a tall, familiar figure dressed in black bows his head and offers me a smile.
“Hello, little bird.”
Much like Aiden, he doesn’t look entirely himself, his appearance far less pristine and his presence far less commanding than that of the person who had strolled up to four armed men. Four men who, based on the considerable distance we’ve rapidly put between us and Preston, likely all met a similar fate.
“They’re dead?” I ask, looking to confirm my suspicions as my gaze flips back to Aiden. “You killed them?”
“Yes.” He keeps his eyes on mine as he waits for my reaction, and I suppose I’m waiting for it, too. Still too busy trying to piece things together to try to figure out where I fit.
“Did you know?” is the first thing I manage to ask.
“Did I know what?”
“Is that why you came? You heard people talking? About me?”
“No, I came because…” His eyes narrow. “Why are you asking me that?”
“Because Zeke said…”
I can still hear them talking to each other in the stable.Zeke said. Zeke said. Zeke—
“Zeke saidwhat?” Aiden asks, but I’m already shaking my head to try to get rid of the sound of their voices.
“You told me to stay out of sight.”
“It was the safest thing for you to do.”
“Why? Because—”
“Because you don’t know how to defend yourself.”
“And because you heard them talking about me. You knew they were going to—”
“No, if I’d known— Cora, I didn’tneedto know what they were going to do. I already know what this world is.”
And you don’tis the implied end of that sentence, and it stings more than it should, realizing he’s yet another person who doesn’t think I’m capable. That he has the evidence for it, too, considering he had to step in and save me. They both did.
“I tried,” I say pathetically, watching the crease in Aiden’s brow deepen as I press my hands tighter together in front of me. “I tried to fight back. I know I should’ve—”
“There’s nothing youshould’vedone,” Cypress says, coming closer to where Aiden and I stand by the wagon. “You’re not to blame for anything. It was—”
“It was our fault,” Aiden interrupts, looking from me to Cypress pointedly. “We’re to blame for what happened.”
“But I thought you said…” More of Jake’s words resurface from the darkness, and I, too, turn my gaze to Cypress. “You stole money from them.”