“Aiden,” Cypress interjects, “we—”
“Don’t. Don’t make her promises we might not be able to keep,” Aiden fires in his direction. “She deserves to know what she’s getting into. To know the type oflaw-abiding citizensshe’s getting into it with.” He sighs and looks at me again. “If you have something else, something you can go back to… What about your family?”
“They’re all gone,” I tell him, hoping he’ll assume the worst because, somehow, that’s better. “Finding this maniswhat I have.”
Aiden stares at his partner, the accusation that he’s insane for offering heavy in his gaze, and maybe I’m just as insane for even considering taking him up on it, but my choice is already made. Not only because I have no other options, but because, despite the fact that they’re self-confessed killers, they’re also the reason I’m alive. They’ve had multiple chances to hurt me and haven’t, which is more than I can say for anyone else.
I also just don’t want to be alone anymore.
I wait, seeing the moment that the silent communication passing between them ends in acceptance, though not in agreement. In Aiden staring at the ground as he mutters, “Fine, we’ll set out in the morning.”
He leaves then, walking away to tend to the horses as if he can’t stand to spend one more moment in the present company.
“Have patience with him, little bird,” Cypress says, watching him go. “Not all of us change direction easily.”
I peer up at him, those light blue eyes of his immediately on mine. “Why do you call me that?”
“Hm?”
“Little bird. Why do you keep calling me little bird?”
“Suits you.” He removes his coat and wraps it around my shoulders before I even realize I’m shivering. “Puts me in mindof a songbird I used to see.”
“I’ll bet she could actually sing,” I mutter, trying not to be too conspicuous as I tuck my nose into the collar and take a deep breath in. “Fly, too.”
“Indeed she could. Once she learned how,” he replies, smiling softly, and my chest warms in a way that has nothing to do with the added layer of clothing. However, when I catch sight of Aiden’s turned back again, the sensation wanes.
“It seems that you are still adversaries,” I say to Cypress, nodding in the direction of his partner. “Because of me.”
“Because ofus,” Cypress corrects. “He thinks you will come to harm traveling with us.”
“Will I?”
“I don’t know,” he says truthfully. “Perhaps. But then, you could just as easily come to harm without us, and I’ve always been inclined to believe that certain paths cross for a reason.”
I wrap myself up tighter, simultaneously finding comfort in the impossible idea that I’m not really as lost as I feel. “Is that your god then?” I ask him eventually. “Fate?”
“One of them.” He sighs, then gestures back toward the fire. “Come on, you’ll feel better after you’ve had something in your stomach.”
I laugh, following his lead. “Seems like every time I see you, you’re trying to get me to eat.”
“I am,” he says simply, no pity in his tone. Only understanding. “I know what it feels like to be starving, Cora. To be so hungry that you stop fearing death because the hunger itself has become a vicious, living thing.”
There’s truth in what he’s saying, but so is there in the fact that Idostill fear dying. That, even more so, I fear never getting to live. That I amterrifiedI might never get the chance, and I want to tell him that…but I don’t.
Somehow, I think he already knows.
This time when I wake, I know precisely where I am.
Outside the wagon, I can hear the unmistakable sounds of morning activity. Horses, people, and things all moving about as their outlines pass by on the canvas walls. Inside the wagon, everything is still and sweltering, tinged with the scent of last night’s campfire until I push off the blankets and move toward the promise of fresh air. I take a deep pull of it before I’m even fully outside, then another as I look around.
Aiden is once more over by the horses, busy tacking up his own when he glances over his shoulder in my direction. His eyes sweep up and down when they land on me, his jaw tight, and then he turns back to his task. As soon as he’s finished, he hoists himself up into his saddle and is gone, disappearing into a cloud of dust without so much as a word or a backward glance as I’m beginning to believe is his habit.
I press my lips tightly together, wondering how, precisely, to go about returning to his good graces. If I ever held a spot thereto begin with.
“Good morning, Cora,” Cypress calls from behind me and I turn to see him, crouched near the ground as he rolls up what appears to be the second of two sleeping mats that had been situated near the fire. “Did you get some more rest?”
Oh, God.I had been so tired last night that I hadn’t even given thought to where they would sleep with me being in the wagon. No wonder Aiden is upset with me staying longer.