Honestly, I think the worst of it is being alone again, the endless promise of it stretching ahead of me the farther I go. Because while misery may love company, it will lie down just fine with loneliness.
I’d been rash to leave. I could’ve stayed, confronted Aiden about why he had the ticket, why he kept it, but what otherexplanation could there be than he was hoping at some point to use it?
Experience taught me even better than they could that the most likely possibility was that I’d fallen for another dream. Foolishly believed in the mirage when Iknewbetter, knew that nothing so good waited for someone like me.
So why stay? Force myself to endure hearing his answer? Watch his expression slide into indifference? Even if it hadn’t been today, the day would’ve come that they’d realize they didn’t really want me. That I could be easily left behind. Again.
I’d rather leave than be left.
I dismount and walk beside Tess, guiding her back into the water for a little while before cutting back out. It feels warmer now than this morning when I’d stopped to rest and tried to wash away some of the fatigue. Careful to conceal our path afterward, just as Cypress had done the day before.
God, I wish I could stop missing them so much. Wish it would stop feeling like a gaping physical wound.
Maybe they’d come after me. Maybe they wouldn’t. Maybe they would come for Cypress’s gun at the very least, the knife I’d left nowhere close to replacing its value, but seeing as he still has my father’s and I am no longer stupid enough to go out into the world unarmed…
All I can think about is how Aiden moved to protect me after I told him that David wanted to take me away. How Cypress sounded when he promised that no one would. How he’d held me when I told him about my mother. It had felt soreal.
It wasn’t,whispers the voice in my head.You’re nothing but a burden for them. Someone they feel like they have to take care of when they’d really rather be rid of you. They have each other. You don’t mean anything to anyone. How many times do you have to learn the same lesson?
When the sound of gunfire reaches my ears, I know that, outhere, it could be anything or anyone. But I already know it’s not. I bite the inside of my cheek to stifle another sob, swing back up into my saddle, and urge Tess forward. Determined not to make the same mistake again.
I pick up Cora’s trail again by midmorning, the thrill of discovery replacing some of the exhaustion that had been threatening to take over.
The last hours had been excruciatingly slow going, the water too wide to allow me to easily scan each side for her exit from the stream. Instead, I have been forced to practically crawl up one side and then the other in sections.
I hate to think how far behind I am. Not to mention the fact that I’m wet, tired, and downright pissed off. Mainly at myself.
I stopped only once for a few hours, and only because I could no longer make out the ground, let alone a trail. Reluctantly, I’d found a place to close my eyes, but I hadn’t slept. Couldn’t, knowing she was out here upset and alone. Knowing that we all are.
When her tracks first disappeared, Cypress and I decided to split up, him heading upstream while I headed down. Watching him walk away, even knowing it was temporary, hadn’t been justan echo of Cora’s absence, but an additional source of guilt.
Cypress hates being by himself, the quiet making him anxious and on edge. So much so that when we first started riding together, it had taken a long time for him to stop filling every silent moment with chatter. I hadn’t minded. I’d already spent enough time in silence to last a lifetime.
The addition of Cora’s company had been an unexpected balm on that old wound. The two of them able to ramble on well into the night while I pretended not to listen to the alternating melody of their voices. Pretended that I wasn’t getting attached to hearing her laugh, to seeing her smile, as much as Cypress.
Now, I stare at her tracks as they move out of the water and along the bank, still heading in the same direction she left in. Resolve steels my spine as I stand from my crouch, raise my gun in the air, and fire twice in quick succession.
I manage to stay on her trail after that without misstep despite a few more solid attempts on her part to mislead us. I even gain some ground based on the still-warm embers from a fire that she’d tried to bury after she’d stopped to rest. The closer I get, the more I pick up the pace, pushing Helios faster. Calculating that if she keeps on this path long enough she’ll hit another town, and I want to catch her before she does.
Some conversations are best left private, and this is one of them.
When I first see her in the distance, I’m almost too scared to hope. But I’m already leaning forward, digging my heels deeper into the stirrups as I give Helios his reins.
After all the mornings I’ve spent trying to run…let it be a chase now if it has to be.
I don’t spot him until he is already closer than he should be. Until I have no choice but to start flying, adrenaline coursing through my veins and exhilaration nipping at my heels. The only thing that feels faster than Tess and me is my heart as it thunders in my chest. And Aiden. He’s gaining on me.
He’s going to catch me or I’m going to fall and break my neck trying to outrun him, and it irritates me knowing the only reason either hasn’t already occurred is because he really has taught me to be a better rider. Because he’s taught me to be in control instead of just hanging on.
When I hear him shout my name behind me, my fingers wrap more firmly in Tess’s reins and mane. Urging her on as she eats up terrain and churns up dust in our wake, so thick that when I dare look back I can’t even see him.
But I know he’s there. And I know I’m still not going as fast as he is.
Aiden shouts at me again a few moments later, only this timehe’s no longer behind me but drawing even. And I dare one more glance in his direction, seeing no less than complete command of the power beneath him. So captivating that when his hand reaches out to grab Tess’s reins and pull us up, I almost let him.
At the last moment, I jerk away, Tess tossing her head in protest and my steady seat shifting precariously as I change direction. Aiden recovers quickly, faster than I do, pulling up alongside me again as both of our horses thunder toward a grove of trees.
“Dammit, Cora,stop,” he yells, and I’m not sure if I can’t or won’t at this point. He makes another grab for my reins, and I pull away again, but this time, he anticipates it. And when Tess swings left again, faltering slightly, Aiden falls back only so he can shoot forward on my other side to cut us off.