Wildling: Midnight Sun 2

1. Saige

1

Saige

My sneaker I wore for work didn’t get kicked under my bed where it pushed against the wall. Sitting back on my haunches from having looked, I eyed the rest of my room with its single bookshelf, old bureau, and bed stand. Everything sat in its usual place.

Nothing littered the old carpet covering the floor.

Rummaging my parents’ house beyond my bedroom door, keeping their mess away from my personal space wasn’t an option. Hoarders, the both of them, and Mom’s yappy dog loved shoes. The chances of me finding that sneaker?

Absolutely zero.

Asking either of them for help would prove just as futile. Since I could remember, Mom hadn’t seemed to give two shits about me. Same with Dad.

“Damnitalltohell.” Still grumbling, I stood, hands on hips, chewing the inside of my lip, and wracking my brain.

Spring had hit our area of Alaska, but sandal and flip-flop weather lay weeks away, and my lone pair of heeled boots would kill my feet long before my five-hour shift ended at the farm supply store I’d been working at for six years.

The bank envelope I kept taped to the back of my bed stand held enough cash to purchase a new pair, but I hoarded my dollar bills like Dad did pizza boxes and plastic beer pack rings. Not that I saved for anything specific. Since neither of my parents could get jobs with their so-called disabilities, and also couldn’t get approved for government assistance, I paid the bills. I kept a roof over our heads. I brought home the staple groceries to see us through.

Where the hell they got cash for takeout, beer, and the pills they popped, I had no clue.

I never got a word of thanks, either.

They’d made their beds long before Mom had brought me into the world—not that they could find said bed beneath the clothing and rubbish filling the other bedroom in our small house.

Dad slept on the couch, Mom in her recliner.

Both claimed I’d been nothing but a burden since being born. Somehow, they overlooked the fact I went above and beyond to support them—all in hopes of a word of affirmation, an affectionate pat on the head.

It’s as though they floated through their drugged-out days, siphoning off me rather than the government who acknowledged them as much as my parents did me—not at all.

Wasted energy, wasted hopes, on my part. My constant failures had weakened my resolve to make them see me. Appreciate me.

Depression had made me her b***h over the winter, no matter how hard I tried to keep my chin up.

Both still snored as I quietly made my way into the kitchen with a heavy heart. I traversed the path I cleared every night once they passed out, scanning the disastrous mess for my missing sneaker. The winding route would be cluttered again once I returned from work, same as always. And same as always, anytime something of mine went missing, it didn’t magically reappear.

Not that I took time to dig through the piles of trash close to my five-foot and a couple inches height. When I’d become old enough to realize we didn’t live like normal people, I’d attempted to keep the house clean. I got my a*s handed to me time and again for throwing out their precious things—stinking, filthy trash.

Sick. Absolute filth. And the stench?

I shook my head, lips pursed.

The little yapper blinked sleepily from atop Mom’s lap and jumped down, the tiny bell on her collar twinkling as she pranced after me. At least the little b***h kept quiet in the morning. I let her out the kitchen’s door into the back yard. Not that she’d find a nice bit of grass to relieve herself around Dad’s s**t littering our acre of land.

Coffee pot warming to life, I returned to my room, shoved my feet into my winter boots, and grabbed my cash envelope. My old sneakers’ soles had worn out over the previous two years.

“It’s time for something new anyway,” I muttered to myself, weaving me way back toward the kitchen as both parents continued to snore.

Usually, spring and its warmer weather and rain brought a sense of refreshment and life. I’d yet to experience the vitality that helped keep my spirits from dipping to the point I wondered if medication might be the only way to dig me out of the winter months’ depression.

My travel mug I’d cleaned and left on a clean paper towel for my morning’s coffee had disappeared, too, I noted once I let the yapper back in.

More curses muttered in my head as I pulled out the milk from the fridge, and not for the first time, the desire to get out on my own, escape the s**t hole I’d been raised in, swelled inside me, stinging my eyes with the need to spill tears down my cheeks.

But tears would wash away the cheap mascara I’d worn that morning.

Spring meant those living off-grid made their way to town for supplies after the long winter. Spring meant Callan Kelly might come calling again—thus the bit of makeup and need to feel somewhat cute. As cute as a waif-thin upper body with thick thighs redhead could be.

While no thrill of attraction spirited my heart away whenever I thought of Callan, warmth of the friendly sort came in to ease the missing sneaker and mug issue ruling my morning.

I’d first met Callan the spring before when he’d flown into town by way of Midnight Sun Charter. A client of Jessie Blacke’s, Callan had been all smiles and flirting words. The fact gray hairs peeked through his darker strands above his temples didn’t bother me. The age lines around his eyes and mouth were merely evidence of hard years in the wilderness. Hard working years. Something neither of my parents could possibly fathom, something I thoroughly appreciated in a man.

He hadn’t brought butterflies to flight in my belly or warmth between my thighs, but his character I’d come to know over a summer of sporadic visits had intrigued me to the point I hoped to see him again.

If I were to ever marry a man, he would be the type I would tie myself to. Solid and steady. A worker who didn’t shirk from dangers or the challenges of living a flight away from civilization.

In the fall, before disappearing for the long winter, he promised to see me in spring.

Once the snow had started to melt, I’d pulled out that old mascara wand and kept it in my purse. Just in case.

It’d been two weeks since I’d started to see a few of the off-grid families coming in for society and supplies, and while I should have been thrilled to have something to look forward to, I couldn’t rouse my emotions past flat.

Bland.

Bored.

Downright depressed.

My eyes stung again as I slipped outside, keys to Dad’s old truck in one hand, chipped mug of coffee in the other.

Peeks of sun hinted through the clouds, and I filled my lungs, reminding myself I lived. My heart beat inside my chest. I had my health, even if Mom and Dad didn’t have theirs. But those truths didn’t lighten the heaviness in my chest, either.

Something new…

Something more than mere sneakers, too.