Chapter 1
CHAPTER 1
THE SEEKER
I squint through the haze of the trees. The field between the two of us is wide, and ever more vast emotionally than physically—I feel that bit internally, a vacant space residing deep in my lungs. A stump sticks from the middle of the lawn like a sore thumb, the top gleaming as if oiled.
I cannot believe she came here.
The little farmhouse is more like a glorified cottage, a single story done up in beige bricks. There’s a barn out back for their bikes, but I can’t fathom storing my motorcycle in such a building. My old girl deserves four walls of brick and a real roof, not hay beneath her tires, the air smelling of old horseshit. That is a stink that does not go away no matter how long you air her out on the open road.
It is second only to the stink of betrayal.
I shift, my rubber boots making a sickly wet noise against the rotting vegetation.
I hate the woods. Mosquitos as big as blue jays, their constant high-pitched whine warning you of their approach, though you can do little to stop the attack. It’s a tease.
Perhaps this is too.
I swallow hard and blink once more at the farmhouse. The logs are wide, the home shockingly modern despite the materials. The band of windows that runs around the outer perimeter is a single lighted stripe, too thin to escape through.
I’ve never been one to take chances, but this is an exceptional case. A million circumstances had to line up perfectly for us to come to this crossroads.
But if I believed it was a coincidence, I would not be so unnerved.
Things have been building in the shadows for far too long. There will be no walking away this time.
I should feel more about this outside of that bone-deep vacancy—I should. But when you live this life, you give up the ability to feel in the tender, soft place where most people keep their emotions; they go numb. When I imagine what might happen tomorrow, when I consider where we’ll end up, I almost wish I could say that it creates a bloom of heartfelt emotion in me, as one might feel—nay, should feel—for their own family. But what is most pronounced inside my guts is the sickly tug of inevitability.
The chickens are coming home to roost; it’s a ridiculous saying, but it seems a fitting expression because of where we currently find ourselves. Lost, in a manner of speaking, so far from where we must be in order to survive—both of us on a farm, in the dark. Isabelle with those men, five of them at last count.
But it matters little how many men she beds; they will not be able to protect her. Not from what’s coming.
She has something I need.
I step into the clearing, eyes on the house, waiting for just a heartbeat on the moon-soaked grass—Do they sense me here, waiting in the shadows? When nothing stirs within those log walls, I step carefully toward the stump, the perfect platform to showcase my gift.
“What will it be, Isabelle?” I whisper to myself, but the buzz of crickets is the only reply. I am struck again by how lax they are in their security; they clearly believe themselves to be safe. Perhaps they think that all they must do is deliver their product on schedule—which they are—and they will somehow remain unscathed.
I sigh softly. Voluminous clouds slide over the moon, shrouding the lawn in blackness as if my presence has expanded outward, soaking the world in dark thoughts. Even the grass, until now glittering in the silvered rush of night, has gone dull.
I lower my package to the stump. Then I turn once more for the protection of the deeper woods. The dank air shudders through my lungs. Decaying leaves squelch, spongy beneath my feet. I do not know how long it will take for her to find it, but I am sure that when she does, she will act.
She will lead me exactly where I need to go.
And if she doesn’t, they’re all dead.
