Chapter 24: The First Run

I woke to the smell of coffee and woodsmoke.

For the first time in weeks I was not afraid of the morning.

Cade was asleep with one arm over my waist and his face in my shoulder, over the mark.

Gray light came through the window, and it was snowing.

Downstairs, someone was banging pans.

"That's my mother," Tilly's voice said, very loud, through the floor.

"She says if you two are alive, come eat."

"We're alive," I called.

"She also says wash first."

Cade lifted his head and gave me a lazy, crooked smile.

"I'm never leaving this room," he said.

"There are eggs."

He thought about it.

"Fine."

The lodge kitchen was full.

Hedda stood at my father's stove in her nurse's coat, flipping eggs.

My mother sat at the table across from her.

Both of them had clearly been crying and had clearly stopped.

The girl in the gray hoodie sat in the corner with a mug in both hands.

She had cut off her white-blond hair at the chin and dyed the ends dark.

"Hedda says I can stay at the clinic," she said shyly. "Sweeping, to start. Then maybe more."

"Do you want to?"

"I want a name that's mine." She looked up. "I'm working on it."

"Take your time," I said.

She smiled.

It was the first time I had seen her do it without checking who was watching.

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