Chapter 19: The Creek

The creek ran black under the alders, and Delphine sat in the middle of it up to her waist.

She had her boots on and her brown coat floating out around her.

The lookout boy stopped at the tree line and held up two fingers, meaning he'd be close.

I walked down the bank alone.

"You'll freeze," I said.

She flinched, and she did not look up.

"Go away, Tilly."

"Not yet."

"Did you come to gloat?"

"I came to ask you something."

She laughed, a wet, ragged sound.

"Everyone wants to ask me something tonight."

I sat down on a rock at the edge of the water.

I stayed a stone's throw away, with my bandaged hand in my lap.

"The night I got Garrick out of the cell, you were outside the line cabin," I said. "At the window."

Her head came up.

"Who told you?"

"Nobody. The boy in the tree counts everything."

She wiped her face with a soaked sleeve.

"I followed the truck," she said. "I only wanted to see if he was all right."

"What did you hear?"

"You said you knew. You said you'd choose him without the pull."

"And what did he say?"

She was quiet for a while.

The creek talked over the stones.

"He said, 'I can't confirm it,'" Delphine said at last. "Twice. He wouldn't say another word about it."

My heart beat once, hard.

"Your mother wants you to stand up in front of both packs and say he told me."

"How did you know that?"

"Because it's what I'd do, if I were her."

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