Chapter 4: The Cabin

My late aunt's cabin sat two miles past the pack border, on the lake road.

No McIntyre patrol was allowed to walk there.

She had left it to me in her will, and I had never once slept in it.

Roz and I got there on foot, after dark.

We had a hospital bag between us and a frozen venison roast she had taken from her own freezer.

"It's Devon's," she said. "He can come and get it."

"You stole a roast."

"I stole his roast. It's a start."

The key was under the third flowerpot.

Inside, the cabin smelled of cold ashes and dust.

I found a lamp and turned it on.

There was a stove, a table with two chairs, and a quilt on a single iron bed.

The window looked out at black water.

Roz stood in the doorway for a long moment.

"One bed," she said.

"I noticed."

"I'm not sleeping on the floor. I'm bleeding."

"So am I."

"I had the worse cut."

"You had the worse chin. I had the worse surgery."

"That's not even a thing."

"It's a thing. They said so on the chart."

We stood there.

Then Roz put her face in her hands, and her shoulders went, and she said through her fingers, "We are arguing about who bled harder."

"I know."

"I'm going to lose my mind."

"Me too."

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