Dead of Winter (The Arcana Chronicles #3)(11)

Out of the blue, she says, “I think you are my big brother.”

I doan know how I feel about that. She’s not bad company, doan talk a lot. Her stomach’s been grumbling, but she woan admit she’s hungry. At least I’ve learned to feed myself, can hunt and fish and cook my take. I could help her out now and again.

“Maybe I am.” Then I scowl, kicking a trap back in the water. Just what I need—another mouth to feed!

A loud truck rumbles down our muddy track of a driveway, parking in front of the cabin. Two men stomp inside, hailing greetings, making our mothers laugh.

I can hear a metal opener tinking against beer bottles, can hear the throat of a bourbon fifth against a shot glass. They turn up music on a radio I “found” a couple months back and pair off.

The zydeco doan disguise what’s happening inside. For the first time, Clotile looks upset.

I figure I’d do just about anything to keep this scrawny little fille from crying. “We can borrow a pirogue and paddle out farther. I got more traps, me.”

She latches on to this like a bass on a line, and we doan get back for hours.

Near sunset, we creep up the cabin steps. “Stay behind me, girl,” I whisper. When Maman’s beaux get drunk, they always need to swing their fists—usually at her or me.

Inside is all a mess. Eula and a man are naked and passed out on the couch I got to sleep on. Clotile shrugs at that sight like she doan care, but her cheeks are red, her eyes glassy.

Maman’s door is open—I hear a man snoring from the bed—but I know better than to glance in that direction.

Beside the couch is my stack of library books; liquor’s spilled over them. It makes me so angry, like I need to swing my fists.

Clenching my jaw, I snag a few beers out of the icebox. Clotile doan miss a beat, grabbing the bottle opener. We head back out to the pier. As we watch the sun set between two cypress trees, she pops open beers for us, like she’s been doing this for a while.

I never have, but figure, Why not? I sip, not sold on the taste. I suppose it’ll grow on me.

By the second one, I feel great, relaxed in my own skin. “Clotile?”

“Hmm?” She looks mellow, buzzed herself.

“Everybody says we got no hope of goan anywhere. You ever think we deserve better than the Basin?”

Without hesitation, she says, “Non.”

I ponder it over another sip. “Ouais, me neither.”

My eyes blurred with tears.

Yet Jack had made plans to get out of the Basin and fight for a better life. He’d intended to fly in the face of everything he’d grown up believing.

That struck me as unimaginably brave.

Did he still feel he didn’t deserve better? If Clotile had ever dared to hope for more, she’d been punished with something much, much worse than Basin life.

With me as a lingering witness to his thoughts, Jack’s mind turned to another sliver of time.

He and I were walking hand in hand, just after we’d had sex for the first and only time—and right before we’d gone into battle against the cannibals.

’Bout to face shittier odds than I ever have, stone-cold sober, and I never felt so good. Is this what being at peace means? No damn wonder everyone wants to feel this way.

Evie glances up at me with those blue eyes, and she’s so f*cking beautiful I nearly trip over my feet. Her scent is honeysuckle, which means she’s all but purring. Her lips curve, and that smile hits me harder than any punch. She’s got no regrets.

Good. ’Cause I’m never letting her go. I might reach too high to have her, but she doan think so. I want to say something, to tell her how I feel about what we just did. Everything I think to say could be taken the wrong way.

So I squeeze her hand and keep it simple. “à moi, Evangeline.” Mine.

She promises me: “Always.”

And I believe her.

“Hey, blondie!” Finn called from below. “Is this a no-boys-allowed tree house?”

I jerked my head up, my tie with Jack severed.





7


“You’re early,” I told the Magician as Matthew and I climbed down. We still had twenty minutes.

“Wanted to avoid the midnight-hour traffic.”

The three of us hurried into the first floor. Metal sheeting made up the walls. Moldy hay covered the ground. A rough-hewn table and a couple of benches furnished the area.

Finn sat on one, raising his leg along it. Matthew took a seat next to him.

When Cyclops padded over hesitantly, Finn grumbled, “Free fort, sit where you want.” But he kind of grinned when the wolf plopped down right beside him.

“We could’ve come to you,” I told him. Maneuvering through this camp must be hell for him.

Sweat beaded his lip, and he was out of breath. “The closer I am to you guys, the better for the illusions.”

The watchtower wasn’t that far from his tent. How close were we cutting it?

He situated his crutch over his lap. Aged stickers of cats decorated the metal parts. Who had it once belonged to? “So an Empress, a horse, and a wolf walk into a fort. . . .”

“If this is a dirty joke, I’ll pass.” I’d missed the Magician’s humor. Tilting my head at him, I said, “You don’t look so good, Finn.”