See How She Runs (The Chronicles of Izzy #1)(25)

“Fine,” he said brusquely, “I have something that will help with your sanity and serve practical purposes as well." The way he taunted my sanity made me want to throat punch him. But if this idea of his allowed me to escape the confines of the cabin for a while, I was game.

“Alright, what do you have in mind?" I asked hesitantly. Lord only knew what practical purposes he was referring to.

“Well, you want to be out of the cabin for a while, and I need you to know how to escape from here if you need to. So we are going to do some hiking," he said with a look of finality in his eyes.

“Hiking, okay, that sounds like something I can handle," I said.

“I am going to head in and grab the pack you would take if you were on the run. That way you can get used to the weight of it while hiking." With that he headed back toward the cabin, not waiting to see if I would follow.

Sometime between last night and today something had shifted in his countenance. The easy discourse we had shared the night before seemingly gone, only to be replaced by a distant man I barely recognized. Not knowing if it was what had transpired between us the night before or my having scared him today that had changed his behavior was unnerving. So, back to repression I would go. If I repressed it all, then I could just move forward and not deal with it. I did not possess the energy to try and fix whatever had broken between us. Not today.

I headed in after him, reaching around to dust the moss off of my bottom as I went. Yup, one wet hiney. Oh well, I supposed it would dry while I was hiking to wherever Kennan thought I should be going.





**********





After Kennan packed everything he thought I might need, he called me over. He had me stand perfectly still and placed his hands on either side of my head. I suppressed the urge to curl into him. He held me in place and chanted something in a language I did not understand. Suddenly my head felt lighter, like the strain of the past few days had been lifted.

“What did you do to me, Kennan?" I asked, not upset, but curious as to what had happened.

“I severed your connection to the outside for now. You won’t have any visions while we are out. You also won’t be susceptible to Xavier or anyone else getting into your head. I can reverse it when we get back to the cabin. But for now it is necessary. At least until you can learn to block on your own." He picked up his pack and looked over his shoulder at me with no hint of a smile. “Grab your gear, we are losing daylight.”

I grabbed my bag and headed out behind him. I was determined to return his coldness and not show how much his change had upset me. Instead I resolved myself to follow all of his instructions and just keep to myself. My mental guard was enough of a comfort to carry me through the rest of the day.

“Alright, where are we headed?" I asked as he handed me a map and a compass like I was supposed to know how to use them. Seriously, outdoorsman I was not. I have only ever been camping twice in my life. One of those times, we had to go home early because I sprained my ankle walking across a flat meadow. The prospect of navigating this uneven and foreign terrain was a bit daunting. But hey, if I could figure out city maps, maybe I could handle this.

“I have the different exit strategies mapped out here. Choose one for today and we will start there. In the next couple of weeks, we will do all of them. Once I feel you have the necessary skills to do it, you will do a practice run on each in which you do them solo. I will be close, but you won’t see me. So pick one, we will start with that and get you acclimated to reading the map and figuring out your coordinates. As we go along, I will try and teach you anything that might be vital to your survival. I may not always be there to protect you, so I need to know that you can take care of yourself if necessary.”

Quite frankly, the prospect of hiking out here on my own scared the bejeezus out of me. I tried to suppress my shudder, and looked down at the map. I was surprised at how close the cabin was to several major roadways. Looking at it now, I realized we could not possibly be as far from where we left the car as I thought. Slightly annoyed, I took a second to ask Kennan.

“How far are we exactly from where we left the car the first day?”

“About a forty minute hike. I needed to know that you would not try and run, so I took you the long way."

He said it so matter-of-factly that I once again was filled with the urge to punch him right in his stupid throat. Okay, maybe I probably could not reach high enough to do it, but the visualization was cathartic. I looked back at the map and chose what seemed to be the longest of the routes. If he was determined to act as though I had peed in his cornflakes, then I was going to make the day harder on him. Take that Kennan O’stupidhead.

He looked at the route and nodded his head. “You need to orient yourself in the direction that the path leads. Show me how you would do that.”

I looked at the map and the compass and turned myself away from the cabin in the direction I thought I might need to head. Kennan moved behind me and turned me about forty-five degrees to the right. I looked back at the map and compass and figured out how to match the two sets of information. I had always been a quick learner, and I was determined to learn this as quickly as possible. It was my escape plan after all. I might as well learn how to save my own neck if necessary.

I started hiking into the woods, checking the map every few feet to make sure I was still heading in the right direction. From the looks of it, the map had me heading toward the Hoh River. After looking more closely at the map, I realized I chose the most mountainous of the escape routes. I guess the joke was on me after all. Whatever! In for a dime… and all that.