Alone in the Wild (Rockton #5)(30)

I exhale. My gun lowers. Storm whines and dances, not excitement but nerves. She knows who this is, and she still isn’t sure what to make of her, isn’t convinced she doesn’t pose a threat. But I know better. Dalton does, too, holstering his gun as he approaches her.

“Maryanne,” he says.

I release Storm and move forward as the dog stays close enough to brush my leg. Maryanne is—or was—a hostile. I hesitate to say “was” because I’m honestly not sure of her status with them. I believe she left her group this spring. I cannot say for certain, because our relationship hasn’t progressed far enough for me to ask.

Maryanne is a former resident of Rockton. That much I can say for certain. Dalton had been a teenager when she arrived. As a biologist and professor, Maryanne found peace and happiness in the wilderness, and when a group headed into the forest, she joined them.

Gene Dalton had pursued the quartet, and the militia found their camp destroyed, splattered with blood but no bodies. A year later, Dalton ran across Maryanne in the forest. When she’d been in Rockton, they’d been friends, Maryanne teaching him the science of the wilderness while he taught her the reality of it. So she very clearly knew Dalton, trusted him, liked him. And when he found her in the forest, she attacked him. He’d nearly had to kill her to escape.

Earlier this year, we’d encountered Maryanne again, still with the hostiles, but … I’m not sure of the analogy to use here. She was like someone buried under an avalanche who had clawed her way up just enough to be heard.

That avalanche was the collapse of her own mind into madness. She’d cleared just enough of a hole in the mental confusion to hear Dalton, yet she was still at the bottom, out of his reach. The encounter, though, had been a tipping point for her. She heard a voice she recognized, and she could make out the sunlight above and start climbing toward it. And here is where the analogy fails, because in such a case, you’d eventually be able to offer the victim a hand to haul them out. Maryanne is not ready to take that hand, because what she’s suffered isn’t hypothermia and broken bones. Her damage goes deeper.

Some of that damage is physical—teeth filed, ritualized scarring, an ear and a couple of fingers blackened by frostbite. For a brilliant woman to start regaining her self-awareness and real ize what she’s done to herself? To know it isn’t just a bad tattoo that can be covered up with long sleeves? And to know what those physical signs represent, proof of what she had become, the things she had done as a hostile? Maryanne is indeed still buried, under an avalanche of shame and self-loathing now, and we cannot seem to pull her out.

We’ve seen her a few times over the summer and fall. Her mind has cleared enough to communicate with us … when she chooses to. We’ve tried leaving supplies out for her, but that is too much like leaving food for a stray dog, and she shuns our offerings. What we want is to bring her back to Rockton. Part of that is, of course, selfish—she represents the key to understanding the hostiles. But even without that, we want to help her.

Letting Maryanne stay out here hurts no one but her. And yet, here she is, in the middle of December, with ragged boots and multiple shirts and no jacket, wearing a thin hood tied over her head. On her hands, she’s tied more skins, wrapped around like extended sleeves, her fingers bare inside.

This is where my beliefs waver. Where they have always wavered. I struggled with that as a patrol officer seeing the homeless. Yes, if you choose to live on the streets, no one should be able to forcibly remove you. But at what point are you no longer making a sane choice? If I recognize signs of mental illness or drug addiction, how do I know whether you are still capable of making that choice? At what point would I be infringing on your rights if I shuttled you off to a shelter or a hospital? And at what point am I failing as a public servant, as a human being, if I do not?

Maryanne is aware of her choices and her options. She stays out of shame and fear, and so, is that enough for me to say “it’s her right”?

I see the same war on Dalton’s face. As he approaches her, his cheek tics in a way I know well. He’s holding in his frustration. What she sees, though, is anger in those blazing gray eyes.

She takes a step back. “Eric?”

“Hey, Maryanne,” I say, giving him time to cover his reaction. “May I bring the dog over?”

She nods and smiles. It’s a tight-lipped smile, as always, just as she barely opens her mouth when she speaks. Hiding her filed teeth.

I lead Storm to her, and she pushes her wrapped hands out to pet her, rubbing her back and sliding her fingers through the thick fur, warming them.

I take off my backpack. “I have extra mittens. Why don’t you take—”

“No,” Dalton says, so low it’s more growl than word. He pulls the backpack from my hands and snaps the zipper shut. “Casey is not giving you her gloves.”

Maryanne blinks. “I … I don’t need…”

“Fuck yes, you do. How do you think you got frostbite the last time? Apparently, you kind of like it.”

I have to bite back the urge to stop him. I know what he’s doing, and I keep silent.

“You don’t want help from us, remember?” he says. “So you’re not getting Casey’s extra mitts or sweater or whatever else she wants to give you. Not unless you’re willing to accept real help.”