Endless Knight(25)

But we were all wary.

“Even if it’s empty, can we risk staying here?” Finn asked, looking at the place as longingly as I was.

Zombies continued to trail us, and we still had a couple of hours before dusk. “The Baggers sh-should have trouble on that l-last rise, right?” I asked.

“Just like you, Evie!” Selena said brightly.

Bitch. There’d been a sheer rock face to scale. We’d had to use a rope! I’d never climbed a cliff in my life and had flailed like a trout on a line. I’d been as worried about Matthew as about myself, but compared to me he was a mountaineer.

Jackson didn’t join in the discussion, just started toward the cabin. When we followed, he said, “I go alone.”


In the past, Selena would’ve trotted after him anyway, but she’d been remaining close to me. Like gum on the bottom of my boot.

I told him, “Fais gaffe à toi.” Watch out for yourself.

Jackson’s gaze cut to me, and I saw some emotion flicker there before he masked it.

As I watched him stride off, crossbow ready, I wondered yet again what was going on in that head of his. We hadn’t spoken since I’d kissed him. Did he still regret kissing me back?

After that night, I’d thought he was done with me, but I kept catching him staring at me. Sometimes his expression was filled with bitterness, as if I’d wronged him. But on the whole, his looks hadn’t been as withering, more . . . troubled.

Like he was trying to bring to light an unsettling mystery.

On the way to the cabin, he inspected the small barn. It must’ve gotten the all-clear, because no one got shot. Then into the cabin . . .

Please be safe, please be safe.

Not long after, I saw smoke curling from the chimney. My knees went weak with relief—and excitement. He was safe, and we’d have a real roof, a real fire.

Finn said, “I can disguise the smoke.”


Selena shook her head. “No need. We’re up in the clouds. Which J.D. knows, or he wouldn’t have lit it.”


He emerged from inside. With a chin jerk, he indicated for us to join him.

Self-respect flew out the window, and we ran for it like it was a friendly country’s border.

Though dusty inside, the snug little cabin had a bed, a wooden bathtub, and now a fire in its potbelly stove. We’d passed a full rain barrel on our way in. A dented pot hung above the stove. Cords of wood had been stacked alongside one wall by some owner who’d never returned. Put all that together . . .

Hot. Bath. I even had a travel-size bottle of shampoo and body wash.

This was such a bonanza, such a turnaround from our usual circumstances, that I was paranoid—like this cabin would slip from my grasp, running off to join the circus or something.

“Rock-paper-scissors decides who gets the first bath,” I announced, but it was only between Finn, Selena, and me. Matthew was too psychic to play—he’d settled into one of the rocking chairs on the front porch—and Jackson wasn’t interested.

“Goan grouse hunting,” he said, setting off without another word. His tone and demeanor said, And I’m goan by myself.

The odds of him finding grouse were so slim I considered telling him to keep an eye out for yeti while he was at it.

Selena gazed after him with a concerned look, reminding me that Jackson might not come back at all.

For days, she’d been pining for him. It was so obvious. At first I’d been irritated, but then I’d put myself in her shoes. When Finn had tricked her, she’d thought that Jackson had chosen her. That her dream had come true. In her mind, she’d experienced his arms around her.

How strange for her, to be traveling with the boy she’d thought she’d kissed—and also with the boy who’d deceived her.

Now that everyone seemed to hate Selena, I was starting to feel sorry for her, even after the shit she’d dealt my way. Days ago, I’d realized nobody wanted to be a monster—yet that was how we were treating her.

Though she’d tried to draw Jackson into conversation again and again, he’d continued to ignore her, as if he couldn’t even hear her. With his hood over his head, he’d trudged on, seeming lost in thought. He hadn’t committed to anything.

I was past caring. I was.

Don’t think about him. I planned to make the most of this windfall of water—and time—to wash the ash away. Sometimes I felt like that ash was becoming a part of me, obscuring me, just as it had overcome Haven House, my home in Louisiana.

When I won the first round with the bathtub, Selena rolled her eyes. But she did sit outside with Matthew, settling in to whittle arrows. Finn ambled toward the barn, sourcing for supplies.

I shut the door and turned to my task. How hard could it be to boil bathwater? I’d watched an episode of Little House on the Prairie once. Ergo: Let’s do this bitch.

Four burn wounds and an hour later, I was lowering myself into the little tub, waist-deep water steaming around me. Bubbles from my bath wash pillowed over the surface. If my blistered feet hadn’t been stinging as they regenerated, I’d have sworn I was dreaming.

And if I hadn’t felt dread over Jackson’s leaving.

In front of the crackling fire, I soaped and rinsed my hair, reflecting on the last week.

Each day we’d hauled ass away from the Bagmen, but were forced each night to hide out. The Baggers did just the opposite, eating up the miles every night before dawn drove them into the ground, a thought that still gave me chills.