Total pages in book: 163
Estimated words: 150878 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 754(@200wpm)___ 604(@250wpm)___ 503(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 150878 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 754(@200wpm)___ 604(@250wpm)___ 503(@300wpm)
“Because for one, it’s not right there. It’ll probably take us a couple of days to travel that distance. It’ll be slow going through those woods and it’s not safe when we can’t see. It’ll be dark any minute now.”
“A couple days?” Oh God. Then my estimation of a few miles was definitely off. This nightmare just kept getting worse.
“And for another,” he went on, “if it is a house, we have no idea who lives there. It seems like a strange place for a singular home with nothing else around. It could be dangerous. But at least we have a place to shoot for. We’ll bed down here tonight and get up with the sun.”
“Bed down?” Charlie asked, his tone as incredulous as mine had been. “What exactly should we bed down on?”
“The ground,” Tuck said. He glanced at the suitcase Charlie was sitting on. “With all the clothes you brought along, you can drape them over yourselves and be nice and toasty. There’s a tree right there that will provide some shelter from the wind. We’ll be fine.”
I didn’t like the thought of sleeping on the cold ground under a tree either, but Tuck mentioning sleep made me realize how exhausted I was. It wasn’t just the hours of walking while carrying a heavy suitcase with improper footwear. It was the toll from the adrenaline that had been bursting through my body as our plane went down. I suddenly felt so tired I wanted to drop to the ground right there, press my cheek to the dirt and close my eyes.
Tuck adjusted his duffel bag and started walking toward the tree. Its leaves were gone, but it was massive, and its branches alone provided cover.
“Come on,” I said to Charlie, pointing over to the tree, which was only about three hundred feet away.
“Can we just sit here another couple of minutes? My feet are killing me.”
We? We weren’t sitting anywhere. I was standing. In my slippers. “If I sit down here, I won’t be able to move again, Charlie,” I said.
Charlie glanced at Tuck and then away. He obviously didn’t want to allow him to be in charge. Part of me didn’t blame Charlie after what we’d discovered about Tuck. I was still in shock over all that, if I was honest. The Tuck I’d known as a kid would never get involved with that stuff. He’d changed. But I had to do my best to put that aside and simply trust in Tuck for the moment. He was more qualified when it came to “roughing it,” and so for now, it was wisest to follow his lead. Soon we’d be back in civilization. Soon everything would be back to normal. Soon everything would make sense again.
Charlie huffed but then nodded. “Come on. You’re right. We all need to rest.” He stood and picked up both his suitcase and mine and walked with me toward the protection—meager though it might be—of the massive tree.
* * *
There was no quiet like the quiet of a winter night outside in the middle of nowhere. And there was nothing that made you feel smaller than staring up at a star-studded sky, your back against the earth before you drifted to sleep.
I’d dozed a little, but the cold, and the sting of the wound on my hip, had roused me fully awake, and I was having a hard time falling back to sleep even though I hadn’t gotten nearly enough. An hour? Maybe less. I had no way to tell. I pulled the pile of clothing I’d draped over my shoulders tighter, turning away from Charlie, who lay next to me snoring softly. At least he was managing to sleep.
A small sound made my eyes fly open, and I saw Tuck, sitting up, leaned against the wide tree trunk, his knees bent, feet flat on the ground. I blinked though my vision needed little time to adjust to the brightly moonlit night as I tried to figure out what he was doing. Was he…sharpening a stick?
I leaned up on my elbow, and his head lifted. His eyes glittered in the silvery light, the angles of his face more sharply defined. A strange shiver tightened my stomach muscles. “What are you doing?” I whispered.
“Making a weapon.”
“A…stick?”
“A spear,” he said. “Not ideal. But better than nothing.”
I glanced around. “What are you anticipating?”
“Nothing specific at the moment but it’s always best to be prepared.”
“I guess you’re right,” I murmured. He flicked his wrist, and a small piece of wood went flying off the stick, landing somewhere next to him. “What are you using to sharpen it?”
“The knife on a wine opener,” he said. His voice was quiet, sullen. A wine opener. He must have snagged that from the plane with the other things he’d collected. We were lucky he had. Because of him we’d had water to drink and a bag of crackers each for dinner. Not exactly a feast, but better than the nothing we’d have had if we’d simply sat and watched the plane be incinerated.