Crawling into a hole in the ground under the shed had not been on the short list of jobs I had considered. Yet that was where I found myself.
I was going to kill him when I got out of there.
“You see it?” he called from behind me.
“Yeah.” I grunted as I pulled myself forward on my elbows. I yelped when a cobweb tickled my nose, and swatted at it. If a spider crawled on me, God help me, I would lose it.
“Let me know when you got it,” Nathan instructed.
I cursed him under my breath as I inched forward. Reaching my arm out, I gripped the satchel with my fingertips, and wiggled it closer to get a better hold on it.
“I got it. Get me the hell out of here!”
Per my orders, his hands had been on my ankles the entire time. Now, his grip tightened and he pulled. For a brief moment, I thought I would be stuck, and would die buried under the shed in a cold cobweb-infested tunnel. Then I saw daylight. I pushed myself up and hurled the bag at him.
“Thanks.” He opened the satchel and peered in.
I grunted as I surveyed my now ruined clothes. “Next time don’t bury your emergency money stash in a groundhog den. How did you get it down there anyway?”
“I didn’t.”
The look I gave him portrayed the no shit in my head loud and clear. He was too big to fit in there, which was why he made me do it. Obviously, someone small had put it in there for him. If we didn’t need the money to get food and clean clothes, I would have told him to bite me when he asked me to do it. Not that he had given me a choice in the matter.
Now, with a scowl on my face, I brushed at my mud-caked, spider-ridden hair. “Probably should have had me do that before I showered last night. Now, I need another one.”
He looked me over for the first time since I emerged, and finally saw how dirty I had gotten. He bit on his lip and, if I weren’t mistaken, I would have sworn it was to hold back a laugh.
When I looked in the mirror, I saw why. If it weren’t so gross and I wasn’t so pissed off, I would have found it funny too. My face was streaked in varying shades of brown and I couldn’t even tell my hair was blonde from all the mud in it. Worse, I pulled a cobweb out of it. I jumped in the shower as fast as I could, not waiting to see if any spiders crawled out next.
I was far too hungry to linger, and finished once I had the mud scrubbed off. Again, I had forgotten to bring clean clothes with me. Wrinkling my nose at the muddy mess on the floor, I wrapped a towel around me and cracked the door open. With the coast clear, I darted to the chest beside the bed. I kept one eye out for Nathan as I rummaged through the clothes, looking for something suitable to wear in public.
I had about given up on finding anything small enough that I wouldn’t look like a bum when I reached the very bottom and glimpsed something girly. A smile grew on my face as I uncovered two petite blouses and a pair of jeans that looked close to my size. They were vintage, cute, and just my style.
After I confirmed that Nathan was nowhere in sight, I slipped the jeans on. They were a near perfect fit. I pulled on a striped pink and brown long sleeved blouse because it was the more girly of the two, and that was exactly what I needed after the past few days.
I ran to the bathroom to hang up the towel and stopped in front of the mirror to mess with my hair. Without a blow-dryer, I was forced to pull my hair back in a loose ponytail again. Still, for the first time in days I looked and felt like a girl again. Not even the hideous scar could have wiped the smile off my face as I rushed outside.
Nathan was admiring the motorcycle, glanced up, and did a double take.
“I found a stash of girl clothes,” I beamed as I tugged on the hem of the shirt. My smile faltered when I looked up and saw Nathan’s face.
He stood frozen as he stared at me, his eyes wide and haunted.
My cheeks burned and my feet faltered. Was it the clothes? Did they belong to someone he knew? Of course. This was the Kala’s cabin. They must have belonged to someone he knew. Far too late, I realized I probably should have asked him first.
I was about to say something when he cleared his throat, pulled himself together, and all traces of whatever just happened vanished. If I hadn’t seen the brief look on his face, I would have never known. But I had, and it was going to bother me.
“That’s good,” he said as he handed the backpack to me with perfect indifference. “Now we won’t stand out so much.” He straddled the motorcycle, strapped on a helmet, glanced back at me, and nodded at the backpack. “You’re going to have to carry that on your shoulders.”
I hesitated, torn between asking him what had happened, and pretending that I hadn’t noticed. He handed a second helmet to me. This one was smaller; a girl’s helmet. I decided to let it go, slung the bag over my shoulders, and put the helmet on.
Nathan moved my hands out of the way, and tightened the straps for me like he was on autopilot. That was when I knew. He had a girlfriend—and I was wearing her helmet and her clothes.
“You ever ride before?” Nathan asked.
The helmet weighed down on my neck as I shook my head.
He didn’t look surprised. “Sit close to me, put your arms around my waist, and hold on tight.” He held the motorcycle steady as I climbed on behind him, and instructed me where to put my feet. “The most important thing,” he said over his shoulder, “don’t freak out. I know what I’m doing.”
“Okay.”
“And lean when we go around turns,” he added. “Lean with me, actually. Just plaster yourself to my back and move when I move.”
“Okay. Just don’t go too fast.”
I couldn’t see his face thanks to his helmet, but I imagined a skeptical expression was hidden underneath. I wasn’t optimistic when he kicked the stand and we took off.