CHAPTER 11
Isaac insists I can take back my blanket and he’ll sleep alone, but I sleep with Eve instead. I’m feeling good about my ability to ignore Isaac until Eve’s trembling and twitching keeps me awake the entire night.
In the morning, the traps are empty again, but I don’t have the strength to hunt.
“It’s my fault, isn’t it?” Eve says, as we gather and break down the traps to pack them up. “You should sleep with Mary tonight… or Daedric.”
Though Mary and I share a strange bond now, I still can’t look her in the eye. I keep imagining Isaac drawing circles on her bare back.
By the end of the day, we enter Hellhole Palms: Guardian territory. Just forty miles of California desert separate us from the Salton Sea now. We decide to camp out as long as it takes to develop a strategy.
Daedric unrolls his blanket onto the grass on the hillside. Isaac’s eyes follow me as I approach Daedric.
“Do you think I could… sleep with you tonight?” I say. “I need to get some rest so I can hunt tomorrow.”
Daedric glances at Isaac then back at me. “You sure about that? I don’t want to piss anyone off.”
“He’s all bark,” I reply. “So, do you mind?”
Daedric lifts his blanket for me to squeeze in next to him. He picked a good spot to lie down. The ground gives slightly beneath my weight and I fall asleep instantly.
When I wake, Daedric is gone and Isaac is sitting at my feet staring at me. The instant I sit up he walks away.
Daedric comes back with a tiny bundle of twigs for the fire. “Slim pickings around here without a saw,” he says, as he throws the wood down. “You up for some huntin’ today?”
If it weren’t for the awful accent, Daedric would fit right in here. The shoulder-length blonde hair, the golden tanned skin, gorgeous green eyes… He could be a model for surf gear in the former California.
“What?” he says, and I realize I’ve been staring at him.
“I have to hunt alone, so I don’t scare off the game,” I say. “But if you want you can follow a couple hundred yards behind me and I’ll catch up with you when I’m done.”
“Sounds like a plan,” he says.
From my backpack I pull the elbow-length leather gloves Isaac brought back from the marketplace two weeks ago. I can see the proud expression on his face as he presented them to me clearly in my mind. After I caught the cougar and sustained a few puncture wounds on my forearm, he insisted I needed some kind of protective gear if I wanted to try something like that again. He helped me slip the gloves on and I couldn’t believe how perfectly they fit every curve of my fingers all the way up to my elbows. We got in a huge fight that night when he refused to tell me how many gallons of water the gloves cost us.
Mary and Isaac watch Daedric and I as we disappear over the hillcrest. The other side of the hill is pretty bare except for a wooded area in the valley between this hill and the next.
“Stay up here and I’ll call up to you if I need help.”
He nods and takes a seat on the hillside. I slide down the steeper areas until I get to the valley.
The craggily trees grow in all directions. They remind me of the Bristlecone Pine trees in Northern California. My mom took me to see the pines when I was seven because they were one of the oldest living organisms on the planet and they were about to be cut down. I remember the despair I felt as I stared at the twisted branches of those ancient trees.
As usual, I take a seat on the lowest branch and crouch to make myself as small as possible. A crow flies down and perches on a branch above me. Crow is one of the worst game birds to eat: tougher than leather and just as tasty.
A pigeon swoops down and perches on the branch behind me. Pigeon is delicious, but I hate when the game is behind me. There’s no way to turn around quietly. The only thing to do is hope I can jump backward and twist my body fast enough to catch it.
I take a couple of quiet deep breaths then I pounce. In the span of one second I release my grip on the branch, push off quickly so I’m flying backward as I twist my body to face the bird. The pigeon takes flight, but my hands are already outstretched and I snatch it from the air. I come down belly first on the branch and I dangle for a bit as the bird tries to peck and claw at my gloved hands.
“Sorry, birdie,” I say, before I snap the bird’s neck and let myself drop from the tree branch.
I could set the pigeon down and try for another, but I don’t want to. I call up to Daedric and he slides down to join me. I hand him the pigeon and he smiles.
“It’s our lucky day,” I say. “We’re having squab for dinner, old chap.”
“Bloody brilliant,” he replies. “Let me call ‘round for the driver. Jeeves? Oh, Jeeves?”
I take one look at the I-just-smelled-curdled-milk expression on his face and burst into laughter.
“I say. What is it you find so humorous, young lady?”
I double over laughing and he offers me a hand to pull me up.
“You do that accent much too well,” I manage to say.
“I got an English aunt who visits every few years,” he replies. “We like to pull the mickey out of her.”
I shake my head. “No, no, no… You really need to stop with that,” I say. “You don’t got an aunt, you have an aunt. And never, ever say pull the mickey. Got it?”
Daedric laughs. “You guys talk funny out here.”
“We talk funny?” I reply, as I start climbing the hill.
My foot slips and I slide right into Daedric who falls on top of me.
“Oops!” I say, still giddy from all the laughing.
Daedric leans down and kisses my cheek.
“Oops,” he says, before he kisses my lips.
I don’t pull away because this time he doesn’t taste like charred meat. His lips are the flavor of peppermint leaves from the tea he made. So fresh.
He pulls away first. “Big oops,” he says.
“Let’s oops again,” I say, as I grab his shirt and pull him toward me.
We arrive at camp a few minutes later and I swear everyone here can smell the peppermint on my lips. I lay the pigeon down next to Mary for her to clean it.
“That’s it?” she says, holding the bird up by its feet.
“I’ll get more later,” I say. At least, I hope I’ll get more.
In the evening, we feast on squab with mint-almond pesto. It’s the best meal we’ve had in months and I almost forget that Isaac is sitting across the fire scowling at me.
I scoot in next to Daedric for the second night and this time it’s too much for Isaac. He storms off and disappears on the other side of the hill.
Daedric pulls the blanket over us. “He looks fit to burst.”
“He’ll get over it,” I say, as I turn on my side so I’m facing away from Daedric.
He scoots in closer to me, but he keeps his hands to himself. I lay sleepless for an eternity before I finally sit up.
“Want me to help you look for him?” Daedric whispers.
“No. I’ll go alone.”
I set off over the hill thinking that the moment I glimpse Isaac I’m going to turn right back. The grass is moist with dew and I slide down the hillside much faster nearly slamming into the craggily tree at the bottom of the hill. I pick myself up and I spot Isaac, but I don’t turn back.
He’s standing at the top of the next hill. I climb after him partially because I want to see what he’s staring at and partially because I can’t stop myself. I reach the top and the view of the Salton Sea is breathtaking. I haven’t seen bright city lights in years and the way the lights twinkle and reflect off the lake makes my throat ache.
“At night, it’s easy to miss the ten-foot wall,” Isaac says. “It’s an enormous prison.”
“An enormous prison with no crime and a nearly endless supply of water and power,” I say.
“Still a prison.”
He stares at me and I hold his gaze. He keeps glancing at my lips as if he can see whe
re they’ve been just by looking at them.
“What?” I finally say.
“You were right,” he says, as he turns his attention back to the city view. “I used Mary.”
“I guess admitting it makes it all right?”
“But I didn’t use her the way you think I did,” he continues. “And, at first, I really thought I was in love with her.”
Hearing him say these words knocks the wind out of me.
“As soon as I realized I wasn’t over you, I was honest with her about it. She was the one who kept coming back.”
“And you couldn’t say no?”
“I really screwed everything up, didn’t I?” he says, but he doesn’t wait for my answer. “Do you like him?”
I don’t answer right away. I don’t know how I feel about Daedric. What does that even mean? Daedric’s an interesting guy to hang out with and, yes, he’s a great kisser, but that doesn’t mean I want to spend the rest of my life or the foreseeable future with him.
“He’s funny,” I say.
“I can be funny,” Isaac replies.
“I’m not sure I can trust you anymore, Isaac.”
“You can trust me,” he says, as he turns to face me again with a glint of desperation in his eyes. “I know you better than anyone. You can trust me, Nada.”
He reaches up and brushes my hair out of my face and I can’t help but flinch. I shake my head and back away.
“Okay. Take your time. I’ll be here if you need me,” he says.
“You’re not coming back?”
“I’m going to hang out a little longer. Unless you want me to walk you back.”
“No, I’m fine. But don’t stay out here too long. The sun will be up soon and the Guardians will see you up here.”
“Yes, Mother,” he says, and he pulls me into the most awkward hug Isaac and I have ever shared.
I hold in my laughter as I slither out of his arms and make my way back to camp.