Quicker than I thought myself capable of moving, I was in the kitchen standing next to the cake in question. Kennan shook his head at my suddenly animated expression. But this was cake we were talking about here. Not just any cake, strawberry cake. Really, was there any other kind of cake worth eating?
“Maybe we should eat some real food first, what do you think?"
My face must have fallen because he started laughing at me. I couldn’t help my smile. These moments, the ones that were so common and natural, were what had been keeping my head above water the past two days. These were the moments I’d told him about earlier. The small things mattered to me.
“Fine, if you insist on me being healthy and eating balanced meals, I guess I must," I said petulantly.
“What are you feeling? I have some food stocked in here. I could make us some grilled turkey and cheese sandwiches. That would be fast, allowing you to scarf down cake more quickly.”
“Don’t you judge me, Kennan O’Malley. You know that you will eat just as much of that cake as I will, if not more! But the sandwiches sound fine I suppose," I sighed, gathering up the bread and stuff to prepare the sandwiches so that he could heat them up.
Dinner passed with easy conversation about normal stuff. I asked about Kennan’s childhood and how it felt to move through time without ever really aging. About his past, and how he’d remained sane with all that he had seen. Apparently it was a lot easier than one would think.
He regaled me with tales of fighting the Roman Empire, of touring Europe and Asia, and of the events in history he’d witnessed firsthand. By the end, I was convinced I would’ve gone mad had it been me in his place.
When dinner was over, the cake was finally ready to be eaten. Kennan put candles on the top. He walked it over to the table and whispered in my ear, “Make a wish."
His voice echoed through the darkest recesses of my being, igniting butterflies in my stomach. So I did, I made a wish. I wished foolishly that I would at least always have Kennan in my life. To pull me back from the edge of darkness when I needed it, to make me laugh, and to keep me safe from myself and those that might harm me. I closed my eyes and I wished with all of my might.
**********
That evening, we decided to call it a night early. I went into my room and decided to put away the contents of my pack. If I was going to be here for a while, I didn’t want to be forced to dig through the sack every time I needed something. I put all of the hiking clothes and workout clothes into the top drawer, and then moved onto my unmentionables and the nighties he’d packed for me. My face started flaming as I stared at the lacy thing.
I decided to put it on, feeling dangerous, and wondering what he’d been thinking when he’d purchased it for me. It covered all of the important stuff adequately and came down to my mid-thigh. I put the silky robe around me and headed out into the living room to grab some water.
As soon as I stepped out of the door, I heard Kennan growl. Suddenly, I realized the error in my judgment. I shouldn’t have put it on and walked out here. What had I been thinking? Faster than I could track, Kennan had me pinned against the log walls, his arms caging me in. He bent over me with a dangerous glint in his eyes. His mouth was a mere breath from my own.
I breathed out slowly and met his eyes. I knew there was surprise in my eyes, but something far more dangerous lurked in his. His voice came out in a gravelly, strained rumble.
“I’m going to need you to change into something else, or not come out here in that. Do you understand me?"
As quickly as he’d me caged, he was gone on the other side of the room, once again rubbing his hand down his face. I just nodded and moved back into my room, the water forgotten.
Just before closing the door, I heard him say, “I should have packed the damned sweat pants. This is torture.”
That night I dreamt of Kennan.
**********
TWELVE
The next morning was met with a heady mixture of fear and excitement. I wondered what would happen between us today, or if we were going to go back to ignoring the feelings brewing between us. I was personally hoping for the latter. I wasn’t sure I possessed the emotional fortitude to endure much more.
I quickly dressed in some hiking clothes, hoping to get out of the cabin today. I looked out the window, and was surprised to find not drizzle, but sunshine. Having procrastinated as long as possible, I walked out into the living room and found it empty. Nothing but a note that graced the kitchen table.
Gone for supplies, be back soon.
-K
Okay then, apparently I wasn’t the only one practicing the avoidance policy today. Determined to get out and get some fresh air, I ventured into the great wilderness. I was greeted by the most amazing smell. I didn’t think it possible for a place to smell green, but this place did. It smelled of cedar and pine, of mulch and earth. I was comforted in the lushness of all that surrounded me. The mountain at my back, and the sun beating down on my face to keep me company.
Even though it was no longer raining, moisture lingered on all of the needles and blades shining like a thousand tiny diamonds. I was lost in reverie walking around the perimeter of the house, careful not to venture out of eyesight of the cabin.
I meandered through the woods a bit, but not so far as to get lost. I looked up to the great canopy of trees. Their height spoke of an unimaginable passing of time. The fallen giants littering the forest floor made me wonder about the countless days those trees bore witness to before their lives ended.
I began to wonder if Kennan ever felt like those mighty giants, watching the world pass by and the days fade away. I was so immersed in my reverie that I failed to hear the frantic yells until they were all but on top of me.
“IZZY! WHERE ARE YOU?" The panic bellowed out of my Guardian. I slowly walked back towards the clearing, only to be engulfed in the arms of Kennan as he breathed in my hair, panic radiating from him.
“What the hell were you thinking? I thought they’d found you." He released me, the look of fear replaced by one of anger.
“I’m sorry, I just wanted to get some fresh air. I feel like I’ve been cooped up for the past week, and I just needed to breathe a little. I didn’t mean to scare you." Hoping that my sincerity was evident in my voice, but fearing the next words he might say.
“Don’t go anywhere without me, ever again. Do you understand me? I can’t protect you if I don’t know where you are. You left the protections of the cabin, the shields, and he could’ve found you if you weren’t careful."
Anger started to rise up in me once more.
“I refuse to be your prisoner, Kennan. I can’t live the rest of my life like some psychotic K.O. worshiper, following two steps behind you. I need to breathe, I need to have some semblance of freedom, or I might as well just turn myself over to the Corporation." Angry tears gathered at the corners of my eyes threatening to fall. Kennan closed the distance between us with two smooth steps and tilted my chin up toward his face.
“I’m sorry. I don’t want you to feel like a prisoner. I just made a promise to your dad and I’m doing my very best to keep that promise. I can’t do that if I don’t know where you are. Of course you have freedom. But I have to know where you are. You can’t just leave, sometimes you have to prepare before going out into the world. There are mental protections I can put in place when I have enough time. I can shield you from Xavier’s prying."
“Listen, I get that you are just trying to protect me. You are trying to keep a promise or whatever. But you have to understand that a week ago my life was normal. I was just a bike messenger, living in Chicago, going about my day to day life. Now I’m some sort of prophet, Seer-person on the run. I’m terrified, and being cooped up with no freedom is making me feel trapped. You have to cut me a little slack." At the end of my tirade I sat down on a fallen log, not caring that my behind might be soaked through in about two seconds.
“Fine,” he sa
id brusquely, “I have something that will help with your sanity and serve practical purposes as well." The way he taunted my sanity made me want to throat punch him. But if this idea of his allowed me to escape the confines of the cabin for a while, I was game.
“Alright, what do you have in mind?" I asked hesitantly. Lord only knew what practical purposes he was referring to.
“Well, you want to be out of the cabin for a while, and I need you to know how to escape from here if you need to. So we’re going to do some hiking," he said with a look of finality in his eyes.
“Hiking, okay, that sounds like something I can handle," I said.
“I’m going to head in and grab the pack you would take if you were on the run. That way you can get used to the weight of it while hiking." With that he headed back toward the cabin, not waiting to see if I would follow.
Sometime between last night and today something had shifted in his countenance. The easy discourse we’d shared the night before seemingly gone, only to be replaced by a distant man I barely recognized. Not knowing if it was what had transpired between us the night before or my having scared him today that had changed his behavior was unnerving. So, back to repression I would go. If I repressed it all, then I could just move forward and not deal with it. I didn’t possess the energy to try and fix whatever had broken between us. Not today.
I headed in after him, reaching around to dust the moss off of my bottom as I went. Yup, one wet hiney. Oh well, I supposed it would dry while I was hiking to wherever Kennan thought I should be going.
**********
After Kennan packed everything he thought I might need, he called me over. He had me stand perfectly still and placed his hands on either side of my head. I suppressed the urge to curl into him. He held me in place and chanted something in a language I didn’t understand. Suddenly my head felt lighter, like the strain of the past few days had been lifted.
“What did you do to me, Kennan?" I asked, not upset, but curious as to what had happened.
“I severed your connection to the outside for now. You won’t have any visions while we are out. You also won’t be susceptible to Xavier or anyone else getting into your head. I can reverse it when we get back to the cabin. But for now it is necessary. At least until you can learn to block on your own." He picked up his pack and looked over his shoulder at me with no hint of a smile. “Grab your gear, we’re losing daylight.”
I grabbed my bag and headed out behind him. I was determined to return his coldness and not show how much his change had upset me. Instead, I resolved myself to follow all of his instructions and just keep to myself. My mental guard was enough of a comfort to carry me through the rest of the day.
“Alright, where are we headed?" I asked as he handed me a map and a compass like I was supposed to know how to use them. Seriously, outdoorsman I was not. I have only ever been camping twice in my life. One of those times, we had to go home early because I sprained my ankle walking across a flat meadow. The prospect of navigating this uneven and foreign terrain was a bit daunting. But hey, if I could figure out city maps, maybe I could handle this.
“I have the different exit strategies mapped out here. Choose one for today and we will start there. In the next couple of weeks, we will do all of them. Once I feel you have the necessary skills to do it, you will do a practice run on each in which you do them solo. I will be close, but you won’t see me. So pick one, we will start with that and get you acclimated to reading the map and figuring out your coordinates. As we go along, I’ll try and teach you anything that might be vital to your survival. I may not always be there to protect you, so I need to know that you can take care of yourself if necessary.”
Quite frankly, the prospect of hiking out here on my own scared the bejeezus out of me. I tried to suppress my shudder, and looked down at the map. I was surprised at how close the cabin was to several major roadways. Looking at it now, I realized we couldn’t possibly be as far from where we left the car as I thought. Slightly annoyed, I took a second to ask Kennan.
“How far are we from where we left the car the first day?”
“About a forty minute hike. I needed to know that you would not try and run, so I took you the long way."
He said it so matter-of-factly that I once again was filled with the urge to punch him right in his stupid throat. Okay, maybe I probably couldn’t reach high enough to do it, but the visualization was cathartic. I looked back at the map and chose what seemed to be the longest of the routes. If he was determined to act as though I’d peed in his cornflakes, then I was going to make the day harder on him. Take that Kennan O’stupidhead.
He looked at the route and nodded his head. “You need to orient yourself in the direction that the path leads. Show me how you would do that.”
I looked at the map and the compass and turned myself away from the cabin in the direction I thought I might need to head. Kennan moved behind me and turned me about forty-five degrees to the right. I looked back at the map and compass and figured out how to match the two sets of information. I’d always been a quick learner, and I was determined to learn this as quickly as possible. It was my escape plan after all. I might as well learn how to save my own neck if necessary.
I started hiking into the woods, checking the map every few feet to make sure I was still heading in the right direction. From the looks of it, the map had me heading toward the Hoh River. After looking more closely at the map, I realized I chose the most mountainous of the escape routes. I guess the joke was on me after all. Whatever! In for a dime… and all that.
We trudged on in silence for about three hours with me stopping every few minutes to check my orientation. The only words that passed between us were those concerning our trek. We climbed up for what seemed an eternity before heading downward toward the river itself. The daylight was starting to fade and I was wondering if we would be heading back in the dark, or if we would be staying the night out in the wilderness.
My fear of the dark was only second to my fear of small spaces. I was hoping that somewhere in my pack was some sort of lantern or something that might keep the dark at bay for a while. Ready to stop, I broke the silence between us.
“Kennan, can we stop for a while? I’m getting really tired. I know we haven’t made it out yet, but the sun is setting and I don’t think there is any way I can do it in the dark," I sighed looking out at the river. I was stunned by its beauty. Even in the waning light, its magnificence was undeniable.
“We can stop here for the night. You need to look for a clearing to set up camp. You should look for something close to the water so that fire containment won’t be such an issue. Then you need to go and look for some dry wood to make a fire."
I looked at him like he’d grown a second head. Just what in the hay was he going to be doing while I was busting my bottom?
“Okay." I drew the word out so that my irritation was evident.
Well, at least it was evident to me. I looked around and found a level piece of ground that was nestled against the rocky shore of the river. I headed in that direction, checking the clearing for critters that might crawl out of a hole and eat me while I slept. Satisfied with my choice, I set my bag down and headed out in search of firewood.
Finding dry wood on the Olympic Peninsula turned out to be more daunting of a task than I’d anticipated. With some work, I was able to find four passable pieces of wood. I carried them back to the site and noticed that Kennan was out in the water with his shirt off. That water must’ve be freezing. But seeing as Kennan was now being a royal pain in my arse, I didn’t care if he got hypothermia. On second thought, I’d be stuck in the wilderness alone for the rest of my short days if he died on me.
“Kennan, you’re going to catch your death. What are you doing out there?" I asked as dispassionately as I could. He wouldn’t catch me caring, no siree Bob. Two could play this game.
“Catching dinner," was all he replied before reaching into the river to pull out a fish. S
o, he was part bear as well. That was good to know. Maybe they didn’t have fishing poles back when he was born. I snickered to myself, imagining the first dude that invented a fishing pole and Kennan being all, "Nah I got this."
I stacked the wood and dug through my pack looking for something to light the fire with. I found a lighter buried underneath several sets of clothing. Pulling from all of the survival shows I’d watched, I lit a small ball of tinder. I prayed the wood wasn’t too damp to catch. With a little luck, and a light head from blowing on the embers, the wood finally caught. I looked up to see Kennan heading my way with several fish. He pulled a grate out of his pack on his way to the fire. After getting the fish situated, he headed back to his pack and pulled on a hoodie.
I headed over to my pack and decided to figure out what I was going to sleep on before the light faded. I saw a mat that resembled my yoga mat from back home rolled up underneath. I took the straps off and unfurled it, thankful that it wasn’t as thin as my mat back home. I shuffled through the giant pack in search of a sleeping bag. I pulled it out of its small pouch, surprised that something so large could collapse to be so compact. Kennan spared no expense on his kidnapping supplies it would seem.
I lay it all out between the river and the fire. My logic being that no big bad critters would want to cross the fire to eat me. Well, that was my hope at any rate. I wondered if Bigfoot was afraid of fires. I dug around in my pack in search of something warmer to put on. I found a fleece jacket and pulled it on and followed it up with a fleece hat. I refused to die of a little thing like exposure. It may have only been forty something degrees, but I was still cold.
I walked back toward the fire, the aroma of fish drawing me in. Suddenly, I was famished. Kennan was dishing up the food as I arrived. I sat down as he handed me a plate, the silence unnerving me. I dug in, the food gone entirely too quickly.
I must have looked pathetic because Kennan began rifling through his pack. He pulled something out and tossed it my way. I looked down in my hands and saw that he’d given me a Power Bar. Nothing to top a dinner off like a fine sundae, I mean protein bar. Alas, beggars cannot be choosers. The strawberry cake of the previous evening conjured itself in my memories like a traitorous letch. I ate the bar in silence, trying to be grateful for a full belly.