He pulled back and gave me a lopsided grin. I was flabbergasted, the feeling of his stubble against my cheek still tingling my skin.

“Well, how did I do?” he asked, his eyes dancing playfully. “I was right, wasn’t I?”

I couldn’t find the words. Jake McGraw just kissed me. Not Avery as I’d always imagined, but Jake. A man. A Texan. A liar and a jackass.

“Speechless for once? Heck, I should have kissed you much earlier if I knew that would be the aftermath!”

I shook my head, too many feelings swarming through me. “That was a horrible thing to do!” I told him, smacking him against his arm. I nearly hurt my hand in the process; he was built like a rock.

He rubbed his chin and peered down at me with his head held high. “You don’t say? Maybe I should try again someday, see if I can change your mind.”

“Don’t you dare!” I yelped, pushing my finger into his chest. “That is no way to treat a woman.”

“Actually, that’s exactly how you should treat a woman. Give her what she wants.”

My head jerked back. This man was unbelievable.

“That is not what I want,” I scoffed. “I don’t know what signals you think you’re picking up on…”

“Smoke signals.”

I shot daggers at him. “But you’re a lying, swine-kissing bastard who just earlier held a gun to my friend’s head.”

“Maybe I don’t like your friend.”

I threw my hands up. “Why wouldn’t you like Avery?”

“Maybe I don’t like the way you look at him.”

My mouth flapped open for a moment. “How do I look at him?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “I mean, I didn’t like the way you were looking at him. Before.”

“Before what?”

“Before all of this,” he said, his voice becoming low. “Before you started looking at me that same way.”

He stared at me like he could find his truth somewhere in my eyes.

“You’re out of your darn mind,” I told him, hoping my cheeks weren’t turning pink. I didn’t look at Jake in any way other than with disgust. I brushed past him toward the outhouse. “I have other business to do, more important business than to stand around in the cold and argue with you.”

“You’re the only one arguing, Pine Nut,” he called after me. I could hear his boots crunch in the snow. I guess he really wasn’t going to let me use the latrine alone.

By the time I found the outhouse though, I was glad for it. Though it didn’t have a tunnel in the snow like last night, it was still black and isolated and I went back to being very afraid of the things that lurked in the dark.

“I’ll be waiting right here,” Jake said, standing between the hut and the horses with his rifle out.

Though I held my breath in the latrine, I was grateful for the privacy, and the fact that he couldn’t see my face as I tried to digest what had happened.

The son of a bitch had kissed me. It was quick and fast and nothing like I thought it would be, but he’d kissed me all the same.

I was glad he couldn’t see the odd smile that found itself on my face.

Hours later, when I was settled in my bed of straw and hides on the floor, sleep wouldn’t come for me. I kept getting up to check on Donna and having her sip more of the poppy-laced water and change her dressing. I don’t know how I kept it all together while I did so—the wound was getting worse, judging by the smell, and though it had stopped bleeding, there was a sickly black color building up on the stump that was hard to wash away.

Donna herself was either out cold or delirious and muttering the Lord’s Prayer over and over. Her skin had taken on this sickly ashen tone, and she was burning up, no matter what I did. Staring down at her, I felt nothing but remorse and guilt. It was my fault she was here, and I knew that even if we left tomorrow—which I somehow doubted since Jake’s word wasn’t reliable—she wouldn’t make the journey home.

And sometimes I doubted if we would too. When I put a cool compress on her forehead and turned around to eye the rest of the cabin, I couldn’t understand how Jake, Tim, and Avery could sleep so soundly. They were out like a cow kick to the face and I envied them. Were they such men that they weren’t afraid of the monsters that could be lurking outside the cabin at any notice? Or were they so hung up on money and greed that the flesh-eating monstrosities were just a mere obstacle in their way? Did hope make them feel invincible, and if I had some faith in our outcome, would I be invincible too?

I made a move to head back to my bed when I noticed Avery’s eyes were open and staring at the ceiling. For one horrible moment I thought he was dead, and the ground felt as if it were falling out from under me. But he slowly turned his head and gazed right at me. Then he put his finger to his mouth and looked over at Tim and Jake, passed out in their beds.

He rose with caution and came over to me. He was fully dressed, and only then did I notice he had picked up his satchel from beside his bed.

He coaxed me with his eyes to stay quiet then led me to the far corner of the cabin. “We’re making a run for it,” he whispered in my ear.

“What now?” I asked harshly.

“We have to go. There’s no way they’ll bring us back home alive.”

“They won’t hurt us,” I said feebly.

His eyes turned caustic. “And you’re taking someone’s word on that. We can’t trust them. We have to leave now, it’s our only shot.”

“But the monsters…”

“There are monsters in here too, you know.”

I wasn’t sure why I was stalling. “What about Donna?”

He glanced at her sadly. “We could try to take her, put her on Ali. But honestly, Eve, I don’t think she’s going to make it. She’s dying, you know that, don’t you?”

It was painful to swallow. I nodded. “What if they catch us?” I looked over at Jake and Tim sleeping. “They could wake up at any second.”

Avery smiled smugly. “I gave them a bit of opium in their tea. Just enough to make them sleep better.”

I shook my head. “I don’t know, Avery. I just can’t leave her here. Don’t you understand? It’s my fault this happened to her. If I hadn’t gone on this cursed trip, none of this would have happened.”

“That’s not how it works, so get that guilt out of your little heart.” He put his hand on my arm and squeezed it, trying to give me comfort. “If we don’t leave, she will die here. Even if they let us go back to River Bend tomorrow, she’d still die. We can take her with us if you want, but I think it’s a big mistake.”

“Then that settles it,” I said with determination. “We’re taking her. And while we’re at it, we’re each getting a bar of gold. Payment that was owed.”

He stuck out his lower lip, impressed. “All right. That’s what we’ll do. Come on, let’s get her out of here before they wake up.”

While Avery quietly ran out into the night to saddle up our horses, I quickly slipped on my dress, shawl, and boots, and grabbed my own satchel and the first aid pack while darting nervous looks at Jake and Tim, certain they’d wake up and catch us. I really wanted to believe Jake when he said they wouldn’t hurt us, but that was back when we were “behaving.” Now there was no telling what kind of men they’d become.

I’d be lying to myself though if there wasn’t a small part of me that hated leaving Jake this way, without saying goodbye. All I could do was shake it out of my head and blame it on female foolishness. One damn kiss had turned my insides all askew.

When Avery came creeping back in, we worked quickly to pick up Donna. She wasn’t a heavy girl but as deadweight, it took both of us to haul her off her bed and out through the open door.

“Where are we putting her?” I said through heavy breaths, her mass weighing down my arms. It was startlingly cold outside and I foolishly hadn’t put on my gloves. My fingertips and the end of my nose were numbing over. There was no light outside either, except for the moon that was shooting through cracks in the dark clouds. Everything glowed a sparkling white, though I felt the menace behind all the beauty.