Page 43 of The Darkest Chase

It’s all in my head. My own conscience, plus a dash of natural weirdness when it feels like the birds follow me around.

Too bad my conscience gets annoyingly loud at times. I remind myself that Talia would be interacting with Xavier without my involvement.

Then I tell my conscience to shut the fuck up entirely.

“It’s just common sense,” I say as I help Rolf down. “C’mon. It’s not that long a hike, but we want to be settled before sundown. Let’s move.”

As I nudge my dog down the walk, Talia scampers to catch up with me, watching me like a small animal that doesn’t have the good sense to be afraid of a wolf.

“Why sundown?” she asks.

“Nightfall. That’s when the Jacobins swing into gear,” I tell her. “We want to be concealed and silent before they show up.”

She’s suddenly much quieter.

“Oh,” she whispers.

Yeah.

Oh.

With nothing else to say, I lead her off the path and into the woods bordering my property. Rolf’s collar jingles as he leads the way.

Without Talia noticing, I move a hand behind my back and flip off the crows.

I wasn’t expecting this to turn into a field trip.

Normally, it’s purely tactical when I’m out here alone.

Scout out where the Jacobins have set up shop, find a good vantage point, and settle in out of sight. I enjoy the activity, and Rolf loves the chance to scamper through the leaves before quiet time.

I’ve gotten so used to our routine that I rarely stop to notice the beauty of the North Carolina forest.

Talia Grey seems determined to notice nothing else.

Breathless and sparkly-eyed, she has as much curiosity as Rolf, wandering off the barely visible trail to gush over a field of peonies buzzing with fat bees. Or stopping to stare at a massive canopy of spiderwebs arching over the path, dozens of spiders building it communally between the trees and filtering the light into misty veils.

Everything leaves this woman endlessly fascinated, from the redheaded woodpecker hammering away, to a tiny spring erupting between stones, to the way the trees form a canopy spinning sunlight into glitter.

Now and then she’ll pluck a plant and come tumbling up to me, asking me what it is.

Wood anemones, maidenhair ferns, swamp milkweeds.

She seems as amazed by them as she is by the fact that I know them on sight.

Good thing I made a point of learning the local vegetation in case anything happened to me out here alone and I had to rely on herbs for medicine.

Around noon, I catch her just before she reaches for a patch of leafy doom.

“Not that,” I say sharply. She freezes, still reaching for the three-lobed leaves. “Not unless you want rashes for days in places you never want to itch.”

“Oops!” She backs away guiltily. “What is it?”

“Poison oak.” I point at a break in the trees, just past the poison oak patch. “Head through there. There’s a creek coming up on the map. We’ll break for lunch.”

“Oh, thank God. My calves are killing me.” But she laughs as she says it.

I wonder if she remembers why we’re even out here.