Rogue Evolution

The Mountain 6.6

The tent was hardly warm, but it was at least dry. Which was far more than Anna had gotten since falling into a hole in the ground she now wasn't so sure she was ever going to get out of. Resting on the tent's floor with only a thin layer of nylon and a rolled-up pair of pants acting as a pillow for comfort, she found herself staring at the wall opposite the tent door most of the night. She could hear the popping of wood from the fire behind her and feel the smallest bit of heat radiating through the fabric of the zipper door. Beyond she knew Scott was there 'keeping watch,' whatever that was supposed to mean. She figured if their 'keeper' wanted them dead, they would be dead. Still, he insisted on taking the first watch, though she never intended on getting up to relieve him of his self-inflicted burden.

Her mind wandered laying there in the near-dark space. Her silhouette was cast on the wall she faced by the fire's flickering light, and she watched her distorted shadowed features bounce and move. She thought of home, and for the first time - home wasn't back in Mississippi. It was in the attic, rummaging through Evan's neatly stocked shelves of Dungeons and Dragons books, and perusing them with Kitty on that couch that was older than both their ages put together. It was watching the boys play games on their decrepit TV set that they got at some pawn shop for couch cushion change, and heckling the pair of them every time they lost a life in whatever relic of a game one of them dug up to play. She then found herself thinking of McCoy's classroom and that uneven-legged chair and desk she was made to sit in at the front of the class near the door. She listened back to his lectures in her mind, and could still hear the passion in his voice when he spoke about all things old and dusty like they still mattered. She could feel the sun leaking in from the windows of his classroom and lighting up the rare few inches of her bare flesh around her wrists and neck.

She then remember the way McCoy's brow stitched together and looked down on her like a bug just moments before demanding she takes this god-damned trip for the sake of her grade. It was the first time he ever raised her voice to her, despite her giving him every reason in the past to do so in the past. She was ashamed to admit it, but it was enough to make her cry in the bathroom later that day.

The icy claws of reality peeled back the edges of her sleepy mind. Everything felt heavier, her legs felt like two jagged pieces of cold metal welded to her midsection which was eviscerated with pain from having to drag them along all day. She rolled to her other side, hoping the shift would offset the pain. Though the crack left in the zipped-up tent door, she spotted Scott leaning against a stone column nearby. The way he sat, she thought he had nodded off, till she saw his finger flick to shift something in his other hand's grasp. She had to peer through the glowing embers of the fire to find Scott reading a book that was just bigger than his left hand. The well-loved cover's label was too far to read, but she could make out the branding just fine. Anyone who spent any length of time at the Caldecott County library would have been able to recognize that cover. It was a Kristen Ramsey novel. A famous romance author whose thousands of books were marketed toward women on the cusp of menopause. Anna had to stare a while to really be sure she was understanding the scene presented before her correctly. She then recalled the bus and the textbook Scott had his nose buried in, yet he didn't know the first thing about the 'archaeological equipment' he found despite being a member of the archeology club. He must have had his smaller book hidden beneath his larger textbook and read it on the ride-up. It was the same trick she pulled during math class and her Game Boy.

She only wish she had her phone handy to record what felt like an alien sighting. The misogynist self-absorbed macho-man that was Scott Summers was reading a trashy romance novel just a few feet away from her. In absence of her phone's camera, she was going to have to take a solid mental image and hope that will suffice for her later debriefing of the whole fiasco to Kitty and the others later. Hopefully, if there was a later, that is.