Unbound

Chapter 7

One week went by, then another. By the third week, I'd found my rhythm in the storeroom and was working through the shelves at an easy pace. I even found that I'd started getting used to the silence—not completely, especially not at night, but if I could keep my hands and mind busy, I didn't feel it quite so acutely as I had.

Still, I was avoiding my phone. I must have picked it up and set it back down a hundred times the first couple nights, but when I saw the voicemail count, my fingers froze. Eventually, I let it die so that Jack would at least see that his messages weren't delivered. I thought that when I was ready, I might tell him that my charger broke and they were hard to come by in Castle territory, which was likely true. The guilt gnawed at me, but it was better than breaking down on the phone, which would do nothing but hurt the both of us.

Thinking of his tear-soaked face as we said our goodbyes tore at the resolve I was slowly but steadily building up. Brick by brick, I was constructing myself a protective wall. If I thought about home too hard, that wall would crumble.

Outside, the winter was becoming harsher by the day. Though the low valleys of the Sawtooth territory saw more snow, the heavy shadows cast by the forest here kept the afternoon sun from melting off anything that had fallen the night before. Instead of the light, fluffy snowdrifts I was used to, here it was dense and wet.

The trudge back and forth between my apartment and the clinic was miserable. I wished that Aubrey would keep me company again at least partway, but I hadn't seen her since the night she took me to the grocery store. I'd now gone several times without her and successfully avoided confrontation, but it was far more comfortable with her there by my side.

Occasionally, I heard her voice in the clinic hallway, outside the storeroom door, but she hadn't stopped by. I wondered whether she was avoiding me. Whether maybe I had been too forward in my line of questioning about human medicine. Whether I'd ruined my chance at making friends with the only one that seemed willing to talk to me, or even acknowledge my existence with more than a hostile glare.

Once, I'd tried poking my head out when I thought I heard her laughing. I was too slow; she'd already disappeared into an exam room and Marie was there to scold me. She hadn't stopped by to check in, either. Based on how things had shifted slightly every morning from how I'd left them the night before, I was nearly certain that all of the healers were coming in after I left for the evening to get what they needed for the following day.

I longed for interaction of any kind. At this point, I would have settled for an unfriendly conversation. I'd even tried my luck with the cashier when I finally got up the nerve to venture into a different store for towels and bedding. This one was all home goods, much smaller and quieter than the grocery store. The things they sold were higher end than I expected; I was used to the thin cotton sheets we had at home. The cashier treated me as though I was coming in to rob the place.

I'd yet to take a day off, and this Saturday was no exception. It was mid-morning, and I was making new labels for the stack of twenty-odd jars I had piled on the table when Marie came in. I didn't register the door opening, so her voice was startling when she addressed me.

"I have a different job for you today," she said in a pinched tone. I knew she wasn't going to ask me to do any real medical work, but I couldn't help feeling a slight tug of hope.

"What is it?" I asked. Marie crossed the room to hand me a scrap of paper, half a page torn roughly from a book. An illustrated flower bloomed in the bottom corner, alongside its name: CALLENDULA.

"We're low. I need you to harvest more."

"Yeah, I can do that. There's actually a lot of things you're low on right now—" I reached for the pad of paper with my inventory notes but she shook her head.

"This is priority for now. It grows in the woods." Marie said.

"In a certain place?" The woods here stretched for hundreds of miles, there was no chance I could find it without better directions.

"All over. They're bright yellow, you can't miss them." Great. The small glimmer of optimism she'd brought with her vanished instantly as she left me alone with minimal instructions and a near-worthless bit of paper.

Procrastinating, I took my time finishing the labels for my pile. I didn't want to lose my place by abandoning it halfway through, but more than that, I wasn't ready to wander aimlessly in the cold. But after I'd cleared that stack, I knew I couldn't start another. Marie was likely waiting impatiently for me to leave, and the longer I waited, the colder it would get as evening drew near.

When I stepped outside, I considered for a moment taking a detour back to my apartment for my hat and gloves, but thought better of it. I needed to get this done. I followed a shoveled-out path that circled around the back side of the clinic and ended at the dumpster by the edge of the woods. From here on, it would be wading through knee-deep snow. I picked a direction and began walking.

The woods were silent today, without even a breeze to rustle through the pines above my head. There were few birds left, and those that had stayed to winter here were tucked away deep within the branches, quiet. Here and there, I noticed animal tracks: deer, raccoons, squirrels, and wolves. Theirs were scattered and sloppy where they'd plowed through the deep drifts with abandon.

I hiked my shoulders up to my ears and pulled my arms inside my coat to wrap around my chest. I stuck my hands in my armpits to keep them warm. Silently, I cursed Marie and Aubrey and Gabriel and Dmitri and Constance and anyone else remotely to blame for my being there, stuck outside in the freezing cold, looking for a damn flower.

I marched on steadily through the snow, steeped in my own bitterness. My breath fell heavily from my lips in thick, opaque puffs. All around me, the boughs of the trees hung low, weighed down under sparkling white blankets. The snow crunched under my boots with each step, and I could feel the cold seeping through the rubber soles and into my feet.

Pressing on, the trees grew thicker around me, and the snow grew deeper. My legs ached with the effort of pushing through it, but I didn't dare stop: moving might have been the only thing keeping me from freezing entirely. I kept my head down and scanned the forest floor for any bright splash of color. When a flash of yellow caught my eye, I stumbled quickly over a hidden tree root trying to reach it on numb feet. When I looked closer, I saw that it was just a clump of dried leaves.

"Come on!" I yelled in frustration. I shut my eyes and took a deep breath, dragging as much frozen air into my lungs as I could and holding it there.

"Human," a deep voice snarled from behind me. My heart slammed against my ribcage, forcing the air out in one sharp breath. Fuck.