SHAUNTI [2015 featured story]

Chapter Eighteen: It's Over

Like a book, the line between night and morning cracked slowly, releasing Saturday’s light over the land.  A fiery red stretched across the horizon, bleeding through the trees and reflecting in red drops over the waters. It came like an unwanted wind: icy and strong.  

The boys, instead of spending one last moment on the dock outside their cabin, were sitting in a cold room bundling up the poachers’ equipment in preparation for “the hunt.”  They sat on the floor, not saying a word to one another.  With every object they placed in a satchel or box, if felt like they were arranging their own funeral.  Though the poachers toyed with the threat of death, Jace and Knox were positive they were preparing for their execution as well as the wolf’s.

The poachers were a scheming team.  Whenever Jace or Knox would show any sign of refusal, the older men would remind them how they “rescued them” and, if that line didn’t work, then they would explain how they would “never return them home.”  Knox and Jace couldn’t argue with that, which was why that was the line used most repeatedly. 

As Jace rolled up Grant’s backpack, making sure to attach the correct Velcro straps together, he decided someone should speak.  In a bitter voice, he said to Knox, “What do think they’ll do to us when they find the wolf?  Do you really think they’ll let us go?”

Knox remained silent as he dutifully stacked the portable kitchenware in a small box. His face was emotionless and whenever he glanced up at Jace, which wasn’t often, his eyes seemed to stare right through him.  Jace wasn’t used to looking into the distant eyes he had learned to trust over the many years—it wasn’t normal. 

“Knox?  Say something.  Or is putting utensils in cardboard boxes more interesting?”  Jace caught himself putting sarcasm at the end of his sentence.  But in doing so, he pulled his friend from the silence.

“You can’t trust them, Jace.”  Knox looked up with an indubitable mark in his eyes.  “But don’t worry, I’ll look after you.”

Jace raised an eyebrow and a crooked smile appeared.  Taking a moment to mull over Knox’s words, he placed the backpack aside.  “Yeah?”

“Yeah, I’m going to look after you.  I know that if they’re going to pick on someone first, it’ll be you.  I’m not going to let that happen.”

“Don’t worry,” Jace’s voice lowered and his eyes dropped to the floor.  “I’m used to it.”

Knox’s hands stopped completely, as if the words had speared him in the heart.  He looked up at Jace, giving him more than a distant glare.  I’m used to it.  Those were awful words to hear.  How Jace had said it wasn’t for attention or sympathy, but from a lie he had developed to help him cope with his situations.  Standing up from the kitchenware, Knox walked over to Jace and sat down beside him.  “You wouldn’t care what they did to you, would you?”

Jace shrugged.  “I don’t know.  But you see, if they did…I don’t know.”  Jace looked away, his thoughts stretching and wrinkling marks across his forehead.  By the pensive movement of the brows and pinched lips, Knox knew Jace was struggling to express his feelings.  Jace had always been more of the listener and rarely volunteered to have heart to hearts—it wasn’t in Jace’s nature.  “Knox, I know this is stupid to say this, but I don’t want to be that person who regrets not saying something important after something bad happens.”  The boy stopped to find his next words.

Knox waited patiently.

Fighting to enunciate, Jace developed a sudden stutter and his hands became more active the harder it was for him to speak.  “You see, if they did something to you, then, I’d be alone.  If I went…well, died first, I know you would do just fine.  You just know how to deal with things.”