Winter Went | #2 Winter Series

Chapter 18

|| Josh ||

As soon as he hears her voice, he smiles. He doesn't care about what the Government thinks, only that his beloved Sarah's here like she said she would be. This is what his instructions had told him; rescue Amelia Harris and come to the barns. I will be waiting.

And here they are.

She doesn't look quite as tall as when he last remembered seeing her. He skims over her light eyes, thin nose, and the countless number of freckles sprinkling her infraorbital margin. He notices the faint marks on her cheeks, the swollenness of her lower lip, the white scar that runs along her cheekbone, which is particularly prominent. As he runs his eyes along her fading marks, it fills him with a slight anger. If only she hadn't been in the tent at that time, maybe people wouldn't have come in to bash her head open after hearing her confession. And she was protecting what she'd been trained to do, a secret which was all uncovered by the frizzy-haired girl sitting next to him.

Her expression is one of shock, and then he reminds himself that she isn't exactly happy to see Sarah, not like he his. His heart thumps the rhythm of joy, pulsing through him until he thinks he's going to be sick with happiness.

"What are you doing here?" Amelia asks, her voice filled with disbelief. "You're meant to be dead!"

Her voice rises on the last word, and it pierces his ears like a whistle, ringing around the barn a few times over.

"I got a bit bashed," Sarah replies. "But I soon sorted that out."

Amelia doesn't say anything else. She doesn't have to because the main barn door opens, and Zach comes in, carrying what looks like a metal bucket. He places it next to the door and by the looks of it, Josh thinks he heard the conversation coming in.

"She's not as bad as you think," Zach says, turning to Amelia. There's a pleading note in his voice as he walks towards their end of the barn. "She found me, took me in. Isn't that enough?"

"So you didn't get sent to the prison," states Angie, like it's a fact. "I spent days in there, Zach, wondering what they were doing to you, whether you were even in the same building as me."

"I jumped out of the truck," he replies.

"And you didn't take me with you?!"

"Let's not argue," says Sarah, cutting in between the two of them.

"Oh, keep quiet!" Amelia snaps at her. "It's not like you're going to help the situation, is it?"

"I might," replies Sarah with the same ferocity, "if you'll let me." There's a silence, and Josh holds his breath. "I can confirm the story that Zach is saying is true—I helped him. Now," she presses her hands together gingerly, "I need to put my laptop to charge." She turns around and strides back into her hidey-hole through the side door. Josh watches her go, and he notices the way she glances around the barn like she's lost something.

"Sarah's been doing some work, you see," says Zach. "She's finding a cure."

Josh grits his teeth, feeling a pressure building up in his chest. Why does Zach have to know everything? Wasn't he the only one who was supposed to know about Sarah's intentions? And it wasn't doing any of them any good exposing it all.

Josh finds himself walking away from them. They don't stop him. He slips into the room leading off from the main barn, and instantly finds himself transported.

It's dark. Whatever light that was coming in from outside before has been omitted now. The only ray is from the laptop at the far end of the room, illuminating Sarah's face. He wonders how she's managed to get electricity to charge the device, but then he casts his mind back to the night before. He saw telephone pylons along the road, and the barn looks relatively new. They're not in the middle of nowhere.

"Oh, Joshua, hello."

He still hates it that she calls him by his full name. It feels too professional. But then, he reminds himself, she is his work partner. They were put together in the last assignment, the one where he infiltrated the public sector to bring more people onto the trucks. People like Amelia.

And yet why does he feel so drawn to Sarah?

He knows why. Deep down, there's a part of him that knows the exact reason, but whenever it threatens to surface, he shoves it back down again. Because what good would a memory do him when he's supposed to be spineless, cold-blooded, inhumane? No good, that's what.

It is this line that he drills into himself every time the question arises again. No good, that's what.

He shakes his head clear from thoughts now and takes in his surroundings.

A small duffel bag takes up most of the left wall; the place is tiny. Placed in the corner is a bundle of clothes mixed with straw—her sleeping quarters, Josh guesses—and on the right side is a tiny camping table at which she's kneeling at, staring at the computer screen. As he guessed, there's a socket on the far wall from which a plug extends. Then he reprimands himself; of course there's electricity. How could the light bulb in the main barn work otherwise?

"This morning," he says, "when you left, you looked like you'd lost something."

Her eyes don't move from the screen. "What about it?"

"What have you lost?"

She blinks, and tells him. "I left it here the other night, but I couldn't seem to find it in my bag anymore."

He nods, and lets the subject drop because, to him, he doesn't find it important.

"What are you doing?" he asks instead.

With a finger, Sarah beckons him over. He peers over her shoulder at the screen, scanning it and immediately understanding what it means.

"You know what you have to do?" she murmurs.

He nods, glancing back at the screen.

"I've got the equipment," she adds.

He likes how she calls it equipment as though they're actually on a real assignment. Standing in a small room in a barn in the middle of nowhere doesn't seem like a mission.

He knows what he has to do. It's his duty, his promise to the Service.

Duty, not the ruin that he will create.

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