“Not… I didn’t mean like that. I just m-meant.” Lockwood began to stammer, his skin flushing from his cheeks all the way down his neck. He had hovered over Louisa protectively during our trek, offering his arm to help her when the terrain got to be too rough. She never took it, but he never stopped offering, either.
I nudged Lockwood’s shoulder with mine. “I know what you meant. Calm down. Though I have to admit, it’s nice getting the advantage in our little war of wits. Especially now that I know you have a weakness for blondes,” I teased, surprised that I could even joke at all. It wasn’t that I didn’t understand everything that happened only days before; it was just that I couldn’t focus on it. Not yet. I had to get Louisa to safety first. That was all that mattered, all my little heart could handle.
Because if I thought of the other things…
I would become her again—the girl I fought so hard to bury inside me.
Lockwood opened his mouth to protest, but I cut him off. “I appreciate the offer. I just can’t. I know I should sleep, but not yet.”
“I understand,” he said quietly. We sat like that, both lost in our own thoughts, staring up at the night stars through the canopy of trees. Insignificant in the grand scheme of things. The war would rage but the stars would always remain. At least until mankind brought the whole world down with them.
“What a fine mess we’ve gotten ourselves into,” he finally said.
“You mean what a fine mess I’ve gotten everyone into,” I amended, ripping at the grass that poked up between my fingers.
“Enough,” Lockwood said. “You didn’t make the world like this, and you didn’t put a gun to anyone’s head to bring them to these woods. I’m here because I wanted to be. Same with McNair. He came because he felt like it was the right thing to do. And your father was right. About fighting. It’s time to fight,” he finished, his voice carrying a passion I had never heard from him before. His eyes moved to my sleeping sister, and I understood.
Lockwood always had liked a lost cause.
…
“I have to go to the bathroom,” Louisa whispered in my ear. The first words she had said to me since the exchange with George. She shifted and squirmed on her feet, darting her eyes among the men who walked on all sides of us.
“We need to take a break,” I called out to my father, who was ahead of us, lifting my hand to block the sun that seemed to announce to the world where we were. Even in the woods with my father, I was starting to feel vulnerable. He had been right. This place wasn’t safe. I felt it in my gut.
“No. Not now. We keep moving,” he answered, refusing to even break his stride long enough to look back.
A small noise escaped Louisa’s lips. I stopped and looked back to see her mouth pulled tight. “I wasn’t asking for permission. I was telling you we need to stop. It’ll only take a few minutes.”
My father stopped dead in his tracks. I braced for his anger as he slowly turned around to face me. But as his eyes moved from me to my sister, I saw the slight slump of his shoulders once more. “Make it quick,” he muttered, turning his back on us. He couldn’t keep his eyes on Louisa long.
“Come on,” I told her, pulling her gently by the hand away from the group.
“Want me to come with you?” Henry asked, keeping pace with me as we moved deeper into the woods.
“We’ll be fine. We only need a few minutes. Girl stuff,” I said.
Henry put his hands in the air and slowly backed away. “That’s all you needed to say.”
Once we were safely away from the group, I turned around so my sister could have some privacy. My little sister. There were many things I needed to ask her. How far along was she? How did she feel? And then the darker questions, the questions that might cause me to kill a man—the questions that would turn me into Henry.
Was she forced?
“I’m done. We can go back now,” Louisa said quietly. It wasn’t the tone I was used to hearing from her mouth. We had spent the greater part of our lives fighting with each other, jockeying for the attention of our sister who was more a mother to us than the woman who gave birth to us. While I’d tried rescuing her from Templeton, the fact remained that I had abandoned her. There were many discussions we needed to have, but any tension that existed between us seemed temporarily gone. I turned around and reached again for her. She didn’t hesitate in placing her small hand into mine.
I knew she didn’t do it from affection; she was frightened out of her wits. She trembled when someone stepped on a branch or when the wind rustled through the trees.