Something to Die For by Kaye Blue

Forty-Five

Lucas

“I’m impressed,”she said the next morning as she walked around the vehicle. “White is my favorite color. And I’ve always wanted a car with leather seats,” she said.

I chuckled then shrugged.

“I was more concerned about gas mileage and towing capability,” I said.

“Still, a good choice. Though I never suspected you’d be one for foreign cars,” she said, one brow arched.

“The best is the best,” I responded.

And it was true.

I looked at her, and she looked back, waiting. “Of course, you have to be freaking engineer to figure out what’s going on under the hood,” I said.

“So how’d you get it started?”

“The key,” I said, reaching into my pocket.

She laughed and walked to the passenger side.

“You’re a quick study,” she said, gesturing toward the push button.

“It looks that way,” I said.

The car really did have a ton of bells and whistles, things that I wouldn’t be able to fix if anything happened, but it was the best, maybe the only, and definitely the fastest way to get us where we were going.

I could have gotten something bigger, but it would have taken way more gas than I was comfortable trying to procure. So this was the best of all worlds. Or at least I hoped it was.

“This thing’s loaded,” she said.

I nodded.

“I kept everything that I could fit in this trailer, because I think the towing will use less gas than carrying the weight in the car. So only the important stuff is in the car, everything else is out back, but we can ditch that if we need to or if maneuvering gets too tricky,” I said, gesturing at the small trailer I had attached.

“You found all this stuff in less than four days?” she asked, her brows crinkled.

“Yeah.”

I didn’t say anything else, didn’t tell her how many hours of unbroken battle I’d spent fighting to get it all, how many of those things I’d had to kill.

Or my hope that it would be enough.

I wasn’t sure about that, wouldn’t breathe until we got where we were going, but this was a good start.

“So, we should go,” she said.

“Yeah. But put this on first,” I said.

I reached in the passenger side and pulled out a heavy coat.

“Thanks, Lucas. It is getting a little cold,” she said.

“And only it’s only going to get colder.

“How cold does it get in Wyoming?”

“It can get below zero. And with us being in the elements, I want to make sure we have everything we need.” I smiled at her and then reached into the passenger’s side again.

“You got something else?”

“Yeah,” I said, handing her the socks. “Winter socks. Warm but not too thick. I think you’ll appreciate them,” I said.

She smiled and didn’t say anything.

But she didn’t have to. Her face gave it all away.

I broke eye contact, the weight of the moment more than I wanted to deal with.

Besides, we needed to go.

I took off, hoping that the rest of the trip would take no more than two months, determined to do everything I could to see that it didn’t.

And so we drove.

And drove more.

“These roads are in rough shape,” she said, one day about two weeks after we had gotten the car on the road.

“Yeah,” I responded.

I had expected as much, but they were getting worse the farther we went.

No surprise.

The goal was to be away from people, so we stayed to small roads, only venturing to bigger ones when we didn’t have a choice.

We’d had our fair share of obstacles, but none that we hadn’t been able to handle.

I looked at her. “Don’t worry.”

And then I looked back at the road, squeezing her hand tight when she reached for mine.

“So what’s it like?” she asked one day out of the blue.

“What’s what like?”

“This place where we’re going.”

“You’ve never asked me about it before,” I said, realizing she hadn’t.

Strange, given that we had been headed there for what felt like forever.

“Yeah, I guess I never got around to it. Didn’t so much matter where, but now I find myself curious.”

I didn’t answer immediately, instead thinking.

“When I was a kid, I used to think it was heaven,” I said.

I glanced at her quickly to see her reaction, but her face was impassive.

I continued, suddenly finding myself wanting to talk. “It’s barely a town. Mostly a place where people live during logging and hunting season. Most of the time it’s small, maybe fifty families when it’s off-season. My mother grew up there. I used to spend time there, before…”

“Before what…?”

“Before she died. Truthfully, I haven’t been back in nearly thirty years. It might not even be there,” I whispered.

“It’s there,” she responded.

I didn’t argue, but I’d had this conversation with myself before. I didn’t know if that community I remembered existed, but if nothing else, I knew there were resources there, a place where Angel and I could stay, be relatively safe, at least for a while.

“Oh,” she exclaimed, shifting in her seat.

“What?”

“She’s moving up a storm,” she said.

I glanced around, saw nothing, and pulled to the side of the road. I could have just stayed in the middle, but that was being stupid.

“What are you doing?” she said.

“May I?” I asked, gesturing toward her.

She smiled, the expression soft as she extended her hand. “Of course.”

She unbuttoned her coat, and I pressed my hand against the flannel shirt and was rewarded with a strong kick.

“Little guy is animated,” I said.

She laughed and then said, “How many times have we had this conversation?”

“What?” I said shrugging, my own expression bright. “You’re convinced he’s a girl.”

“And you’re convinced she’s a boy,” she countered.

“Guess we’ll find out which one of us is right soon enough,” I said.

She laughed, and I got back on the road.

I had been pushing a little bit harder, going little farther than I was comfortable with every day.

And when we crossed the state line, or at least what I thought was the state line, I allowed myself to feel hopeful.

“We still have about two hundred miles to go, but we’re getting closer,” I said.

She said nothing, just nodded, but I looked at her, concerned.

“I’m okay,” she said.

She always said that, but I knew being cramped in a car wasn’t comfortable for her.

Better than being on foot would have been, but none of this was ideal.

But like always, Angel handled it like a trooper. And never, not once, did she complain.

“Hope we can get there in a week, maybe faster.”

She nodded, her face somewhat pensive, but the trust that she inexplicably had in me still apparent.

“Angel,” I said, five days later.

She had drifted off but woke immediately, her eyes clear as she looked around.

“It’s just there, up the road,” I said.

She peered, though she, like me, could probably see nothing but the mountains in the background, a thick wall of trees split by a two-lane road.

“Slow down,” she said.

I slowed the car to a crawl and then spotted what she had seen. Two sentries on either side of the road, waiting.

My alarm was instant, undeniable.

It had been over a month since we had seen another person, and that had been just through the window.

I know Angel had wanted to stop, but I wouldn’t hear of it, and she hadn’t pressed.

“Should we try to drive past them?” she asked.

I shook my head. “No. There’s nowhere we can go, really, and we don’t want to try to get into a chase.”

The car had been through hell, but it had held up, and I didn’t want to risk it.

If it came to it, I wouldn’t go without a fight, but my instinct told me now wasn’t the time for that, and I would trust that feeling.

I still reached for my weapon, saw that Angel had hers.

We stopped about six feet away from one of the sentries and cracked the window.

“I think you’re lost. You should turn around.”

“I’m trying to get the Hope Falls,” I said.

“I said you should turn around,” he said again.

He was my age, maybe a year or two older, and seemed familiar.

I stared at him, then I took a risk.

“Thomas?”

His eyes lit, and he narrowed them, staring at me.

“I know you?”

“You haven’t seen me in a long time, but I’m your cousin.”

“Cousin who?”

“Lucas,” I said.

He looked at me harder, got closer, gun still raised.

I rolled the window down more, stuck my head out.

“I’ll be damned.”

He looked across me then gestured toward the car. “Mom’s not gonna believe this,” Thomas said.

“Harold will stay with the car. If you don’t mind,” he said, nodding at my gun.

I was reluctant, but let it go, and Angel did the same.

“Come on, this way,” he said.

He hopped on a quad, and after looking at Angel, said, “Wait here. I’ll be back.”

He drove off, and no more than five minutes later, he returned with a wagon pulled by a horse.

“Not the smoothest ride, but better than the quad,” he said to Angel, nodding at her apologetically.

“It’s fine,” she responded.

We got into the back, and she looked at me, still tense, but trusting.

When we got to the center of town, an old woman met us.

“Aunt Helen?”

“Tommy said it was you, but I didn’t believe him. But it is. My sister’s son, after all these years. I knew you would be back again,” she said.

I gave her a hug, and she hugged me back, her embrace strong, even though she was approaching seventy.

“And who’s this? Your woman?”

“Angel,” I said.

Angel extended her hand, but Aunt Helen ignored it and pulled her into a hug.

“There hasn’t been a lot of good news around here, but I’m glad to see you both,” she said.

And just like that, everything fell into place.

Angel and I were welcomed into the community, which had about eighty-five people. They’d had their fair share of skirmishes at the beginning but hadn’t spotted those things in a while. Angel speculated it was winter that slowed them down, so we needed to be prepared for spring.

Aunt Helen, who was the de facto leader of the community, began to look to Angel for advice. And Angel, like she always did, rose to the challenge.

Did the same when she had her first contraction.

“You know pacing is not going to make this go any faster,” Angel said.

“Well, what am I supposed to do?”

“I don’t know,” she responded.

I looked at her, she looked at me, and simultaneously, we laughed.

“Aren’t you a doctor?”

“Right now, I’m the patient,” she responded.

“Then do what I say,” Aunt Helen interjected as she walked into the house that Angel had designated as the community’s clinic.

Then, she gave Angel and I a list of chores. “Lucas, fetch the wood, and Angel, use that pitcher to start filling up this tub with water, but don’t dare try to lift it. The moving will help and give you something to pass the time.

Angel looked skeptical but did as she was asked, as did I, and about an hour after we started, Angel nodded.

“She was right. This is way better than just sitting there,” she said.

“I’ll bet,” I responded, especially since I agreed.

I probably stacked three months of firewood, but I was filled with restless energy.

Energy that didn’t seem to subside as the hours passed.

But things progressed, and soon the contractions were so close together, the pain so intense, that Angel had to sit.

“Time to push,” Aunt Helen said.

“Thank God,” Angel responded.

I had expected screaming, tears, or at least that was what I’d always seen on TV, but not Angel.

She was near silent, completely focused, and I watched her as she pushed, taking a few moments for rest, only to push again.

“You gonna do the honors?” Aunt Helen asked.

“Yeah,” I said.

I cleaned up, and on Angel’s last push, reached down and caught the baby.

The tiny creature was quiet for a moment and then let out a loud, angry-sounding yell.

Angel burst into tears, and I felt my own eyes begin to water.

“It’s a boy,” I said.

“Shut up and give him to me,” Angel responded, smiling.

I kissed her cheek then handed the baby to Aunt Helen. She cleaned him and then handed him to Angel.

My heart was as full as it ever been, a family I’d never even let myself dream about now mine.

“How is he doing?” I asked Angel the next day.

She held the baby close.

“He figured out how to latch,” she said.

She had worried for a while there, but he seemed to be getting the hang of it.

“That’s good,” I said, urging him on as he fed, one of her fingers stroking his soft cheek.

“I think—” she said, then she cut off.

Kept her eyes on him.

“What?” I whispered.

“I think he has your eyes,” she said quietly.

“Yeah,” I said, noncommittally.

Then I kissed her cheek, sat next to her, my arm wrapped around her shoulders as she held him.

“What are you going to name him?”

“I don’t know,” she said, her face still soft, though I could see some exasperation. “You have any ideas?”

I waited a beat then looked down at him. Then looked at her.

“How about Adam?” I said.

She met my eyes, smiled.

“I think that’s perfect.”

* * *

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