Chapter 293: She Was Done Being Grateful

Dove looked at the fur in Rusk’s hand and decided that denying it would be a waste of a perfectly good breath.

"Because I wanted somebody to find me."

Alden stopped behind her. The yard seemed to quiet, though the truck kept rattling near the gate. Rusk smiled like he had finally handed someone the excuse he’d been saving.

"There," he said. "Told you."

Dove turned toward Alden. "Did you think I wanted my beast husbands believing I was dead?"

His expression shifted. Not softer, exactly. Less certain of which answer would make him look kind.

"Nobody said you were dead."

"Nobody told them I wasn’t."

Rusk moved closer. "She’ll bring them here."

"Then maybe you shouldn’t have brought me here first."

The former guard caught her arm. She twisted enough to make him adjust rather than tighten, keeping her feet beneath her. Edrik had drilled that into her until she’d complained she would start practicing on him while he slept.

She would happily complain for another month if it meant hearing his answer.

Alden put a hand between them. "Let go."

"She’s going to run," Rusk snapped.

"She’s frightened."

"I’m both," Dove said. "People can be two things."

Alden looked at her, and she saw the moment his preferred story stopped fitting comfortably. The grateful woman wasn’t appearing. The food and clean room hadn’t made her forget the man bleeding on the workshop floor.

He lowered his voice. "I’ve treated you well."

"Then let me leave."

He said nothing.

Dove held his gaze. The silence answered better than any rhyme could have. She let the men nearby hear it too. Lyle stood beside the orange truck with his hand on the open cab door. The younger card player had come out of the shed carrying a tool roll. Neither looked eager to join in.

"Back inside. You’ve nowhere to hide," Alden said at last. His cigar bent between his fingers. The wet end split, and a brown scrap stuck to his thumb.

Dove looked away before her disgust could make him angrier.

Rusk reached again. Dove stepped behind Alden, putting his clean shirt between them.

"You said he wasn’t allowed to grab me."

Alden’s jaw tightened. He had said it in front of people. She could almost see him deciding whether keeping her grateful mattered more than keeping his word.

"I’ll take her," he said.

Rusk swore under his breath. Dove let Alden guide her toward the shed’s little door, away from the men at the front office. Not because she trusted him. Because she knew this route now, and she hadn’t learned it for decoration.

At the threshold, she stumbled deliberately, caught the frame with one hand, and pressed two loose hairs beneath the splintered edge with the other. A last marker, low enough to stay out of the wind. Her hip hurt when she straightened. She let that hurt explain the stumble.

Alden took her elbow. "You’re making this difficult."

"I’m not enjoying it either."

He led her between the parked trucks toward the room at the back. A man beneath an open hood watched them pass. The younger card player hurried ahead, put down the tools, then disappeared into the washroom. Everybody had a job. Everybody had something to look at other than her for a few seconds.

Dove counted those seconds without moving her lips.

I need a distraction, she told Sprout.

You have owned supplies. You also have two doors in the room.

And a man attached to my elbow.

That limits your hands. It doesn’t remove your feet.

She glanced down. A bucket stood beside the washroom entrance, catching drips from a leaking roof seam. She could kick it. Loud, obvious, not enough. She needed Alden to choose to let go.

"I’m going to be sick," she said.

He stopped. "Again?"

"You’re very inspiring."

He didn’t understand the joke, which was probably for the best. Dove pressed her free hand over her mouth and bent toward the washroom. Alden released her with the same disgusted reflex Rusk had shown in the yard.

She went through the door before he could reconsider.

The card player stood at the sink. Dove pointed behind him. "Alden needs you."

He moved immediately, wiping his hands on his pants. She closed the door after him and crossed to the one opening into her room. The latch was stiff. She used the chair wire to lift the loose catch beneath it, something she had studied when Lyle opened it earlier, then pushed.

It gave with a dry scrape.

She wasn’t outside yet. She was in the little room, and the main door stood open because Alden had expected to bring her through it. Beyond that lay the shed, the side entrance, and the drainage strip.

Dove retrieved her torn shirt and folded it against her side, hiding the wire beneath it. If someone stopped her, she was fetching clothes. If nobody stopped her, she was leaving.

"Dove?" Alden called from the washroom.

She pushed the room door wider and walked into the shed.

The man at the open hood looked up. She held up the shirt and made a face. "Apparently I need permission to throw this away."

He snorted and went back to his engine. She kept walking.

Through the little door, sunlight flashed off the orange truck. Lyle had left the cab open while he crossed toward the front office, keys still at his belt. The driver climbed down to help him move a stack of cones.

The engine was running.

The little service gate was open at the far end of the drainage strip. She considered it, then saw the distance to the road beyond. On foot, with a sore hip, she would be a woman running beside a fence while men got into vehicles. The truck was a bigger risk for the first few seconds and a better chance after them. She chose the seconds.

Dove stopped behind the doorframe, heart pounding so hard she could hear it. She didn’t need Lyle’s keys if the truck’s own key was already in the ignition.

At the main gate, the driver dragged the sliding barrier farther open to clear the truck’s path.

For the first time since the workshop, nobody stood between Dove and a way out.