Chapter 1: Ainsley
“My legs hurt,” Elena complains, her young voice sounding tired as her worn out shoes scuff along the dirt road while she tries her best to keep up with me.
“Not far now,” I gasp, also feeling worse for wear. It’s been a long journey by bus from Sugar City to Whisper Valley, and this walk is the last part of that. But once we reach our new cabin, we can rest to our hearts content.
“How many steps?” Even though she’s ten years old now, Elena is still very driven by counting things to gauge time. It started when she was five and counting how many sleeps until she started school and continued from there. Now it seems we’re adding steps into the mix.
“Maybe a hundred?” I reply, turning back to see her blue eyes go wide above her rosy cheeks. I give her an encouraging smile. “You can do that, right?”
She frowns, two featherlight brows arching down from behind her blonde bangs. “Do I have to count them all?”
“No, Ellie. You don’t have to count them all.”
“OK, then. I can do that,” she says, skipping a couple of steps so she’s walking right next to me, her matted teddy bear clutched against the side of her face for comfort—another thing she refuses to grow out of, but something I have no objection to. If I can keep her childhood alive for just one more day, then all of this will have been worth it.
“Of course you can do it. You’re tough as they come,” I say, trying to keep her spirits up since I’m the adult she looks to for support these days. Not that I’m much of an adult at only nineteen. But I’m all she’s got. We’ve been through hell and back over the years, and she’s been such a trooper these last few months. It hasn’t been easy, but this is the final leg of our journey—a literal mountain climb to our final destination. This cabin is the place I’m hoping our luck will finally turn around. Somewhere we can start fresh. New town, new home. A place where no one knows our story or our past and all we have to do is build toward our future. Together, as sisters.
“Is it a hundred steps yet?”
“I thought we weren’t counting,” I say with a smile. She rolls her eyes, then moans and stops walking.
“Can I just sit for a minute, Ainsley? Please.”
I stop with a sigh, knowing that even a brief pause is going to make it a thousand times harder to start up again. But my little sister is suffering, and as always, I’ll do whatever it takes to make her feel better.
“OK. But just for a little while. It’ll be dark soon, so we have to keep going.”
“OK.”
Hefting the oversized suitcase I’ve been dragging behind me to the side of the road, I gesture for her to sit on it while I shift the weight of the giant hiking pack off my back. I feel like I might float away now that that thing isn’t weighing me down.
“Here, take a drink.” I pull out a water bottle and hand it to her.
She does just that, drinking thirstily before giving it back. “I’m hungry.”
“Me too.” I dig into the pack a little further and pull out a granola bar, snapping it in two for the both of us to share. I’ve brought just enough supplies for a couple of days, and after that I’ll need to venture back down the mountain for more. It’s a difficult feat when you don’t have a vehicle, but I’ll figure it out. After getting us all this way without too much drama, I kind of feel like I could manage anything right now.
“All right let’s get moving,” I say after we finish our meager meal and wash it down with some more water.
“I wish we had a car.”
“I know, honey. And I promise to sort that out as soon as I can. But for now…” I pick up the pack again and swing it onto my back. “We’ve gotta use the feet God gave us.”
If I thought the pack felt heavy before, taking it off and putting it on again seems to have increased its weight tenfold. The moment I’m strapped in, I don’t think I can hold it.
“Oh no!” I yelp, my arms flailing as I overbalance, teeter forward, then correct myself by turning sideways before I succumb to the unyielding power of gravity on a steep hill.
Thud!
“Fuck.”
“You said a bad word,” Elena whispers as I lie winded on the side of the road, legs and arms floundering as I try to work out how to both breathe and right myself when I’m headfirst down an incline. “And you also look like a turtle.”
Elena nods very seriously, and it’s at the point I stop flailing and just start laughing. Who would have thought that after all my careful planning and preparation for this journey that the one thing that’d stop us getting to the finish line is my fat ass pinned to the dirt by a heavy pack? I’ve never regretted lying to get out of gym class more in any moment of my life.
“You look ridiculous.” Elena places her hand over her mouth, giggling along with me.
She’s right. I know I look ridiculous. And if I could stop laughing, I could probably work out how to get myself up, but I’m tired, and I’m in a situation I never dreamed of being in a couple of years ago, and lying by the side of the road having a giggle fest with my little sis seems like a pretty reasonable idea to me. Well, at least until the crunch of tires on gravel and an idling motor pulls our attention.
“What on earth are you two doin’?” a deep grumbly voice demands.
Oh. Shit.
Chapter 2: Ajax
For the vast majority of my thirty-five years on this earth, I’ve lived on the family land in the mountains surrounding Whisper Valley. And not once have I ever come across a woman lying in the middle of the damn road, giggling while a little kid stands over her.
She must be high.
When I first spotted them as I was driving, I thought maybe the one on the ground was having a fit, so I slowed down to offer help. But when I got close enough to hear the laughter, I knew I was dealing with some sort of an unstable person. No one normal would ever be this stupid.
I lean out the window and frown. “What on earth are you two doin’?” I demand, causing the little girl to jump back and the crazy one to whip her head around as she rocks from side to side on top of a too-big-for-her hiking pack.
“She got stuck like a turtle,” the girl says, smiling just enough to show me she’s got crooked front teeth.
“I’m fine,” the one on the ground, who most definitely isn’t fine, says. “I just overbalanced and tripped. All I have to do is…” She pauses and rocks her shoulders from side to side, getting absolutely nowhere.
“See?” the girl says. “A turtle.”
Releasing a slight grumble at this ridiculousness, I cut the engine and get out of my truck. “What are you even doing up here on foot, anyway?” I ask, walking over to the woman and grabbing hold of the straps around her shoulders. I use them like a handle to haul her up, and she shrieks at first, but then she seems to relax when I plant her back onto her feet and pull the bag from her back.
“Thanks. That thing is crazy heavy.” She rubs her neck and shoulders as she lets out a heavy breath, and I find my gaze lingering on her smooth skin. With her dark hair pulled into a haphazard style on the top of her head, a few dozen whisps of curls have fallen free to frame her ruddy, freckled face. The look conjures images of a Greek goddess on a warm day, and I feel my insides respond. But she seems young. Too young for the likes of me. I’m quick to shut that shit down and look away.
“You haven’t answered my question,” I say, tearing my eyes from her and looking to the girl instead. She’s as blonde as blonde can be. Her straight hair secured with mismatched hair ties on either side of her head. Hugging a threadbare stuffed animal against her neck, you’d think she was a kindergartener, but even though she’s small like one, there’s something about her features that tells me she’s a lot older. Maybe nine or ten? The older of the two seems around twenty at most.
“What question?” the woman asks innocently.
“What are a couple of kids doin’ sitting on a mountain road? And where’s your car?”
The oldest of the two juts her chin in the air. “We don’t have a car, and I’m not a kid.”
“That’s exactly what a kid would say,” I return with a smirk, laughing internally as she rolls her eyes. “And that still doesn’t tell me what you’re doin’ all the way up here alone.”
“Listen, mister. I’m thankful to you for helping me up and all, but I don’t owe you an explanation as to why I’m here or what I’m doing. I’m a grown-ass woman who can do as she pleases. So, if you don’t mind, my si—” She stops abruptly and presses her lips together before continuing, “My daughter and I have somewhere to be.”
“Yeah,” the little one says. “Ainsley is my mom.”
“You just call me Mom,” the one I now know as Ainsley hisses at the younger one.
“Daughter, huh?” I say, looking between the two. Besides the fact they bare zero family resemblance, the older one would have been a kid herself when this one was born. I’m not buying it.
“Yes. My daughter,” she insists. “I’m her mom.” The curvy brunette must see the disbelief in my expression because she pulls the little one closer to her side. I’m older than I look, you know. I’m twenty-five.”
“Twenty-five?” the girl stage whispers behind her hand.
“Sure you are… Ainsley was it?” I pull my cell from my pocket and shake my head. “I’ll just give the local sheriff a call and see what he thinks of all this.”
Her eyes go wide immediately. “What? No! You can’t call the cops. We didn’t do anything wrong.”
“For starters you’re trespassin’ on my family’s land.” She shakes her head at that. “And I don’t believe for a second that this kid belongs to you. You are not twenty-five, and I didn’t miss the fact you almost called her your sister a moment ago.” Now she’s taking a step backward. “Sweetheart, I don’t know what the heck you two are really doing all the way up here alone, but I’m not the kind of man to walk away and leave two girls who are obviously in some sort of trouble on their own.”
“Fine!” she yells, throwing her hands out to the side before I hit the call button. “You’re right. She’s my sister, OK?”
“Where are your parents?”
“I’m an adult. I don’t need parents.”
“Barely,” I say. “What are you? Eighteen?”
She sets her jaw as she looks to her little sister. “Nineteen.”
“OK.” I slide my cell back into my pocket. “Looks like we’re getting somewhere now. How about we keep up this honesty by you tellin’ me where your parents are and why you two are up here alone?”
Ainsley’s eyes flash before she turns to her sister who’s tugging on her arm. “Tell him. I think he wants to help us.”
Rolling her lips in contemplation, she lets out a sigh then looks back to me. “They’re dead, OK? Our parents are dead and I’m all Ellie has. If you call the cops, they’ll take her from me and put her in foster care.”
“Maybe that’s the better place for her?”
“It’s not,” she says, laughing without humor. “It’s really not. Please, sir. Please just let us be on our way. I promise I’m not trespassing. We’ve rented a cabin up here, and I have the paperwork and the keys in my pack.”
“A cabin? Who from?”
“Dylan Valentine. It’s all legit. I spoke to his wife, Millie just last week. I’ve paid two months in advance and everything.” She reaches into the front pocket of her pack and pulls out a folded wad of paper. I snatch it from her and check it over.
“Dylan is my brother,” I say, scanning the lease agreement before handing it back to her. “He didn’t mention a tenant was moving into his old place.”
“I don’t know what to tell you, dude. Maybe he didn’t think it was any of your business since it’s his place and all.”
I assess her for a long moment, trying to work out whether I should help her myself or wash my hands of whatever this is and get the cops involved. Foster care or not, these two up here doesn’t sit right with me. People seek the solitude of the mountains for one of two reasons—they’re society’s outcasts, or they’re running from something. These girls have ‘running’ written all over them.
Letting out a heavy breath, I make my decision when I reach down and lift both the pack and the suitcase off the dirt.
“Hey! What are you doing with our stuff?” Ainsley shouts as I start walking toward my truck.
“Helping you,” I say, tossing the luggage into the back. “Get in and I’ll take you to your cabin.”
“Get in?” Ainsley says, her arm shooting out to block Ellie who was just a second away from running right to me.
“Yeah. Get in,” I say, pulling the passenger door open.
“How do I know you're not a murderer or something?” she asks, still blocking Ellie.
It’s my turn to roll my eyes. “I’m not.”
“That exactly what a murderer would say,” she retorts, tossing a little of my own smartass attitude back at me. It actually makes me crack a smile.
“Listen, I don’t know what to say here, except that you look tired, it’s gonna be dark soon and walkin’ along this road at night isn’t safe. I’m just tryin’ to be neighborly.”
“Neighborly?”
“Yeah. We’re neighbors. My place is the cabin right next to yours. I’m Ajax, by the way. Ajax Valentine.”
“Please, Ains,” Ellie says to her sister. “I don’t think I can walk anymore.”
Ainsley sighs. “Fine. But if we end up dead, I’m gonna hold you responsible,” she says, making the younger sister laugh as she holds up her pinky.
“OK,” she says as Ainsley hooks little fingers with her. The sibling display makes me smile, remembering simpler times with my brothers and cousins before the big, bad world got its claws in us and sent us deeper into the mountain. Like I said, people move to the mountain for one of two reasons. And the Valentines are no exception to that rule.
