Series: Cobalt Empire Series by Krista Ritchie
Total pages in book: 234
Estimated words: 226965 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1135(@200wpm)___ 908(@250wpm)___ 757(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 226965 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1135(@200wpm)___ 908(@250wpm)___ 757(@300wpm)
I am very, very alone.
No one around me for miles. With a deep exhale, I glance at the sky-scraping, snow-capped hemlocks and spruces. A bald eagle soars in the clear blue sky. Pine and earth flood my nostrils, but I find myself wanting to get rid of it.
Afraid I’ll forget what she smells like. The sweet, candy scent of Harriet.
I adjust my grip on the axe. It doesn’t help it’s Wednesday.
This is the first Wednesday of many I’m never going to enter my family’s ornate dining room. Sit around the table. Watch Eliot bang his foot on the edge. Everyone raising their goblets just in time. Drumming our feet and our hands. Laughing. So much vivid, effervescent laughter. The roaring love of the Cobalt Empire.
I rub at my raw, swollen eyes. I wasn’t delusional. I didn’t think I’d come here finding peace. I left that in New York with a short, grumpy punk-rock girl.
“They’re safe,” I mutter to myself.
They’re safe from me. I can’t hurt anyone here.
Another exhale, I place a bigger log on the stump. I swing, and the wood splits. I hear the snow creak, then crunch, and I immediately drop the axe and reach for my shotgun. Could be a wolf or a bear, if the latter is too hungry to hibernate.
When I turn around, I never even raise the gun. There is no way. There is no fucking way possible.
“How did you find me?” I ask in one iced breath.
“It wasn’t easy. I’ll give you that.” Charlie approaches in a black durable winter coat, thick-soled boots, a scarf up to his neck. Even a black beanie covers his ears, and for a moment, I wonder if he bought the heavy-duty winter gear just for this trip.
Or if he’s been to the coldest places on earth before.
I am solidified in shock. Unmoving. “Really, how?”
“I sewed a tracker into the lining of your duffel weeks ago.” He knew I’d leave. Charlie comes closer to the firepit I haven’t lit yet. “I would’ve been here sooner, but I was on a flight to Prague when you left New York. By the time I arrived, they weren’t letting any vessels onto the island until the ice melted.”
I saw the water lapping the rocky shoreline this morning. So that checks out. Fear is seizing my muscles. He can’t be here. I need him to leave. “You can’t tell anyone where I am,” I say in panic. “Charlie—”
“I won’t tell a soul.”
I try to relax. “You promise?”
“I promise, except for Oscar. He already knows.”
“Your bodyguard is here,” I realize.
“He never shares where I go when I ask for secrecy. So relax. He won’t tell anyone.” Charlie trusts him even more than I realized. “He’s in your cabin now. You left the door unlocked.”
Didn’t think I’d ever have a visitor.
I can’t get the words out. I blink a ton. Maybe he came here to see what I’m up to. Mystery solved. Then he’ll go. Right? Right?
“Calm down,” he snaps.
I let out a pained laugh. “I don’t hunt you down on your mysterious trips across the world. No one does. They let you go, but as soon as I try, it becomes impossible.”
“We’re not the same,” Charlie says pointedly coming closer and closer. “You need others. You are fueled by connections to people. Not the earth, not the sun, not the sky, not on a remote island in fucking Alaska. You will wither away in isolation like the very birds you love. While I will thrive.” He outstretches his arms, hiking poles in hand. “Because I hate people. The human race annoys the shit out of me, and I would do anything to get away.”
“So this is a welfare check?” I ask him. “You can go. I’m fine.”
I return the gun and pick up my axe.
Charlie stops in place. Feet away. The firepit separates us. “What are you going to do with that?” He nods to the gun.
I can’t even look at him. “There are predators out here.”
“You wouldn’t hurt a living soul, let alone a fucking Ficus tree. If a predator were to approach you, you wouldn’t shoot. You’d let it kill you.”
I swallow hard, my eyes blazing. I come around the firepit and toss the axe at his feet. “You want to get it over with then?” I’m losing my nerve. Panic is riding me so hard, I can barely breathe. “Just do it. No one has to know, Charlie.” I can’t even see his expression through the hazy film in my eyes. I put my hands on my thighs, hunching over, and I start gasping for more and more breath.
Then I’m on my knees, and Charlie is knelt in front of me, urging me to breathe. His hand on the back of my skull.
I tug my jacket at my throat, and I tell him, “I feel like I’m exploding. I can’t stop it, Charlie.”