“Good,” Levi says. “You were paying attention. I knew you would be.”
“Did you see anything else?” Pace asks.
I think back on my trip through the village. “Wulf’s hut is on the other side of the village, away from everything else. There were four men inside and two out. And three women.” I feel the heat rise in my cheeks at the thought of the women. “More men by the fire. The one they whipped was gone. I really didn’t see anyone else. Most everyone was in their huts.”
“Any luck talking with Ragnor?” Levi asks.
I suddenly realize what they’ve done. They have distracted me from my feeling sorry for myself and got me thinking about a possibility of escape again.
“He wouldn’t hear of it,” I say. “I had nothing to offer him that was better than this.”
“We will,” Levi says confidently. I wonder if Ragnor knows something that I don’t. He couldn’t. There is no way he could know anything about Lyon.
“What are we going to do?” I ask Levi.
“Wait for our opportunity.” The answer is vague, and I know he’s just saying it to keep my spirits up.
“We should try to get some rest,” Pace says.
“All I’ve done for the past few weeks is rest,” Levi says. “You two sleep. I’ll keep watch.”
“Wake me in a bit?” Pace asks.
“I will.” Levi goes back to the other side of the hut, where he can see through the slats.
Pace looks at me for a moment. “May I sit?” he asks.
I nod. “Of course.” Pace kneels next to me, and then sits tentatively, as if he is afraid he will scare me. “Nothing happened,” I say.
Pace’s beautiful blue eyes study my face in the dim light that leaks through from the torches outside the hut. He smoothes my hair back from my face and touches his finger to my chin with a crooked smile. “You have a burn on your cheek.”
“It could have been much worse,” I keep my voice pitched low. No one else needs to hear us. “He was trying to scare me.” I shake my head. “He did scare me.”
“I’m sorry,” Pace says. He slides his arm around my shoulder, and without thought, I lean my head against him, settling into the place that is so familiar to me.
“You can’t be sorry,” I say. “It’s not your fault, it’s just our fate now. We have to deal with it.”
“You can’t give up, Wren,” he says.
I reach up and wind my fingers through the hand that strokes my arm. “Pace,” I say. “I wish … I wish we had been together … before…” I drop my head and swallow. “I wish we’d made love that night in our cave.” I look up at him. “I don’t want my first time to be…” I choke the words off. I shouldn’t do this to him. He has his mother to care for, and himself. He doesn’t need to add me to his worries too.
Pace closes his eyes. I feel the tension in his body. I know he is full of anger, regret, and frustration, the exact same things that I feel. My chin trembles because I want to cry but I can’t. Not here. Not now, possibly not ever again. I will not make this harder on us, but I also will not leave things unsaid between us. Not now.
“I’m sorry I hurt you,” I say. “I’m sorry I betrayed your trust.”
He opens his eyes and looks down at me. He brings his free hand up to my cheek and cups it, gently. “I’m sorry I pushed you so hard. I’m sorry I didn’t give you the space you needed.” He dips his head and kisses me, so very tenderly. “If this is our last night, then I want to spend it just holding you.”
“I would like that very much,” I say. Pace wraps his arms around me, and I lean into him, winding my arms around his waist and placing my cheek against his chest so that I can hear the steady thump-thump of his heartbeat. He kisses the top of my head and leans his cheek against it. I close my eyes and give in, finally, to the exhaustion and pain that fills my body.
I do not know how long we stayed that way. Sometime during the night we shifted positions and I lay stretched out on the ground and covered with a blanket. Through the haze of my sleep, I hear Pace and Levi talking.
“You should have wakened me,” Pace says.
“She needed you,” Levi replies.
“Get some sleep,” Pace says. “She needs both of us now.” I hear movement, yet I am too tired to open my eyes. “Keep her warm,” Pace adds.
How does he know I am cold? Because he is Pace. Because I am cold, because the ground is damp and I’ve become spoiled the past weeks, sleeping in a bed. My body aches too, and I am afraid to even shiver or move because I feel like one big bruise. I feel a body stretch out beside me, an arm slip under my cheek, and another one over my waist and the blanket, and I know it is Levi.
It should be Pace. My mind protests but my body settles up against him and into his warmth and once more I drift off to sleep but hopefully not to dream. I am afraid of what I might see in my dreams. The reality we have to face tomorrow is bad enough.
18
Morning is always inevitable. There is no stopping it no matter how badly you want to deny it so that you don’t have to face the horror. As always, my body feels the coming dawn and yearns for it. I awaken to the shocking awareness that on this day my choices will be taken from me.
I open my eyes. I lay on my side facing the back of the hut. Levi’s arm is still around my waist. My body feels like a thousand tons of rock has fallen on it, and I wince in pain as I carefully slide out from under Levi, causing him to flop over on his back and cover his eyes with his arm. Pace, who stands at watch, hears me stir and comes to me.
“You kept watch?” I ask quietly.
“Levi needed sleep too,” he says. “Although we probably could have both slept since there was no way to escape. The rovers took different shifts too. Changed three times that I saw.”
I can’t help myself. I lean into him, and he hugs me tightly. It aches where my bruises are, but I do not complain because the hug warms my soul. “What are we going to do?” I ask.
“Watch for an opportunity. Take it when it presents itself.”
“In other words, nothing,” I say, and I can feel Pace grinning against my head. This is the moment I will remember. This moment where we are together in mind and in spirit and his lovely sense of humor comes through. I will try to keep this moment foremost in my mind as the day consumes us.
Colm and Tobias stir, as does Ellen. Jilly murmurs in protest as Ellen sits up. Levi climbs to his feet and stretches. He puts his hand on Pace’s shoulder as he walks by.
“Nothing has changed,” Pace tells him.
“A bit of privacy, ladies,” Levi announces. The men line up along the wall that has the trench, and I go to Jilly, who sits up and blinks sleepily.
“I was hoping it was all a nightmare,” she says as she sweeps the tangled mass of her hair away from her face. “But I’m glad to see you made it back to us.”
“Are they really going to sell us as slaves?” Ellen asks.
“I’m afraid so.” I kneel down and take Jilly’s hand and give her a reassuring squeeze. “But as long as we are alive, there is hope.” Funny how the morning gives one a different perspective on things. Or perhaps it is distance. All I know is I will be close to my enemy soon enough. While I am with my friends I will try to soak up what happiness I can.
“Wren,” Ellen says. I turn to her and see the earnestness that Pace carries in her blue eyes. It is strange how hatred can mask the true visage of a person. Now I see more of a resemblance between them. “I just want to say I’m sorry for how I treated you,” Ellen says. “Pace and I had a long discussion last night while you were gone.” My heart swells at the thought of what he’d done. With everything else that is going on with us, he still made sure that his mother knew the truth about me. Ellen continues. “It turns out I was led to believe some things about you that I now realize were not true.”