Voracious - Alice Henderson [38]
She flipped a wall switch, spilling even more light into the cabin, then checked both rooms: the main room and the bedroom.
Noah turned to look at her as she returned to him. The pit of fear had given up its condo in her throat and opted to move into her belly. It spread itself out there, distributing its weight into one uniform mass of dread.
“I want to get out of here. Tomorrow I’m hitching a ride back to my car.”
He raised his eyebrows in concern. “Nonsense. My Jeep’s here. I’ll take you. You don’t need to hitch.”
“I’d leave now if I thought there’d be anyone on the road at this hour to give me a ride. Can’t we leave now?”
Noah shook his head. “He’s content to sit tight for now because he knows where you are. Leave, and he’ll pursue.”
“How reassuring.”
“You’d be putting yourself in danger again.”
“Maybe,” she said. “But I can tell you one thing.” She squared her jaw. “I’d feel a hell of a lot safer hitching a ride to my car than sitting here like a waiting duck.”
“I think that’s a sitting duck,” Noah said, looking frustrated with the situation.
“I don’t care if the duck is doing a goddamn gold-medal triple lutz. Waiting here is suicide, precisely because that thing knows where I am.”
Noah walked to her and put his hands on her arms, trying to comfort her. “Stay here with me,” he said. “I’m your best chance for survival. I have the only weapon that can kill him. As long as you’re here, where I can watch over you, he won’t be able to harm you.”
She pushed the curtain aside just slightly and peered out. “He’s so … powerful. How would you fight him?”
“I have a way. I’ve done it before. I’ve completely foiled his plans several times.”
She looked at him, then, his face determined. Then she looked back through the window. She couldn’t see anything beyond the bright glow of the dusk-to-dawn lights. Replacing the curtain, she turned to face him. She felt lost. Muggers could be tackled. Gunmen could be disarmed. But this creature was beyond anything she’d ever dealt with. Her life up to this point, even with its own strangeness, simply had not prepared her to fight a physical, supernatural being. Before last night, she didn’t even know such a thing could exist. Now she was expected to fight it. “He’s just seems so … undefeatable.”
Noah stepped closer. “He’s not. And I’m going to stop him.”
She looked at him doubtfully, but exhaustion crept up on her as she stood there, uncertain.
“C’mon,” he said. “You look beat. Why don’t you sit down? I’ve got some clean clothes you can change into.”
She looked down at his clothes she already wore, covered in dust from the hike down. “Soon I’ll have the whole set.”
He laughed. “And you’d be welcome to it. Just to see you warm and happy.”
The corner of her mouth turned up in a half smile.
“So how about it? Change into some warm clothes? I’ll make us some snacks.”
She sighed, giving in. She was still shaking from the encounter with the attackers, and even more so from the visions of the creature. The clean clothes, the food, it all sounded great. Especially the food. “Sounds wonderful. Okay. But … what about those guys? Shouldn’t we report it?”
“Haven’t we been through this already tonight?”
She felt angry and hopeless and shook her head. “I guess we have.”
“I’m sorry. I know this is tough.” He walked to his backpack and opened the top. Then he stopped and looked at her over his shoulder. “You’ll get through this, you know. You really amaze me, the way you’ve taken all this in stride, your bravery. I really admire you.”
She shook her head. “Well, we’ll see. Right now I don’t feel so admirable. I just feel scared.”
While Noah unpacked his backpack, Madeline changed in the small bedroom. She pulled on Noah’s clean clothes: a black and purple Capilene turtleneck that zipped up the front; black pile pants, the