There was too much worrying going on and too much of it was directed at him. I guess now I know how Phelan’s felt for the past few months. He closed his eyes. He ached, but not enough to want to crawl back into bed again.
Strangely, though, his scars ached, the marks that were still too fresh to truly be called old, but now months behind him—the ones from that first, fateful encounter with the dirae while he was on the road, following a feeling in his gut he couldn’t quite explain or understand then or now. Sometimes he wondered if the others had marks like that, marks that still hurt even though they were in the past and seemed healed.
Of course, for all I know, wounds like that might never actually heal. There wouldn’t be an answer to that, though, unless he asked one of them—which wasn’t something he was exactly excited to do, either.
Cameron stopped pumping the bellows and leaned back, rubbing at his eyes.
“You okay, Cam?” Matt asked, shifting some coals around inside of the forge before shoving the piece of metal he’d been hammering into shape back into the coals to heat again.
“Yeah.” He stood up and picked up his jacket, discarded on the bench next to J.T. “I’m going to take a walk. I need some air.”
“Want one of us to go with you?” Thom asked, his brow arching. His arm was around Marin’s shoulders, which let Cameron draw an easy conclusion that even if he said yes, Thom wouldn’t be the one tagging along.
He shook his head. “No, I’ll be okay. Not going to go that far.”
J.T. gave him a long, level look as he passed him on the way to the door. “Take it easy,” the former paramedic said.
Cameron nodded. He didn’t have much of a choice either way when it came to that, anyway.
“It’s raining,” Marin said. Cameron just zipped up his jacket and flipped his hood up.
“I’ve seen worse. I’ll be fine.”
She shot him a worried look and Cameron grimaced, knowing that the expression on her face would have been mirrored by Neve’s if she were there, too. As it was, she’d probably end up scolding him or something for walking in the rain.
But he did need to clear his head, did need some breathing room, and taking a walk was probably the only way both things were going to happen.
“I’ll see you guys at dinner,” Cameron muttered, then ducked out into gray light of the afternoon. Raindrops pattered down, an easy, gentle rain, though there were dark clouds to the south and west that might have been moving in, promising heavier rain, maybe another storm.
As long as the wind doesn’t get too bad, we might be okay. His lips thinned as he shoved his hands into his pockets and started to walk down toward the edge of the ravine, toward the edge of the area where Marin’s wardings marked the edge of their nascent village.
“We need better housing,” he muttered to himself. “Better storage, better communal eating areas…” Hell, we need better everything.
How the hell are we going to make that happen?
“I’ve got no goddamned clue.” Cameron closed his eyes and tilted his head back, letting the raindrops wet his face. He took a pair of deep breaths, savoring the scent of rain with its promise of spring and warmth and—finally—the end of the long-running winter that had held them in its grip for far too long. “Just know it needs to be done.”
“Are you talking to yourself, Cameron, or is there someone out here I can’t see?”
He startled slightly at the sound of Carolyn’s voice, cursing inwardly at the fact that he hadn’t heard her approach, hadn’t noticed her coming. He blinked the rain from his eyes and looked at her, dressed in a windbreaker and leather gloves and her hiking boots. “Just myself,” he said, scrubbing a hand roughly over his face. “Needed some air. You looking for Jay?”
She shook her head, shoving her hands into her pockets and wandering in the direction he’d been headed in, toward the row of holly bushes that the others had planted before winter set in months before. “Just wandering. Kind of like you.”
“Oh.” He felt lame saying it, but he couldn’t think of much else to say or do. He trailed after her as she continued to the border, stopping alongside her just before they reached the edge of what was protected by Marin’s wardings. “Everything okay?”
Carolyn gave him a crooked smile. “Is it ever?”
Cameron smiled back. “No. But someday it’s going to be.”
She laughed and nodded. “You’re right. Someday it will be.”
