Chapter 107: She Was Taking Her Cat and Leaving

Dove finished packing before she went back to sleep. She refused to spend their last morning searching for socks while a man shouted about departure times outside her window. Thorne folded the blanket she’d left on the chair, and Edrik checked the cart ties once more before settling on his cot.

At dawn on Day Forty-Seven, she washed with her pool water, dressed, and stepped through the inside bedroom door to find breakfast waiting on the counter. Thick sausage sandwiches, fried potatoes, and three large coffees made the earlier start slightly less offensive.

"If this is how you apologize for waking me up, keep practicing," she told Thorne.

"I didn’t wake you." "You’re here, and I’m choosing to appreciate you. Don’t make it complicated."

Thorne leaned into her kiss, looking much too pleased when she moved her hair off her neck. Edrik looked once, then gave her husband a long, knowing glance.

"What?" Dove asked, already reaching for her scarf. "Nothing," Thorne said with a smirk that made nothing sound filthy. At the counter, the apple seller glanced at her neck and nearly dropped his bag. Dove caught her reflection in the dark window, saw the marks above her collar, and turned on her husband. "Next time, somewhere my customers don’t need to inspect."

"Noted," he said, without remorse. Sprout supplied five packs of heavy trash bags, with twenty in each. It wanted four sold and offered a covered bucket set on the reward shelf. Dove checked the thickness of a bag between her fingers. At least these might keep somebody’s clothes dry on the road they were about to take.

She packed their owned work lights while Thorne closed the last shutter. Their empty breakfast cups were beside the sink.

The keeper checked the empty room and took back the key. Their last paid night was finished. The organizer accepted his two-can fare, leaving her six sale cans untouched. Dove took one last look at the counter. Edrik tapped the packed coffee beside her, and she followed him down the steps.

The radio buyer brought a bag of apples as payment for one pack of trash bags. Three other workers bought packs for cracked roof coverings and muddy equipment, trading clean socks, flour, and a sealed jar of coffee. Dove stored three of those new trades by touch, completing the road task before they even left.

The last bag pack cost four Favor to keep. Dove paid, put the dry clothes inside it, and rejected the bucket set on the shop screen. Her daily exercise would be actual walking and loading, not sitting on her husband’s back while claiming she had suffered enough.

Her Favor task suggested earning two compliments from men she liked. "Can I have a task that doesn’t sound like you stole my diary?" she asked. Sprout offered a cheerful reminder that she could earn the same coins through other reactions. She preferred annoying it, but that still paid nothing.

Saffra watched from the guest shed’s open doorway as they loaded. Her carriers kept more distance than before, though they still came when she called. The odor reached the far edge of the walkway, and Dove suddenly found a reason to check a knot with her face turned away.

"Running away already?" Saffra called. Dove looked back. "Taking my cat somewhere the air’s better. Try opening another window."

Thorne coughed into his hand. Edrik didn’t bother hiding his grin. Dove kept walking before the woman could turn one last insult into another morning of her life.

At the gate, Thorne stepped behind a parked work truck to remove and pack his clothes. He emerged as a broad black panther, his folded clothing secured in his bag on the small cart. Edrik checked the straps that kept the load from shifting and held the cart steady while Thorne lay down for her.

Dove climbed onto his back and settled into the warm fur. "I love you, but I miss seat belts and cup holders. Why aren’t we finding a truck?"

"Most stopped during the freeze," Edrik said. "Dead batteries, damaged parts, roads nobody could drive. We couldn’t keep trying engines while people were freezing."

"Okay, but we’re sweating now. Why can’t we try again? There are still trucks driving past us."

Thorne looked back at her. "We can look. A working engine doesn’t mean the road ahead is clear."

"Then we’ll check the road. I’d like my bad decisions to have seats." She scratched behind his ear until he chuffed. "You’d still be my favorite ride. Don’t get jealous of a pickup."

Edrik laughed as he took the cart handle. "Find one worth repairing, and I’ll check it." Dove intended to hold him to that.

Their organizer led the larger cart with two workers. Edrik pulled the smaller one beside Thorne on the quarry access road, keeping enough space that its wheels couldn’t catch his paws. The raised sheds disappeared behind them as the road climbed away from the rock walls and joined the paved county road.

Snow remained in the shaded ditches, but the sunny shoulder had turned to wet gravel. Water ran across old tire tracks, and patches of brown grass showed beside a bent speed-limit sign. Dove loosened her scarf instead of burrowing deeper into it.

For the first hour she watched the road ahead without counting how far they had come from the Warren. That felt like a small victory she didn’t want Sprout to announce.

At the next rise, Thorne slowed while Edrik adjusted the bag digging into her knee. Dove thanked him with a smile. "Careful," she told the bear. "Keep being helpful and I’ll spoil you too." His glance made her very interested in the road ahead.

They stopped beside an abandoned feed store for lunch. While Edrik checked the empty building, Dove recovered two sealed tarps and a box of heavy work gloves from an open shelf. She stored them by touch, then sat down before the extra weight left her dizzy. Thorne shifted behind the cart and dressed before joining them. Dove laid out chicken wraps, apples, and enough rice and beans for the men to eat properly.

The organizer’s workers had their own food, which made her like their arrangement more.

A returning driver reached the junction while they were eating. He recognized the organizer and pointed toward the road they planned to take. The low crossing was still there, he said, but water had eaten away the shoulder beneath it. One empty cart had passed. A loaded one had nearly gone over.

The organizer looked at his tied crates, then at Dove’s smaller load. "We may have to leave some weight."

Dove set down her mug. Behind her, Edrik checked the cart wheel while Thorne looked toward the rising ground beside the feed store.

They had paid for those goods, carried them, and planned their next meals around selling them. She wasn’t leaving them beside a road because the first answer happened to be easy for somebody else.

"Show me exactly where," she said, pulling out the map. "Then we’ll decide what we’re leaving."