Page 52 of Guarded By Them

“If it means we all get to stay together, I can handle anything.”

He exhaled a long, steady breath and ran his hand over the top of his head. “I guess it looks like we’re doing this, then.”

Chapter Eighteen

Kodee

––––––––

I DIDN’T KNOW WHY I felt responsible for everyone else in our group, but I did. Perhaps it was the parent in me. Not that I felt like the father of any of them, of course, but I did want to take care of them all. I wanted them to be safe.

Together, we walked back to the car.

“We’re going to need to pick up supplies,” I told them. “We’re probably going to have to spend a night or two outside, and we’ll want to be prepared for that. There’s a surprisingly large number of miles to cover, not only on this side of the border, but also when we reach Canada. We’ll still have to walk some distance before we reach civilization.”

“It’s going to need to be a balance between carrying what we need, and not taking so much that it’ll slow us down, or make things harder,” Ryan said.

I nodded in agreement. It was Ryan I worried about the most. He was tough, and had been in far harder situations than this when he’d been in Iraq, but I worried about him doing more damage to his leg. Developing ulcers or an infection was serious. He could end up needing a second amputation. But he was also a grown man, and I knew it wouldn’t matter what I said. He’d make his own decisions, regardless, and I’d seen that fierce determination in his blue eyes when he’d said he was capable of walking. He’d worked his ass off since losing his leg to make sure he was at peak physical fitness, despite the amputation, and he was probably fitter than either Dillon or me. I was less worried about Dillon, despite the gunshot. Like he said, it was a graze, even though it had bled like a son of a bitch.

I had to look forward and picture us safe on the other side of the border. We could start up new lives under new aliases and put this whole mess behind us.

“We’re going to need some decent backpacks, and sleeping mats, water and food, but we’ll get them when we’re closer. There will be plenty of good hiking stores around there, I’m sure.”

I started the car, the engine grumbling around us.

I still wasn’t over my fear of driving. I doubted I ever would be, not fully. What I’d been through wasn’t something you ever got over. It was like a weight you were forced to carry instead, and though it was always there, in some ways it became more bearable.

I drove back out onto the road, maneuvering between the trees, bumping and jolting across the rough terrain. When we reached the road, I paused for a moment, checking left and right, making sure there was no other traffic. I highly doubted we’d been followed. How would they have kept track of us over all this distance, and if they had, why wouldn’t they have tried to kill us again already? But even so, I was on high alert for any signs of there being people around who looked suspicious. From the tension in the car, I could tell the others felt the same way. Everyone sat bolt upright, eyes wide, lips pinched in concern. I did my best to ignore the flutters of worry that had appeared in the middle of my chest, like a bird trapped above my ribcage.

Once we were back on the road, everyone seemed to relax a fraction. In the rearview mirror, I caught Rue stifling a yawn behind her hand, and then she leaned into Dillon. He lifted his arm and put it around her shoulders, and she snuggled into him, her eyes slipping shut. The sight warmed me inside. She’d softened him in a way neither Ryan nor I ever had.

We had a hell of a drive ahead of us. There was too much water bordering the state here to make an attempt at a safe crossing. Though it was a long drive, at least Minnesota was plenty big enough for us to trek through unnoticed, and hopefully get across the border.

We crossed over into Wisconsin.

Everyone dozed, except for me, but I was starting to zone out. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to drive the entire distance on my own.

---