Page 98 of Trapped: Until The Darkest Of Night

I fill the thermos that was still in the backpack with half the boiling water and place a bag of mint tea in it. The other half, I pour over the oatmeal mixture.

I sit by the fire for a while, stirring the oatmeal and watching Lou sleep. This physical closeness between us has wrapped me in a cloak that allows me to see the world with different eyes. It seems safer to me now and bigger at the same time. I can breathe more freely as the steel ring around my chest is gone. Maybe it was that feeling I was waiting for when I first saw the ocean back in Los Angeles.

Lost in thought, I add a few birch branches when I hear Lou’s voice.

“Bren…”

“Lou!” I look over at her in astonishment and only see her head and the shock of blonde hair. “How do you feel?”

“Frozen,” she murmurs dully.

I chuckle because I’m so relieved that she’s already joking. “Do you feel any pain?”

It’s quiet for a while and I almost think she’s gone back to sleep.

“My ankle,” she says weakly at some point.

“I saw it. It’s swollen and blue. I’ll wrap it later.” I carefully pull the spoon out of the mush and blow on it a few times.

Lou turns her head so I can see her face. “How did you find me?”

I lower the spoon and smile because her appreciative tone warms my stomach as if I’d swallowed the oatmeal myself. I push my hair back in embarrassment. “Grey found you.”

Lou’s eyes close. “But…the cliff…”

I stir the oatmeal without tasting it. “Grey found where you went down. Or rather, fell?”

She nods.

“You must have had a whole company of guardian angels. I rappelled with Grey. He didn’t like it all that much. He even peed all over my pants.”

She smiles and I can only think of how special she is to me. “Grey lost track of you along the river, so I figured you were on the other side,” I explain, sitting next to her with the pot.

In the glow of the fire, her cheeks are rosy as if having color, but the light can be deceiving. I nod to the pot in my hands with my chin. “I made some oatmeal. It’s not a culinary masterpiece, but it will do the job.”

“I can’t eat.”

“You need to.”

Lou wants to burrow herself in the sleeping bag, but I beat her to it. I gently pull her up and tuck the woolen blanket behind her back so her upper body is a little elevated. Then I put the spoon to her lips, amazed at how willingly she lets herself be fed.

After taking a few more sips of tea, she curls up into a ball and snuggles deeper into the sleeping bag. I scrape the last of the leftovers out of the pot and eat while watching her.

Suddenly, I’m afraid this closeness between us might only last until the early morning. Maybe then we’ll wake up and everything will be as it was before. It may not be until tomorrow that Lou realizes that although I saved her life, her escape was unsuccessful. She’ll probably distance herself again and see me for who I truly am.

A kidnapper, a bad person.

Good people do good things. Tonight, I got something right for the first time, but that might not mean anything. Because if I hadn’t kidnapped Lou, she would never have been in this danger.

Lost in thought, I go to the river and rinse out the pot before putting away the things I hurriedly dumped out.

“Bren…”

Her voice brings me back to the moment that just seemed so perfect to me.

“What about the drops…was it…very bad?”

I pause mid-move. “I’m fine.” My head is still spinning and I know I’m a lot more exhausted than I’m willing to admit, but she doesn’t need to know that.

---