Page 111 of The Girl Who Inherits the Dead

“Not helpful,” Delina says, settling deeper in the couch, but the loneliness is a bit less severe, out here. “Would you really have gone with them?”

Maison breathes out, shutting his eyes. “If it was the only option to keep you safe.”

“I don’t like that,” Delina says, and he shuts his eyes further, scrunching his face down. “Don’t, okay.”

He doesn’t say anything, and in the dim light, Delina lets her eyes fall shut, the blanket wrapped around her shoulders, the only sound the purr from the cat.

32

The next day is full of tension. Of planning and packing. Of scanning the trees around them, looking for surveillance.

Only in the afternoon, when the sun is just barely beginning to turn orange over the trees, does a loud alarm blare through the cabin.

“Satellite phone?” Chloe asks, her brow furrowing. “Nobody calls that.”

“Only the forest service calls that,” Gurlien corrects, but he clambers to his feet from where he had been feverishly leafing through paperwork, pulling out the brick of a phone from the drawer.

There’s no display to read numbers off of, so they all stare at it a beat before Gurlien presses the button to answer it.

There’s a pop of static, loud, before a click.

“Yes?” Gurlien asks, crossing his arms and locking eyes with Chloe.

It is their hideout after all that is at risk.

There’s another pop, like the phone is connecting to another satellite, before a woman’s voice filters through, garbled and staticky.

“Frederick?”

Maison stiffens, as all eyes snap to him in the small cabin, even the cat, but he doesn’t say anything.

“Frederick, they told me to call you.” The voice is trembling, even through the tenuous connection. “They said to call this and see if you’re alive.”

His jaw tightens, and he rubs his face, before shaking his head at Gurlien.

“Sorry, ma’am, I think you got the wrong number,” Chloe says, leaning forward and putting on an immaculate British accent. “Are you okay?”

“No, this is the number they gave me,” the woman replies, and through the connection, there’s a desperate tone to her words. “They said he would be here if he was alive. Please.”

Chloe gapes over at Maison, who’s as still as stone. “No, ma’am, this is a rural number, I’m so sorry.”

“Please, they told me they’d hurt me if I don’t find him, is he there? Is he alive?”

Maison crosses his arms, and shakes his head.

“No, nobody here by that name, sorry.” Chloe trails off, and Maison grabs the phone and snaps it shut, cutting off the call.

“That was a trap,” Maison says, his voice tight.

“No shit,” Chloe says, higher pitched. “They know where we are, they’re going to come, we need to get out.”

“That was your mom?” Delina asks, and they all three stopped to look at her. “Would they actually hurt her?”

For a brief moment, she thinks Maison’s going to shatter, but he just nods. “She doesn’t call me Frederick if she needs me. That was her signaling me to not rise to the bait.”

“But they’ll hurt her?”

He locks eyes with her, and she would do anything to not see that expression across his face ever again. “Probably.”

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