Page 184 of Crucible

“Keep the blindfold on and get in the truck.”

I mock salute and reach my arms out to feel where the door might be, but then Thorin sighs and guides me inside with a hand on my lower back.

There’s a steady rush of heat from the vents as it works to warm up the truck. I feel Thorin climb inside next to me before shutting the door and the four of us inside.

“So who’s driving?” I ask to quell the nervous toil inside my belly.

Their individual scents quickly mingle and take over the small space, just as they do back at the cabin. It’s almost eerie how much it calms me.

“I am,” Khalil announces.

“I don’t know how to drive either, Sunshine,” Seth confesses.

I reach out a hand toward where I think the front passenger seat is and fumble around until I feel the powerful muscles of Seth’s shoulder under my palm, and then I squeeze.

It’s quiet for a moment longer, and then Khalil asks, “Would you like to learn?”

As it turns out, Seth is averyconfident driver.

A little too damn confident if you ask me, Thorin, Khalil, the other drivers on the road who rage-honked their horns as we sped by, about fifty traffic laws, and from the sounds of the angry bleating I heard…a goat?

Each time Seth sped around a curve, I swear I could hear Thorin and Khalil’s sphincters tightening along with my own. Khalil had stopped bothering to give him instructions less than five minutes in, and the three of us have been holding onto the “oh shit” handlebars ever since.

It takes us roughly twenty minutes to reach the town limits from the bottom of the trail, even with Seth’s speeding. I know the moment we arrive because Seth slams on the brakes, which is probably the first time he’s bothered to use them.

My heart is beating so fast that, at first, I don’t notice Thorin reaching behind me to untie the blindfold. It falls into my lap, and I’m suddenly staring through the front windshield that’s still defrosting. Seth is fiddling with the radio as he waits for a group of small children wearing safety vests and holding hands to finish crossing the street with their teachers. Once the last child is safely on the sidewalk, he takes off again but sticks to the speed limit as we cruise the street with stores on either side.

The buildings are mostly brick with different kinds of awnings. The dirty snow that had been paved from the street is now piled up at the edge of the sidewalks that have also been cleared. Even the sidewalks themselves are charming. The colorful bricks are wet from the earlier rain that must have fallen, while the puddles that gathered reflect the roofs of the buildings and black lamp posts. Dividing the street as a median are leafless trees sporting fresh buds with spring just days away, and I wonder what color they’ll be. For some reason, I imagine pink cherry blossoms and wonder what they mean.

The town is bigger than I imagined but still much smaller than I’m used to. We pass a bakery, pizza parlor, hair salon, pharmacy, hardware store, and post office before Seth finds an open parking spot. We haven’t yet reached the intersection dividing the street and remaining businesses, so I know there’s more to explore—assuming I get to.

Khalil looks over his shoulder at me the moment I unbuckle my seatbelt. “Tell me the rules, Goldilocks.”

I sigh but list them off. “Don’t talk to anyone, don’t wander off, and keep the mask on.”

“Good girl.”

I hide my reaction to the praise under the guise of slipping on the wolf mask. Thorin helps me secure it and then slips the oversized hood of my winter coat on.

I’m completely disguised.

“You don’t think the mask will freak people out?”

“We already freak people out,” Thorin answers but doesn’t elaborate.

The three of them climb out of the truck, and I linger for the space of a single deep inhale before I join them.

The town is…loud.

There aren’t even close to as many people as I’m used to seeing in L.A. However—after nearly a month in the wilds—I’d grown accustomed to the quiet. I almost prefer it.

Because of that longing for home, I look back the way we came—at the three snow-capped crowns of the Cold Peaks looming in the distance, waiting for our return.Home.

Khalil slips his arm around me before I lose myself to that conflicting feeling, and the four of us travel down the sidewalk. We garner some looks as we walk by other pedestrians, but perplexingly, it’s not my mask that causes most of them.

It’s them.

My mountain men.

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