Page 221 of Fearless

She let her head fall back against the sofa arm. “We just gotta put the food away…just that…and then sleep…”

A scream woke Ava. She bolted upright in bed, and at first, she didn’t remember where she was, could only grapple with the sense that this was an unfamiliar place. Not home, she thought wildly. And there was an awful high screeching sound, coming from somewhere in the dense night beyond. It was so dark, she couldn’t see her hands, her feet, the soft sheets around her waist. The faintest moonlight illuminated the four-paned windows in thin silver, and it was counting them that helped her recall the cabin. Saints Hollow. The humanless middle of the swamp.

Her heart was still knocking, so she reached out a hand for Mercy beside her. He was snoring. She touched his bare chest. “Merc. Mercy, what is that?”

“…Huh?” He took one of those deep breaths people take when climbing up out of a dream; his chest lifted beneath her hand. His voice was thick with sleep. “What is it?”

“That noise. Someone screaming.”

But it was dying away, strangling off into nothing, and then the drone of the cicadas and crickets was filling in the space it had left behind.

“It sounded like…I dunno. It woke me up.”

Mercy took another deep breath and sat up beside her. His presence was instantly soothing. “A nutria,” he said.

“One of those big rat things?”

“Yeah. You’ll get used to it.”

“Why was it…doing that, though?”

He made a sound that made her think he was smirking. “Something got it.”

“How nice.” She sighed. “Well, as long as that something wasn’t human, I don’t guess there’s anything to worry about.”

“I don’t know a gator that can pick a lock,” he agreed. The covers pushed back. “But I can go look if you want me to.”

Ava caught at him, felt his forearm and wrapped her fingers around it in the dark. “No, the mosquitos would carry you off. It’s fine. I just…well, sleeping in a strange place, you know how it is.”

“I do.” The weight of his hand passed across the sheet until it found her thigh, and then settled there.

Beyond the cottage, the Hollow was alive with night sounds: things chattering, whispering, groaning, pushing through the undergrowth.

And they were both awake now.

“What time is it?” she asked.

The mattress creaked as Mercy leaned over the side of it, checking his prepaid cell in the saddlebag they’d left beside the bed along with their shucked clothes. “Five-eighteen,” he answered, clicking on the bedside lamp as he straightened. Its shade was a dark, heavy paper, so the glow was soft and unobtrusive, just a hazy brush of visibility over the bed that didn’t stretch beyond to the rest of the cottage.

The low light turned Mercy golden, his loose, rich black hair falling in straight sheets to his shoulders, framing his narrow face. When he turned to her, his eyes were tired, but soft. With the covers around his waist, he was all long arms and muscle-corded torso. The image of him like that would stay with her for a while, she thought, as the sight of him warmed her from the inside out.

“I just realized something,” she said, smiling.

“What?”

“You don’t have a ring.”

He looked at his left hand, as if to check. “I don’t carry one of those around with me.” He glanced up at her from under his brows, his smile teasing. “Do you care if I have one?” Smile widening, flash of teeth; he already knew her answer.

“Um, you better believe it.”

“Really?” he asked with fake innocence. “Why?”

“You know why.”

“But I want to hear why.”

“No you don’t. Your ego’s gigantic already.”

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