Page 16 of Brody
Laughing quietly to myself, I pushed aside the carton of eggs I’d been about to take out and grabbed a packet of bacon instead.
“That could also be because hospital food is terrible. The eggs they serve aren’t even real eggs. Avoiding them is just self-preservation. How about bacon? Do you have any automatic instincts about that?”
He shook his head, curly hair flopping into his eyes, and went back to studying the wood grain of the table while I started making breakfast.
It turned out to be a simple meal. Since Ellis was already confused about his own sense of taste, I didn’t want to overwhelm him.
At first, Ellis just pushed the food around the plate with his fork, contemplating it more than actually eating. My first instinct was to insist that he eat. He was still healing from his recent head injury and his body needed fuel. However, I had to remind myself that I barely knew this man. Although I’d brought him into my home, we were still relative strangers to each other. Monitoring his eating habits would be going a bit too far.
Not even a quarter of his food was gone when he suddenly put his fork down.
“You don’t have to do this, you know.”
“Hmm?” I raised my eyebrows at him over the rim of my coffee cup. “Make you breakfast? That’s what I do for most guests that stay at my house.”
“No.” He brushed his hair out of his eyes in frustration. “You don’t need to help me so much. Earlier, when you were talkingabout visiting the camping supply shops, you kept saying ‘we’ like you just assumed you’d be coming along with me.”
“Oh.” I set my coffee mug down and pushed my mostly empty plate away so I could prop my elbow on the table. “I guess I just assumed… but I can see how that was overstepping. I’m sorry.”
“No!”
In his haste to respond, Ellis’s elbow accidentally knocked into his own glass, spilling orange juice everywhere. He cursed and jumped up from the table, snatching a roll of paper towels that was nearby to clean it up. I tried to help, but he shooed me away, leaving me no choice but to sit in awkward silence and watch him.
When everything was clean and he threw the soaked paper towels in the trash, he collapsed back into his chair at the table. Resting his head in his hands, he tangled his fingers in his hair and groaned.
“If it’s not obvious, I’m pretty useless on my own. Can’t even eat a meal without multiple catastrophes. Getting myself to Rynkirk feels impossible, let alone hunting down all the camping supply stores. I hate to say it, but I need help.”
My coffee cup was empty. It was already my second cup of the day. I didn’t need any more caffeine right now, but I really wanted it.
“So, what’s the problem?”
Ellis slumped even farther in his seat, so his forehead was nearly touching the table. “I don’t want you to feel like you have to help me. If I’m just some obligation to you then you’ll eventually start to hate me, and I don’t want that to happen.”
Following my instincts, I placed a hand on the back of his neck. It had helped to calm him down when he was panicking last night, and this time was no different. Almost immediately the tension in his shoulders disappeared and he relaxed.
“You’re not an obligation,” I assured him, rubbing soothing little circles into the back of his neck. “I agreed to help you. That was my choice and I’m sticking to it. Once I agree to something, I don’t half-ass it. I’m seeing this thing through till the end, and that means wherever you go or whatever you do, I’m going with you.”
He sighed, and the last remaining tension disappeared from him. “If you say so.”
Giving his neck one final squeeze, I let him go. “I do. Now, finish eating, then go upstairs and get changed into some proper clothes. Once you’re ready, we’ll head out and start our search. All right?”
Once again, he gave an automatic nod, and seemed to find comfort in the fact that he didn’t have to think about his response.
Then he picked up his fork.
CHAPTER 4
Ellis
The drive outto Rynkirk felt both longer and shorter than I recalled. When I looked at the mileage, it was less than fifty miles. Yet, it also felt like we were traveling to the other side of the country. There was only one road connecting Emberwood to Rynkirk, and just yesterday, we’d been attacked on this very same road.
I was constantly on the edge of my seat, repeatedly checking the rearview mirror for any sign of someone driving up behind us. Every minute that passed seemed to take an hour, and I was immensely glad when we passed the boundary line for Rynkirk and left the tunnel of densely packed trees behind.
By definition, Rynkirk was a small town, but with a population of twenty-four hundred, that was still more people than we could question on our own. There was a very good chance we’d never find someone who knew me. I watched the pedestrians passing by on the sidewalk and wondered if any of them held the secret to my identity.
Brody brought the truck to a stop at a seemingly random spot on the road, and I realized I had no idea where we were going. I hadn’t even thought to ask, and just trusted him to take me where I needed to go. Not for the first time, I was glad that he had taken charge. My brain felt so scattered and I hadn’t even thought to look up a list of camping supply stores in the city.
Apparently, hiking and camping was a big tourist draw, and generated enough income that the town had three different supply stores. The first one we stopped at,Nature Unlimited, was the largest one. It took up an entire building on its own, which had been designed to look like a modern log cabin. A full taxidermy deer stood in a window over the doorway, posed among fake greenery and a few other smaller animals to give the impression that it was still alive. The deer was obviously meant to be the focal point of the arrangement, but I barely gave the creature a passing glance before focusing on a small black and white bird sitting on a fake branch near the deer’s antlers.
