Page 40 of Fight

Maggie grimaced at him and shook her head in quick little bursts. Sighing, Daniel turned back around and shrugged as he gave Jake an insolent smirk.

Jake had to literally put his fist in his mouth to keep from hitting this asshole. He bit his knuckles and thought about next steps. He was pretty sure he knew the spot Daniel was talking about.

He'd hiked the Kodiak trail a few times. It was a remote, tough trail, and there were a couple of open spots that he knew hikers like to stop and take advantage of the view.If Daniel was describing the spot that Jake suspected he was, he could see Lena wanting to stop there and paint the view of the lake.

“Should we call the park rangers, Jake?” Maggie interrupted Jake's thoughts. He looked over at her concerned face and shook his head.

“No, I’m going to go up there and get her. I know the path and I’m pretty sure I know the area that this asshole described.”

“Hey bro, that’s not cool—”

“You better get the fuck out of my face if you know what’s good for you,bro. If I didn’t need to get up that mountain so bad and find the girlyouabandoned, I’d kick the shit out of you right now. But lucky for you, I have more important things to do.”

Daniel considered Jake in front of him for a couple seconds before he snarled and shook his head in disgust. Eventually, he turned on his heels and stomped out of the sliding doors of the lobby, reminiscent of Douglas McIntosh from the afternoon before.

Jake quickly turned to Maggie. “Maggie, can I have a toothbrush and toothpaste…some soap…and I think that's it. I have other supplies in the closet.”

Maggie nodded quickly and pulled open the drawer that they kept extra toiletries in for forgetful guests, handing over the items that Jake requested.

Jake started to walk away swiftly before turning back. “Also, can you text Morgan and ask her to tell Lena’s friend, Annie, what happened.Tell them I’m going up to get her, and we’ll probably camp and come down in the morning.”

“Yeah, yeah, of course,” Maggie nodded vigorously, but Jake had turned around before she’d finished getting the words out of her mouth.“Good luck,” she called out as Jake started bounding up the stairs.

As soon as he entered his office, he grabbed his backpack and keys and walked down the hall to the resort's storage closet of hiking supplies. He stuffed his backpack with food, a couple waterproof blankets, a first aid kit, and anything else he thought he might need for Lena. Running down the hall to the bathroom, he filled up a couple of hydroflasks of water.

Jake was grateful that he was so preoccupied with the logistics that he didn’t have a chance to really sit and worry about what was happening to Lena. Remembering the Lena from last summer, he couldn’t fathom how she would have managed all day by herself, let alone now that the weather had turned.

Who knew what kind of supplies she had up there with her? And she needed more than just the basics. She was so…soft. He knew by now that she didn’t like to be called that, but it was the truth as far as he was concerned. She needed help taking care of herself, and he should have fought harder to keep her from going out on this mountain with fucking Daniel.

Cursing himself for not putting up more of a fight, Jake slipped into his raincoat back in his office, and was quickly out the door again. He ignored Cindy when she called out for him from her office again. Once he was in the parking lot, he raced through the pounding rain to his truck.

Well, he may not be able to keep her from doing another stupid thing in the future, he decided, but he was going to at least keep her from doing them with assholes like Daniel.

Chapter 13

Lenawaswet;shewas freezing; she was scared; and she was alone.

“Lena.”The rain called her name as it poured down around her in sheets, soaking through the little shelter she’d made herself from the waterproof picnic blanket that Annie had forced her to pack. She sat on a rainbow-patterned beach towel with her body wrapped in a tight ball; her face buried in her arms; her arms wrapped tightly around her knees; and her knees pulled against her chest. Breathing in the small space she’d created between her arms, she felt safe and distracted from the outside world. The muddy earth below the towel seeped through her thin leggings causing her ass to be intermittently freezing and numb, so she would take all the distraction she could get.

It seemed like she must be the only living thing for miles. All of the birds and woodland creatures had the good sense to escape the rain and run off to their nests, hovels, and mud huts.They were probably watching her and wondering what the heck she was doing sitting in the middle of the dark woods during a rainstorm under a useless, wet blanket. Lena thought longingly of her bed, of the little cocoon of duvets and furry blankets she liked to build herself on cold evenings. She could go for a blanket cocoon and a hot mug of peppermint tea right about now.

After Daniel had left, she'd initially sat on the nearby stacked boulders that oversaw the wide lake. Leaning back with her ankle propped up on the folded towel, she'd sketched for what felt like hours. It was wonderful to finally have the opportunity to do what she’d gone on both Hell Hike and this hike, now named Hell Hike The Second, to do—specifically, draw and paint. She'd sketched out a nice layout of the lake below, the rocky cliffs that dropped from the high, rugged land populated with soaring pine and cedar trees, and the wide sky’s inconsistent bits of dark clouds and bright blue patches. It was the most productive afternoon she'd had since arriving in Conrad.

However, when she'd noticed the angry, dark clouds swallowing the ever-scarcer bits of blue sky, Lena had started to get concerned about where Daniel was. He hadn’t been very pleased with her when he’d taken off, but he could still be trusted to do what he said he would do, right? Starting to worry, she'd tested out her ankle and found that it was fine. It had probably been fine for a while, but she’d been so wrapped up in drawing that she hadn’t really noticed.

Just as she'd decided to take matters into her own hands and walk down the mountain on her own, an explosion of rain had burst from the sky. When she'd walked to check out the rough, steep path that she and Daniel had climbed up earlier, the water had been flowing down it in strong rivulets and the rocky, dirt path now looked like a mudslide.

That’s when she'd decided to wait out the rest of the storm by the boulders where Daniel had left her. She'd even thought to tie her purple hoodie to a tree off the path just in case some crazy person was venturing the slippery path during this storm.

She'd been very impressed with her own fortitude and creativity when she’d created her little canopy tent out of the blanket, a pocket knife—also forced on her by Annie—a couple of skinny pine trees, and some pointy sticks she'd found nearby.

That had been a couple of hours ago at least, but she really had no way of knowing at this point. Her phone had died a while ago—the last time she'd looked at it while sketching on the boulders, it had been a little after four o’clock.

She felt like she had lost all sense of time and purpose at this point. Her life would now be merely the pain of existing in this freezing little hermitage she'd created for herself. The earth that surrounded her had transformed from the pine needle strewn dirt with grass patches, to instead closely resemble a swampy mire. Lena felt very lucky that she’d built her shelter on slightly elevated ground.

“Lena.” She heard her name again in the loud staccato beating of the hard rain drops hitting the wet blanket over her head.I will now be known as the crazed hermit woman of Dalak who spoke to the rain and lived under a blanket. Lena groaned as tears started prickling the backs of her eyes and her emotions started rising inside of her.

God, I’m such an idiot. She scolded herself for what felt like the thousandth time that day. She’d known as soon as she’d gotten in the car with Daniel this morning that this wasn’t right; she was making a bad choice.

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