Page 34 of Brighter Than Gold

“Come here.” I pulled her into an embrace, as much to comfort myself as to comfort her. Reyah clung to me.

“Thank you, Callan,” she lamented.

I kissed the top of her head, and it took everything in me to pull us apart. “Ready?”

She nodded.

As quietly as I could, I unlocked the small wooden window. I shimmied it up along the tracks, but the wood was frozen and swollen with dampness. The sound of the frame scraping was loud, I’d managed to raise the window only a few inches, but thankfully no one had woken.

“Fuck…”

“It’s too loud! It’s too dangerous, Callan, we’ll find another way. Please!” she begged in a hushed voice.

“It has to be now, Reyah.”

I shoved up against the window again, the creak was much louder. Someone in the main room stirred.

“I’m going to push it all the way up, it’s going to wake them, and I need you to—”

“No! No, Callan!”

“Three…”

“Don’t!”

“Two..”

“Callan!”

“One.”

I shoved the window up violently, and the loud scrape rang through the cabin.

“WHAT THE FUCK!”

“Go! Go!” I urged, helping Reyah through the window. She pushed through and caught herself from the small drop before dashing for the horses.

“Good girl,” I whispered to myself.

Lazio and the men crashed into the bedroom, and I was laid out after several blows.

* * *

Reyah

The horse’s warm breath created thick clouds around my head as I desperately tried to untie her reigns from the fence. I pulled myself ungracefully into the saddle, not even attempting to find the stirrups before digging my heels into the beast’s side.

‘The tracks, look for the tracks,’ Callan had told me.

Crash

A loud noise exploded from the cabin. I whipped my head around just in time to see the door burst open.

“She’s getting away!” I heard a man shout.

I spurred the horse faster, as she made her way through the heavy snow before reaching the cleared road. I risked one more look back, before the cabin was out of view, at least four of the men were already mounting horses to make chase.

“Fuck… come on girl, faster, please!” I coaxed the mare. The horse surged ahead, hooves pounding into the ground nearly as fast as my heart was beating.

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