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If it meant I could finally get away.
Get safe.
Clean.
Fed.
Though my stomach did feel stretched already just from the honey and the soup from the night before. The promise of more of that later today was probably what forced my weary bones to climb out of the bed.
“We are good and truly roughing it here, darlin’,” he said, giving me an apologetic smile. “Meaning we will take turns heading outside to deal with… personal matters. I’ll find you some safe leaves, so you don’t accidentally get poison ivy in unmentionable areas,” he added, making a surprised huff of laughter escape me, the sound foreign to my own ears.
“Okay,” I agreed.
Sure, I was a pretty girly-girl. Meaning I hadn’t ever needed to do my aforementioned ‘personal matters’ in the woods. But like Riff had said the night before, this is about survival. I had to set aside all my preprogrammed icks and pride and just… make do.
“Here, hydrate a little,” he said, bringing me a cup. “And maybe some honey. The sugar will give your body something to burn so you don’t use up what little you’ve got on your bones,” he said before making his way out of the cabin.
He was gone for a bit, and a little irrational twinge of fear started to build, worried he might have decided to cut his losses and leave me behind.
But then he was coming back in, using his shirt like a little bag, and dropping a small pile of blackberries onto the bed.
“That’s all the bush had to offer. Looks like the critters got to it. But I’ll take anything I can get for you right now,” he said. “Eat,” he demanded when I hesitated.
I reached for the pile, trying to separate them into two equal sections.
“No,” he said, pushing them all back into one pile. “Eat all of them.”
Knowing he was going to argue about it, I went ahead and shoved them into my mouth, finding them overly mushy from being nearly rotted on the bush, but, hey, it was food. I wasn’t complaining.
“There’s a pile of leaves by the door. You can head a little ways from the cabin if you want, but just make sure you can keep it in sight to get back, okay?” he asked.
“Okay,” I agreed, unhappy to leave my warm blanket, but moving around warmed me up quickly enough as I headed into the woods, going as far as possible without losing sight of the cabin.
By the time I came back, Riff was outside, holding onto one of the cups from the cabin.
“We have to leave some of the cups behind. It’s the right thing to do in this kind of situation,” he said. “But I took the jar, the honey, the last meal, and I found this,” he said, unrolling some material until it took the shape of a small sweater. “I think it belongs to a kid, but it should fit you,” he said, holding it out to me. “I shook it out. No critters. I didn’t feel right taking the blanket in case someone else needs to use this cabin for survival.”
“This will help,” I said, but knotted it around my waist, wanting to use it when I got really cold, not when I was reasonably comfortable. “I can carry something,” I offered as he shoved things into his pockets.
“Yep. Yourself,” he agreed, and somehow, I felt my lips curving up ever so slightly. It had been so long since I had any reason at all to smile that the muscles felt tight as it happened.
“Alright,” Riff said, pulling his phone out of his pocket to tuck it into a different one. “Yeah,” he said, seeing me look at it. “I turned it on while you were gone. But there’s no signal at all. And I have almost no battery,” he told me. “So I had to turn it off. As soon as we get anywhere near civilization, I will power it up, and call my brother. Then he will get us out of here.”
“Your brother?” I asked as I fell into step beside him, the morning birds chirping happily as they went about finding their breakfast.
“Raff,” he said, nodding.
“Wait… Raff?” I asked. “Riff and Raff? Like… who let in the riff-raff?”
“Exactly that,” he agreed, shooting me a tired-looking smile.
“Are those your real names?”
“Nicknames from when we were kids, but they kind of stuck. That’s what everyone calls us.”
“Your brother was with you at the… house?” I asked.
“Yeah. We were there to do a deal, but the fuckers were never going to make a deal. Shit got dicey.”
