Page 93 of Juniper Unraveling

My time with him feels as if it’s slipping between my fingers, and the thought of soon being completely alone carves a hollow ache in my chest. “I’m scared.”

He thumbs the tear at my eye and gives my hand a squeeze. “Bullshit. You’re the bravest thing I’ve ever met. Only girl that ever escaped Calico.”

“Because of you.”

His lips thin, brows pinching with uneasiness. “Leave this place, Wren. It won’t be safe for you here after I’m gone.”

“Where would I go?”

“East. There’s another community, much like this one. The map is in my journal. I’d planned to go there myself at one time.”

“Before you were bitten. Because of me, you never left.”

“I don’t regret a thing.” He strokes his palm along the length of my hair and cradles my head. “When the time comes, you must go. Do you understand? Go where you’ll be safe.”

“Safety is an illusion, remember?”

“Yes, you’re right. But survival is reality.”

Chapter 26

Heat blankets my face, and I open my eyes to a blinding flare of light that forces me to shield my eyes from the sun peeking in through the curtain. A fuzzy, garbled noise captures my attention, but more than that, memories from the night before slam into me. I lift my head from the floor of Papa’s office, where I fell asleep the night before, and flip over to check on him.

A red splotch of blood stains the cushion of the now-empty couch he fell asleep on.

I jolt to my feet, ears piqued, listening for any movement as I search the house. All the rooms on the upper level stand empty. The kitchen. The bathrooms.

The truck sits in the driveway where I’d parked it the night before.

I slam through the back door, racing across the dry dirt toward the pole barn, and search inside.

Not there.

Exiting the barn, I look around for any other place he might’ve ventured off to, and I glance down to a dark splotch at the corner of the concrete. It trails over the grass in dribbles of red, which I follow to a row of three trees at the back of the property. A body sits propped against the trunk of it, and I blow a sigh of relief as I approach.

“Papa, you can’t just take off like that.”

I round the tree, catching sight of a deep red halo of blood mostly wicked by the dry sand.

My hands fly to my mouth when I finally catch sight of him.

My blood turns ice cold.

I can’t breathe.

Slouched against the tree, he carries the gaping hole of a bullet wound at his head that glistens where the flesh has torn away, and in his hands, the cold steel culprit. I kneel in front of him and reach out a trembling hand to lift his chin.

His body slides to the side, and I recoil at the pale, stony expression on his face.

Clutching my stomach, I bend forward, tucking my head against my bent knees. And I weep.

* * *

Sweat coats my body, as I shovel the last bit of dirt onto the mound, alongside the Juniper tree, where I already set the cross. I slip the bracelet he gave me years ago over the erect piece of wood, and twist it so LOVE faces outward.

As I sit there a moment, rubbing my hand over the scar left bare on my wrist, my mind slips into suppressed memories.

I open my eyes to glow of white walls and the soft flutter of a curtain, through which the moon lends a dim light. Something tells me it’s all wrong, a dream, or the place people go just before they’re judged. I lift my hand up, catching sight of the bright red stain in my palm and along my forearm. In my other hand is a scalpel.