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His hand spans my throat in an instant, pressing me to the floor. “Do you think for one second I wanted any harm to come to your father? You think any of this is traced back to me?”
Fox and Lukaz pull the doctor to his feet, with Fox slamming him against the wall next to the fireplace. Bonner turns his head to the side, desperate for air, just as I trace any marks his hand may have left on my neck. I watch him press back against Fox, with Lukaz desperate to assert himself between the two hulking men. I’m on my feet, joining Luk’s side to pry them apart. Bracing myself against the shower frame, I spread my hands wide just as Luk creates distance between the others engrossed in a stare down. My hair catches on something in the wooden frame, and several strands are pulled free. Ow, motherfucker. My hair is fine, and I’m sick of donating strands of it to grabby branches. I spin in time to see a metal plaque concealed flush into the painted timber. This shower frame was a quirk I couldn’t stop thinking about this morning when we’d huddled together to rinse the filth from our bodies. Every other piece of lumber is hewn and natural. This frame is painted a dark gunmetal gray. Why? The strip of metal is the same color as the paint. Whoever put it there needed to disguise the existence of the plate. It’s not flat, which is why it caught my hair. It’s a combination lock with six tiny dials embedded and almost invisible.
“What’s that?” I demand, and the doctor shakes his head, bending low to inspect it further.
“I have no idea,” he says, pressing with his thumb and sighing. “It might be a small safe. Looks like it would only hold a thumb drive or similar, that’s fucking tiny.”
He’s not wrong. The plate is the length of my finger. Without knowing the combination or opening the lock, we have no clue how big the compartment is or what is concealed inside.
“Who maintains the cabin? We need to reset the fire, but what about the food we ate? How do we replenish that, if it’s even our job to do so?”
“We’re on Wyldan land, theoretically, I believe. It would be Elijah’s responsibility, or his family’s, to keep the cabin maintained.”
“Elijah’s?” Luk scoffs. “Can you see Mr. Mahogany up here roughing it with a chem potty and instant coffee? You’re kidding yourself.”
Nothing about the rugged rawness of the cabin nods to Wyldan wealth. Unless it was a throwback to decades earlier when they hunted?
“Lemme guess, it’s hidden storage for the thumb drive with all their crypto information. We get that, we’re as rich as he is,” he jokes, picking at the number with his thumbnail. The digits rotate, but not easily. The stiffness indicates a lack of usage, like whatever is behind it was secreted away a long time ago.
“Try Elijah’s birthday,” I suggest. “Do you know when it is?”
Jackson shrugs. “I’ve got an idea. Try eleven, seventeen, nineteen, eighty-fi—wait, there’s not enough numbers. It’s not that.”
“Can we ask him?’ I suggest.
“Don’t be silly. Then he’ll snatch back the drive, and we won’t get any of that crypto. We have until the chopper arrives to figure this out, right?” Luk says.
“He’d have to have some way of knowing we had the drive, assuming that’s what’s inside it,” Jack adds. “I for one, wouldn’t say anything, and I trust Aspen implicitly. Fox is fucking mute, so that only leaves you and your big mouth, Vaskari.”
“Hey! That’s offensive.”
“But correct,” Jack counters. “Whatever it is, no one breathes a word of it once we’re out of this cabin, deal?”
This pact reminds me of a similar one a week ago when five of us were in Wyldan’s office pledging to be honest and tell each other everything. Good times.
“Deal,” I say without hesitation.
“Deal,” Jack and Luk say together, and Fox nods.
“Oh, no you don’t! Fucking speak. You did last night,” Bonner booms.
“Deal,” he whispers, and I couldn’t be prouder.He’s making such an effort, my heart swells.
The doctor takes the first shift, inputting a series of numbers into the dials as much as his thick fingers allow. He copies each combination down onto the notes app on his phone so he doesn’t repeat any. All zeros, all nines, sixty-nine, sixty-nine, sixty-nine, and in reverse, ninety-six—nothing. Fox, Luk, and I clear out the fireplace, dumping the coals in a bucket and sweeping out the hearth before laying a fresh pile of papers and kindling and building some thicker pieces on top. The paper isn’t anything obvious, either. Old newspapers and proof copies of the books and brochures from the shelves behind us. Must have been first drafts or amendments added, I guess. Jack gives up with a huff, sucking his split thumb nail into his mouth when it almost tears off from the force of moving the dial.
“Will you live?” Luk asks, finishing up his pyramid of paper and timber.
“Barely. Want to try, Einstein?”
Luk rises and peers at the numbers, then down at Jack’s phone. “It could be anything…” he surmises.
“I didn’t call you Einstein for nothing.”
Luk continues with the dials while Jack checks outside the hut for any visitors—human or otherwise. I’m mopping up the last of the water, sliding around on my knees when Fox’s face appears in front of me. He reaches a hand toward my chest. I assume he’s going to pinch a nipple or initiate more sex, maybe a quickie before our transportation arrives. The swaying pendant is lifted in his meaty hand and turned with the reverence you’d expect for the finest of priceless jewelry.
“This,” he whispers, turning it over to reveal the set of numbers I had memorized over a decade ago.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I laugh. “This was my mother’s. I think that’s the date my mom and dad first went out.” I smile back, and the pendant lays against my chest once more as I rise to stand.
