Marked

In the early hours of the morning, when the sun was but a glimmer on the horizon and the sky was a cellophane blue, Rachel got up quietly.

She tip-toed her way out of the cabin, an armful of towels, clothes, and clean boots balanced in her arms.

Charles’s cabin had plumbing, and though it was convenient, she found that her mind desperately needed the numbing cold of the water to clear it.

Nightmares had tormented her all night. The way Mrs. Hernandez’s neck had snapped back as blood had exploded from the back of her head, staining the ground crimson, repeating over and over, like a broken record. The body of her mother, her eyes open in a vacant stare toward the night sky, hanging like a veil over the compound.

She knew the others would probably scold her about going out alone, but she rationalized that the river was only a few yards from Charles’s cabin.

She’d be back before any of them even woke up and she really needed this.

Stripping down, she wadded down the bank of rocks and underbrush, until freezing cold water sloshed around her toes and ankles.

It wasn’t much different than the baths she’d taken back at the compound. She’d never minded the scalding cold of autumn water. Not frozen over, but cold enough to make your teeth chatter. And she found herself really missing it in the dead of winter when the river was too frigid to use it for anything other than drinking.

Unwrapping her arms from around her body, she dove in, going fully under. Being submerged was a shock of cold through her bones, but after a moment, she hardly felt it.

The cold was a welcome pain. It eased some of the soreness of her muscles after the fight with Charles.

It cleared her thoughts.

Here, the river wasn’t as savage as it’d been in other parts of the mountain. The water idled by, still a force she had to push against, but nothing she couldn’t handle. And if she stood on her feet, the water was only chest high. For a moment, she allowed herself to float on her back, her red hair spreading out around her shoulders like a flame.

There was only the river, the cold, and the sound of birds and of twigs crunching under boots.

She gasped, ducking under the water so she was only visible from the nose up.

From the forest, Hector appeared. The thundering of her heart eased. At least it wasn’t poachers.

Hooked to his belt, was a satchel, with the suspicious outline of an animal inside it, a bow grasped in one palm. As he bent to check a snare, his eyes flicked up and saw her.

“Rachel?” He started. He was already swinging his belt off, dropping the bow and making a beeline for the shore. She realized what it must look like—as if she were drowning.

Oh my God, she thought. Don’t come in here. I’m naked.

She emerged a little further from the water.

“I’m fine, I’m fine!” She hastily said, her arms firmly crossed over her chest, gripping each of her opposite shoulders.

Hector froze, his gaze cutting down to the neat pile of clothing by the riverbank then back at her.

"Dios mio—what are you doing in the water? It must be freezing.”

“I...like the cold,” She said. She felt like an idiot as her toes wiggled against smooth rocks underfoot.

Hector’s brown eyes studied her before they swept along her bare shoulders. As if realizing he was being rude, he cleared his throat and tore his gaze away.

“I’m sorry I scared you.”

“It caught me off guard. I just thought...it’s not safe for you to be out here alone,” He said, eyes firmly glued to a tree.

“I’m sorry. I’m coming out.”

He turned so that his back was facing her. Feeling as if she had been caught doing something bad, and with her cheeks surely flushed, Rachel emerged from the water. As she climbed out of the river, her hair snagged on a bush, further fueling her embarrassment.

Thank God Hector wasn’t looking at her.

She quickly dried herself, pulling on her pants and top.

“I’m dressed,” she said. As if the words had released him, he made his way back to the snare and collected his belt. From the second snare, he produced a bunny. Carefully, he untangled its body from the trap and placed him in the satchel.

“What were you doing out here?” Casually, he asked.

“I, um, needed to clear my head.”

“And you thought freezing half to death would do the trick?” He glanced up at her and smiled. He had a nice smile.

“What if I told you, it did?”

“Well, I’d say good for you. But maybe best not to do it again. You know, after that run-in with a poacher.”

“You’re right. I just really needed to get out of that cabin. Being in such a small space with Charles was driving me c-crazy.”

He reached for his bow. As he stood, his brown eyes gave her a once-over.

“You’re trembling,” he pointed out.

“I’m fine, really. The sun’s coming up, anyway.”

She saw his intention as he shrugged off his jacket and before she could protest, handed it to her.

“Still, I’d prefer you not die of hypothermia. I’m starting to like having you around. And Simone would be quite annoyed if she knew I let you freeze to death.”

Rachel flushed, but took the jacket, slipping her arms through it. It was still warm and smelled like woods and mint.

“Come,” He said. “You can help me check a few more snares.”

She glanced down at the satchel holding the dead animals he’d caught and grimaced.

“I’m not really good at...”

“I’ll do all the dirty work. You just keep me company.”

Nodding her agreement, she trailed behind him, across the forest. He seemed to have a map ingrained into his mind. He knew exactly where he was going, despite it all looking the same to her.

“You are very good at this,” she noted. “At surviving.”

“Yes,” He agreed. “But sometimes I can’t help but wish we spent less time surviving and more time living.”

Rachel’s lips pulled into a wan smile.

“Can you picture it? The life people had before? Sometimes I try to imagine what it was like.”

“I have an idea, at least from the stories my parents told. Would you like to hear one? It’s the story of how my parents met.”

“Yes, I’d love that. My mother, she—she never talked about before.”

He pushed back a thick branch for her to pass through, into a small clearing. One of Charles’s traps gleamed in the spreading sunlight, sending rainbow-colored slivers in every direction.

“My father was a police officer. They met at an ice cream shop.”

That explained why he and his brothers were so comfortable around guns. Rachel had always wondered who’d taught them or if it was something they’d had to learn to survive.

“One day, on break from his patrol, he decided to stop for ice cream. Can you imagine that? Just going about your day, your only worry the flavor of ice cream you’re going to pick. Man,” He whistled out a breath.

In the center of the clearing was a snare, the largest she’d seen yet, but nothing was caught in it. Hector knelt to re-arrange it.

“I’ve never had ice cream,” Rachel said, as she leaned against a tree. “But that sounds lovely.”

“My mother worked there the summer after she graduated high school. Dad admitted he went back several times just to see her but could never work up the courage to ask her out. At the end of the summer, she was gone.”

Rachel pictured a younger version of Mrs. Hernandez, handing out ice cream cones with a smile.

“A few years went by, and he ran into her again. Well, actually, he pulled her over and gave her a ticket. And then he asked her out.”

"After giving her the ticket?”

Hector chuckled. “Yeah, he wasn’t the best flirt.”

“And she agreed?”

“Mom said it was because he liked the way he stuttered when he asked for her phone number. And that it was fate or something. Because after all those years, they’d run into each other again.”

“They were so lucky,” Rachel sighed, “And they didn’t even know it.”

"Yes," Hector said in a low, throaty voice. "Who could have predicted what would happen next? What would become of them..."

Rachel's heart softened. Life was unfair, she thought. So incredibly, painfully unfair.

Hector was on the move again. They reached a narrow stream, which forked off the main river. She knew the stream. It was practically in Charles’s backyard. Hector crossed, turning half-way to extend her a hand. Rachel found that this morning, she was doing a whole lot of blushing.

She took his hand, which was warm and calloused, and hopped over a large, smooth stone onto the other side. Between the trees, she could see the lumber outline of Charles’s cabin.

There, under a tree, was a snare with a trapped animal. It was still alive.

“Oh no,” she whispered. She rushed toward the animal and knelt next to it. “Please, Hector, you must let him go.”

Hector glanced at her. “He won’t survive the forest like this.”

“I just can’t bear to look at him in...in so much pain.”

The animal, a small, red fox, with a white stripe in its underbelly, lay on its side, staring up at them, breathing heavy.

One of its paws was trapped in a tangle of the sharpened end of a stick, its body twisted in the circular portion of a large branch. He wasn’t impaled, but there was blood on his paw where he’d tried to tear himself free.

“Rachel, it really is more merciful if I just kill him...”

Rachel looked up at him, pleading in her eyes.

Hector hesitated. After a moment, whatever he saw on her face, made him drop down beside her.

He expertly unraveled the rope and wire and branches from around the animal’s body.

With a start, the fox came loose and launched itself at Rachel, barreling into her stomach and knocking her onto her back, the air gone out of her.

“Rachel!”

Hector was instantly there, his hand on her arm, just as the fox scuttled back into the forest, leaving a small trail of blood behind. His worried face searched hers, the sun a halo behind his hair, highlighting the gold and reds in his brown hair.

For a moment, she couldn’t help but just stare. She’d never noticed before, but this close, his brown eyes were flecked with gold.

He was quite beautiful, the way autumn leaves were beautiful, richly golden and tanned.

He gave her an easy smile as if he hadn’t just caught her staring at him.

Rachel let out a breathy laugh.

“Sorry. Guess that’ll teach me,” she said. “Emotions cloud judgement, my mama always said.”

She grasped his outstretched hand and sat up.

Hector set down the hunting knife she hadn’t realized he’d been gripping in his other hand until now. His eyes had a fierce darkness in them. It gave her the impression he’d been ready to kill the fox if it so much as looked at her the wrong way.

It must have been excruciating, she thought, for someone with such a protective nature to be separated from his younger sisters.

Sisters she’d often times seen him, in passing around the mountain, treat with such care and love.

“You’ve got a kind heart, Rachel,” he muttered. “Never apologize for it.

He still knelt beside her. When his hand reached up, for a second, she thought he might touch her face and for whatever incomprehensible reason, this made her heart lurch with excitement.

Instead, his fingers wove into her hair, his touch light.

“You’ve got leaves everywhere,” He explained as one by one, and with such patience, he plucked them out of her fiery locks.

Rachel resisted the urge to close her eyes at his touch. How could the same strong hands, capable of hunting and cleaning animals, of shooting and killing poachers, be this gentle?

“There,” he said, sitting back on his ankles, satisfied.

“Thank you,” Rachel replied, her hand going to smooth down her hair. “That was pretty impressive. I would have given up after the first leaf.”

Hector chuckled. “I’ve had plenty practice. Many hours pulling leaves from my own sisters’ hair.”

A shadow came over his face, as the sobering thought of his sister’s flitted through his mind.

“Oh, Hector,” Rachel said. “You must miss them so much. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to remind you of them.”

“Rachel.” That easy-going smile was back on his lips. “The thought of them never really leaves my mind. You’ve done nothing wrong.”

A crunching of boots under leaves and rocks drew both their gazes toward the cabin.

“That must be Charles, returning from wherever he goes off to before dawn. He’ll have supplies with him. The other day, I glimpsed batteries in his satchel.”

“Do you think he knows of an untouched place with supplies?”

“Maybe,” He said, his eyebrows knitting together. “But batteries. Seems a rare find in a forest. Come. Let’s take this food back to the cabin. The others will be hungry.”