The water hits my skin hard enough to sting, and I stand under it longer than I need to because the heat helps drown out everything else, the sound, the memory, the feeling of being watched even when I know I am back inside our territory and no one is chasing me anymore.
My hands brace against the tiled wall, and I keep my head down while the water runs over my hair and down my back, dragging streaks of dirt and dried blood toward the drain, and I watch it disappear like that means something. It doesn’t.
My chest still feels tight, and every breath still comes a little too sharp, like my body has not caught up to the fact that we made it back, like something inside me is still halfway out there on the ridge with Christopher standing just across the line and watching us.
I scrub harder t
