Eli
I don’t tell Hazel I’m going out.
I should. She’s the only one who never makes me feel small.
But there’s a smear on the inside latch of the lodge side door. Soot where there shouldn’t be soot, and the mark matches the powder I tucked under my drawer handles this afternoon.
Someone was riffling through my things for a second time, and I’m done playing polite.
The night is cold enough to bite. Breath ghosts from my mouth as I slip past the kitchens and across the yard, keeping to the dark seams between cabins.
The snow crunches softly under my boots, the sound swallowed by the trees beyond the stockade. I pause at the fence, scenting the wind.
I’m sure it’s Loran’s smell before I even see him.
He moves ahead of me in the dark like the night wants him. He doesn’t hurry. He doe
