Total pages in book: 126
Estimated words: 119746 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 599(@200wpm)___ 479(@250wpm)___ 399(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 119746 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 599(@200wpm)___ 479(@250wpm)___ 399(@300wpm)
She seems to bristle at that. “Then what are you saying?”
“I’m saying you can listen to what I’m saying and believe me, or don’t. But I know what I saw. I know what I escaped from. There are people in these mountains, call them zombies if it makes you feel better, and they’ve been here for a very long time. They hunger for human flesh and if I were a betting man, I’d say they have Hank right now.”
Silence fills the cabin, punctuated only by the crackle of the fire. I’ve never admitted so much in my life, let alone to a stranger. And yet here I am, telling Aubrey my deepest, darkest secrets.
Well, almost all of them.
When I tell her the biggest one, I think whatever we have between us, this tense and fragile thing, will evaporate into thin air.
And I would deserve it.
“I think they’ve been watching us since we crossed the pass,” I go on. “Testing our defenses. Waiting for someone to make a mistake.”
Aubrey absorbs this, arms crossed over her chest as she processes the implications. “Okay. Let’s say for the sake of argument that you’re telling the truth. Why didn’t you tell me this before we came up here? And I mean, lay it all out, instead of hinting at shit left and right. Why risk all our lives for a search you know is probably hopeless?”
The question cuts to the heart of my guilt. “Because I need the money,” I admit quietly. “And because…a part of me hoped I was wrong. That we’d find nothing but old bones and you could have closure.” I pause, leaning forward to gaze into her eyes. “I still have that hope.”
She stares back at me. I know I’ve been careful to never give her false hope, I know she’s talked about Lainey being dead, that she expects it, and yet I see her beautiful face crumble in front of me.
It breaks my damn heart.
I go on. “Lainey came up here looking for answers about her family history. About your family history and the McAlisters in particular. And I think she found them.”
Her brow furrows. “The McAlisters? You mean the baby? Josephine?”
“The blood remembers what the generations forget,” I murmur, repeating what my grandfather once told me, what his grandfather told him, and so on.
Understanding dawns in her eyes, horror close behind. “Are you saying my sister was related to the McAlisters?”
I take in a deep breath through my nose, steadying myself for the worst. “Related to the same baby that was rescued and adopted into a new family. A family whose name eventually became Wells.”
18
AUBREY
Ican feel the blood drain from my face as Jensen’s words hang in the air.
A horrible chill washes over me, one that has nothing to do with the relentless mountain wind howling outside the cabin. My mind races, pulling together fragments—Lainey’s obsession with the Donner Party, my mother’s descent into madness, the recurring nightmares of blood and snow that have plagued me my entire life. They all come together like puzzle pieces until I’m looking at them as a whole new image, in an entirely new light.
“That’s impossible,” I hear myself say, but the words sound hollow even to my own ears. “There’s no way to know that. I would know that!”
Jensen’s expression remains steady, patient even. He’s been waiting to tell me this, I realize.
Waiting and dreading it.
“I know, because your sister told me,” he says quietly. “Three years ago, when she and Adam hired me to guide them into these mountains.”
My eyes widen. The world seems to tilt beneath me, the cabin’s sturdy floorboards suddenly uncertain. I grip the edge of the table, steadying myself.
“What?” I manage, the single word barely audible over the crackling fire.
“Lainey came to Lost Trail Ranch in May of 2022,” Jensen says, his eyes never leaving mine. “She and her boyfriend Adam. They hired me to take them up here, just like you did.”
I shake my head, unable to process what he’s telling me. He can’t be saying what he’s saying. “No. That’s not possible. The police reports…they said Lainey and Adam were last seen at a gas station near the state park. There was nothing about a guide. Nothing about you.”
But even as I say the words, I slowly realize the truth.
Jensen isn’t lying.
“Because I never came forward,” Jensen admits, shame flickering across his features. “After what happened, I couldn’t.”
I can’t breathe.
I can’t fucking breathe.
“What happened?” I whisper, though a part of me doesn’t want to know. Doesn’t want to hear what he’s been hiding from me all this time. Doesn’t want to feel like a fool.
Such a god damn fool.
Jensen runs a hand through his hair, his gaze shifting to the fire. “Lainey was…intense. Driven in a way I’d never seen before. She kept talking about dreams she’d been having her whole life. Dreams about the mountains, about snow and blood and hunger. She said she needed to find something up here, something connected to her family.”