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  CHAPTER 16

  * * *

  North of Freeport, Maine

  Rory shifted her backpack, tightening the straps a little so the hefty weight sat higher on her spine. She and her parents had hiked and camped plenty before. But she’d never had to carry all her supplies to camp, sleep, eat, and survive on her back. A fact that, if she had her way, Navy was never going to find out. It had been hard enough to leave the Jeep behind, with all its memories, but it had barely limped past Portland. Instead of selling or trading it, they’d hidden it in the woods. Though she was concerned about his health, Navy had insisted they switch to travel on foot, since there was always a chance they’d missed another tracker, and any trade for another vehicle would leave behind a witness, a clue to where they were headed.

  The last couple hours between them had been very quiet. Now that they were walking side by side, alone in the Maine woods, it felt even more awkward. She decided that, though she internally warned herself that she barely knew him, it was her own fault for not at least trying. Shy wasn’t her style, so that left no choice but to make an effort.

  “Is your pack too heavy?” he asked just as she said, “So you were a SEAL?”

  Passing each other a smile, they fell into silence again, and Rory let him take the lead.

  “My pack’s fine.”

  “Good.” They kept moving, and Navy waited a moment before asking, “So, what’s the fish-blood oath?”

  Rory huffed out a laugh. “It’s an old fisherman’s legend that Birdy’s family always told. The gist of it was that there was this old fisherman with a young wife, who worried she would stray and so he sought out a cure to stay young and virile. He rowed out and begged God for help. A huge old cod came to the surface—Dad always loved that part, that an endangered fish could be God or God might show up in the humble form of a fish—and made a deal with him. The fish said, ‘If you drink some of my blood, you’ll be virile and healthy.’ So, he did.”

  Navy waited. “And?”

  “And his payment was that he had to give his blood to the fish. He went home and his wife said he smelled mighty fishy, but she fell in love with him again. But over time, he kept coming back to make the fish-blood oath again, and he got fishier and fishier, till she left him for a new man in town. Eventually the old man turned into a fish and dove into the ocean. When he asked the other codfish where the old magic fish had gone, they say he got to smelling funny, then walked out of the ocean a man and settled down with a sweet young thing in town.”

  Navy chuckled at the story’s quick, dark twist.

  “I think the moral of the story was that if you abuse nature’s gifts, it will steal your favorites back.”

  After a moment’s internal debate and quiet hiking, Navy spoke. “I was a SEAL. Then I got recruited to work for TEAR. We were part of a recovery team that found and extracted donors. Survivors. So that they could help the researchers.”

  Rory studied the ground intently, processing. “Extracted is a word you use when someone’s lost, right? Or kidnapped?”

  “Yes, that’s the military term. It turned out that we were the kidnappers.”

  “You . . . you took people from their homes?”

  Navy stopped and turned to her where she stood rooted. As he closed the gap between them, his amber-green eyes held hers with that intensity that usually made warm tingles start at the bottom of her neck and move throughout her body. She wasn’t feeling those now.

  “Yes, Rory. I took good people from their families and put them in harm’s way—I gave them to TEAR. I can only pray they’re all still okay so that I can have the chance to undo those things and make it right someday.” When she didn’t look away from him in revulsion, he went on, but his voice deepened to a quiet, shamed tone. “I could tell you I did it because I was misled, but that excuse isn’t good enough for me. If we didn’t have to discuss that time anymore, I’d rather not. But if that’s not enough information to help you know you can trust me, I’ll tell you more. I’ll tell you whatever you want, Rory.”

  Rory had a difficult time finding her breath to speak as his humility made her heart hurt. “I don’t—didn’t mean to—cause you pain. You don’t have to tell me more.”

  “Thank you.” They resumed hiking, and after another mile Navy consulted his map and snapped open a compass. By his reckoning, they needed to angle northeast more to reach Bristol, his three-day goal point.

  “You can’t trust that,” she said lightly of the compass as she passed him.

  “What? Why not?”

  “Because the pole is, like, seventeen clicks east-southeast of the needle there.” After digging a small handheld GPS from the side of her backpack, she turned and pitched it to him. He caught it one-handed.

  Rory shivered as a sudden, cold wind whipped through the trees, high at the forest’s canopy, but detectable down on its floor, too. Maybe she had some of her father’s innate skills, or perhaps all her time with him had rubbed off on her, but she had the distinct feeling that a three-day hike might become much longer. And that she had not packed for the weather that was coming in.

  “What’s that about the North Pole?” he shouted after her.

  As dusk neared, Rory’s suspicions were confirmed. The temperature had plummeted from the mid-sixties to just above thirty degrees, and the wind picked up from the north until it was lashing them like knives. Rain came with it, now freezing needles. They discussed looking for a cave or a low spot, but they were constantly rerouting around the finger-like projections that made up the rocky Maine coast. Even though the inlets were deep enough to seem more like a lake, the gusts whipping off them made the temperature even sharper. Rory’s parka wasn’t made for this kind of weather.

  As they circled another inlet, Navy tugged her inland.

  “The trees will give us a buffer from these headwinds. Let’s move in.”

  Nodding, she ducked her head into her jacket’s hood and kept it down as she followed him further west of their original direction. A howling wind that made her think of her father’s love of Irish poems and banshees whined through the forest and raised the hairs on her neck for a second. In that second when she paused, a sharp blow struck her shoulder, spun her into the wind, and knocked her to her hands and knees with a cry of surprise. Her first thought was that she’d been attacked, but then she saw the piece of sheet metal bounce onto the ground and stop at a nearby tree.

  Navy heard her cry of pain and a metallic clang and turned to see her kneeling, facing back east again. He saw what looked like a piece of barn metal and realized the wind must have whipped it right into her.

  “Rory! Are you okay?” he asked, dropping to a knee beside her. He could see her jacket was torn through, a patch of her skin at her shoulder underneath nastily scraped with a shallow but ragged gash.

  She groaned but nodded, and sank back onto her folded legs to catch her breath. Adrenaline had instantly kicked her heartbeat up. She met his steely, concerned eyes. “I have this weird feeling there’s a barn nearby.”

  Stifling a grin, he helped her up. They reasoned the strip of metal had been carried by the wind, so they headed into it again, Navy keeping her directly behind him. He finally spotted the mossy rocks of a small building that looked to be an ancient fishing shack. Its roof was intact, but they could see where the piece of metal had peeled off the tumbledown porch.

  Inside the structure was dusty but somewhat clean, watertight, and obviously left by someone who expected to return. Firewood was stacked near the tiny fireplace, fishing supplies in the corner, a card table and two chairs folded against a wall. The whole place was hardly over twelve square feet, but it was out of the wind and rain.

  “Oh, my God. Do you think we could make a fire happen? I’m frozen.”

  Navy checked the wood. “Yeah, though it may not last for long. It’s pretty dry.” Rory unfolded the chairs and then started to search for matches in her bag. When he came to pull her jacket off, she jerked away with a frown.
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  “I’m freezing, what are you doing?”

  “I need to see your shoulder.”

  “It’s fine, I—” She couldn’t finish her statement before he’d pulled her jacket off and then suddenly tugged her long-sleeved thermal over her head. The movement rubbed what she was sure was just a scratch on her right shoulder, but it stung. “Jesus, oww! Your bedside manner sucks, Navy.”

  “I’m more of a battlefield medic than a nurse. Sit down.”

  “No, I’m cold and I want to start a fire.” She faced off with him, hugging her bare arms to herself, and saw the temper flare behind his deceptively flat expression.

  “I said sit down, Rory.”

  “It’s just a scratch, it’ll heal fine—”

  “You’re not superwoman,” he growled.

  “You’re not persuasive,” she snapped.

  “I have never met anyone as goddamned stubborn as you.” Stalking to the fireplace, he pitched together a fire with enough force to shatter a couple of small logs, and it lit with satisfying ease as soon as his lighter touched the dry wood.

  “Apparently I’m effective, too,” she muttered, pulling the chair as close as she could to the fire. He ignored her and brought out the supplies they’d taken from the hospital.

  Navy snapped a chair down perpendicular to hers and draped his own larger jacket around her so that only one shoulder was bare, then gently cleaned the jagged, clotted cut left by the metal. It was already bruising. He taped a bandage over it, resisting the urge to lean in and kiss the delicate collarbone.

  “Thank you,” she said, meeting his eyes. Then she added, “But it would have been fi—”

  Navy stopped her with a finger over her lips. He interrupted her softly. “You looked after me. Maybe I like looking after you.” Her blue-green eyes softened, and he felt her breath escape in surprise against his finger. His gaze strayed to her lips and she shivered. He wondered how she still felt cold, but then he realized the logs were already almost gone.

  “Let me throw the rest in.”

  Rory was fully warmed through now, but she didn’t stop him. It gave her a chance to roll her eyes to the ceiling and let out a slow, silent breath. Stop feeling things, she begged her heart. Being near him was becoming excruciating when he looked at her like that. You’re just the damned mission, Rory. It’s his job to assure you’re alive and unharmed.

  To take her mind off him, she searched through her bag for the food they had packed and tried to make it a little more appealing, opening and warming the cans of chili by the fire. They ate, chatting only about the severity of the storm and the number of miles they wanted to cover the next day. By the time she’d cleaned her spoon, she was feeling drowsy, so Rory rolled out her sleeping bag and made a pillow of her pack. The fire was barely embers now, but perhaps she could catch some warmth from it as she drifted off.

  Navy watched her quietly as she pulled her jacket over her bag, then over her head, and finally folded herself into a ball inside her bag to stay warm. With the light of a small LED lamp, he marked the route he wanted to take tomorrow, passing a few marinas along the way. The sooner they could steal a good boat, the easier life would be for Rory. Hiking fifteen miles a day wasn’t exactly her daily routine.

  He rolled out his sleeping bag behind her and stretched out on his back, watching and listening to her trying to get to sleep. The storm would likely be gone tomorrow, but the temperature outside was definitely in the twenties, and it seeped through the old mortar between the rocks. Her teeth were chattering uncontrollably. He could see the shivers wracking her slim form under the useless, old sleeping bag.

  “Rory.”

  She grunted a question back.

  “Rory, come here.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Goddammit, Rory, you’re hypothermic. Come here.” She unzipped her bag, and her tousled blonde head poked out to look over at him. He held open his sleeping bag in invitation, and after a hesitant moment of shivering in the open, she scooted over and slid in next to him. Navy turned on his side to accommodate them both, an arm under her neck, and zipped the bag shut.

  Rory’s eyes closed in bliss when Navy’s two arms locked around her upper body and he slid a heavy, warm leg over hers. She still couldn’t control her shaking muscles, but with each tremble he squeezed her back against his chest soothingly. Soon her teeth stopped chattering, and then the shivers slowed, and she felt as tired as if she were drugged.

  “Sorry. I was so cold,” she whispered. “I’ll be okay in my own bag now.”

  “Shh. Get some rest,” Navy said against her temple. “I’m not letting you go.” When she let out a relieved sigh and fell promptly asleep, he smiled in the dark.

  CHAPTER 17

  * * *

  Rory awoke disoriented, uncertain where she was. Her pillow wasn’t in her favorite spot, and it wasn’t soft. The day before came back to her, and she realized she had rolled into Navy. He had shifted onto his back and she to his shoulder, his arm locked tight around her. It was still dark out but showing the kind of inky blue that told her sunrise was less than an hour away.

  Rory raised her face to look at him sleeping, noticing how the few days’ growth of beard was starting to hide the lower part of the midnight-blue marks on his face. She wondered why he didn’t grow it intentionally to hide them. His features, lean and straight, and his sharp jaw were a little softened by it, too. It fascinated her, the skin-color change, and she no longer even found it jarring. It was a clue to something. Something about the resistant infections, the antibodies, TEAR. If they had given him a cocktail of antibodies, it shouldn’t have caused a lasting dermal effect. She had only ever read of that effect through treatment with colloidal silver. Maybe they’d been tinkering with vaccines?

  Vaccines took her brain down another path, and for a long moment she lay staring at his jaw as her brain tried to find the connection, the pattern it knew hid in the details she hadn’t learned yet.

  “Rory. It’s getting creepy.”

  She blinked, her vision blurry from staring into middle distance for too long.

  “What?” she said in confusion, focusing again on him. His eyes were open and bemused.

  “You’ve been staring at me for five minutes. Before and since I woke up.”

  “Sorry. I got lost.”

  “In my beard?”

  She let out an embarrassed laugh. “It is quite lush.” Realizing it was time to extract herself from the warm bag and his hold, she glanced over her shoulder. “Ahh . . . how do I . . . ?”

  “Resume avoiding any contact with me?” he finished dryly for her. Despite his reluctance, he moved his arm from around her to find the sleeping bag’s zipper and tug it down.

  Not at all what I meant, Rory thought, but probably perversely what I’ll end up doing.

  “I’ll make us some coffee,” was all she said. She’d seen the old kettle on the mantel the night before, and, with the storm clearly passed, it seemed safe to go find some wood and kindling. After she’d pulled on her jacket and boots, she went out and circled the tiny building. The crisp, dry morning was beginning to reveal the damage from the prior evening’s windstorm. Trees that had been covered in fall leaves yesterday were mostly bare, and broken limbs were all over the forest floor. Perfect for her needs.

  Navy was impressed when she came back in with arms full of kindling and small logs, and even more so when she made campfire coffee over the fire.

  “So where do you think Dad and Army are?” she inquired over the map he was studying.

  He considered and said, “Best guess, they actually aren’t far from us. They’ll need to refuel to get to Nova Scotia, where they can refuel once more and then head toward the rig.” Pointing to the open ocean to the southeast of Nova Scotia on the map, he explained, “We’ll make the same trip, unless we can find a vessel with hydrofuel cells that also has terrible security, an unlikely combo. Either way, a multiday trip. The rig is like a city, it’s one of the largest drill
ing platforms ever built, and it’s in an area called the Hibernia. I think you’ll like it. It’s technically just a wind farm, but we do have gardens.”

  She smiled at him and then looked back at the map. “What are all those lines, here and here?” It looked like the sea was crossed with random tracks, as if a tractor had dragged a plow in the deep, dark cold ocean floor.

  “They’re the artifact lines of the deep-water sonar that maps the ocean floor. Even now, we’ve only mapped a fraction of the earth’s underwater area. But this area is pretty well covered. It’s not far from the sinking of the Titanic, though no more icebergs these days.”

  Rory nodded. “I saw that old movie. Real bummer.” When he laughed at her, she smiled, enjoying the sound and the sight of him at ease.

  “Well, it provides good cover for us. There isn’t much traffic there, the wind farm keeps away most vessels in the area, and our traffic to and from the Hibernia is assumed to be tours to the Titanic graveyard.” He folded up his map and returned it to his pack, adding, “Which is a great reason for us to get moving. If we could find a boat tonight, we could sail overnight and be that much closer.”

  In agreement, Rory finished packing her own meager belongings, and they soon set off north again. The storm had blown from the northwest toward the eastern shore and out to sea. Which meant, in her estimation, straight into the path of her father and Army. While she was sure they would be okay if they had anchored close to shore, she wished that they had a way to confirm it.

  CHAPTER 18

  * * *

  Frenchman Bay near Bar Harbor, Maine

  The anchor back on deck, Army straightened and stretched a moment. A flock of geese passed overhead, high in the sky and maintaining their imperfect V shape. In his view, the mountains of Acadia National Park were brightly lit by the morning sun, and he could see where the colors of fall had been stripped from most of the trees by the night’s storm. They had hunkered down early the prior evening to wait it out, playing cards and telling tales over a few whiskeys.