We both stood, at a loss for action, listening to leaves crunch as she disappeared into the forest. That had been one of the strangest interactions of my life and Hodek almost seemed bored. I sighed, picking at the edge of my sleeve and shifting my gaze back and forth between him and the narrow space in between trees that Jane had left through.

"So. That was her."

"It sure was."

When I didn't say anything else, he looked a little surprised.

"...did you have a point?"

"I'm not sure. I guess it's just not how I imagined her." I looked up at the sky a second time; daytime really was setting in. Everything was an orange-pink blur and there wasn't a cloud in sight. The last five years of my life had trained me almost to fear the day. I had to ignore the alarms being set off in my brain, telling me to dig a hole or go further into the woods for any hope of survival. No. I'm not alone anymore.

"Nevermind. That was just an interesting little detour, let's go on."

"Yeah. We still need to find out who made those tracks we were following."

I paused. "Wait, so you don't think those were Jane? I thought we just—"

"No, no, of course it wasn't Jane. Did you see her shoes? Some kind of high-heeled atrocity. Those were normal footprints, probably sneakers. The search isn't over yet."

After a moment, I sighed. I hadn't even thought to look at her shoes, and I was supposed to be the tactical one. At least, as much as him. Hodek seemed to notice my disappointment, and out of all the things he could have done, he just pat me on the back.

"Yeah, it's fine. You'll get it eventually. Hey—I think I see the end of the prints, right over there."

He pointed at a patch of grass currently being illuminated by morning's light. We both knew better than to actually go over and see it for ourselves; I furrowed my eyebrows, glanced back at our things in a heap on the ground, and picked up the map to scan.

"It looks like we're in Brookebury Park. It's right next to a high school and..." I squinted at a large but unfamiliar shape that was apparently less than 100 feet from us.

"...some kind of abandoned, underground parking lot?"

"What? Gimme that." Hodek scoffed and tore the map from my hands, shifting gears into full-on detective mode.

"Huh. I guess that's the only thing it could be. We'll find out tomorrow."

"What can we do until then?"

He looked at me for a split second, and then back to the map, a bit stumped. "...well, we could always just go deeper into these woods. Maybe set up temporary camp. Make sure nothings's followed us here."

I nodded and pulled The Wide Window out from the cloth. "Read," I said without any further elaboration. Hodek looked uncertain, but didn't seem to have an argument.

"Sure. We'll read, too."

"I wasn't really asking for your approval, but thank you anyway." I started walking past the circle of trees with the sling on my shoulder and book in hand. If Hodek thought I was being smart with him, he didn't show it. He followed, looking just a little less regretful than usual.

—

We found a nice spot near one of the larger trees, the overlapping branches above forming a sort of canopy. If I held my legs close and ducked my head while sitting in between two of the tree's roots, I became practically invisible. As I buried my nose in the book trying to make out its words, Hodek ruffled my hair and made some offhand comment about how skinny I was under his breath. I ignored him for my own sanity, settling further into the darkness that now surrounded me. He walked off to see if he could find anything substantial for the both of us to eat; it'd been days since we had a decent meal, and something told me it would be a little bit longer until we got one.

After almost half an hour, when I had just reached the most dramatic part of the book where everything was starting to come together—Aunt Josephine didn't really die, did she?—Hodek returned with some poor dead thing skewered on his knife and started assembling any stones he could carry into a tiny circle. I lifted my head, half-annoyed and half-intrigued.

"What've you got there?"

"Squirrel."

I chuckled. "Fine. Keep it a secret."
Hodek raised an eyebrow and then a bloodied hand as if to prove something. "No, I'm serious. You really think I was going to tackle a deer just to tide us over until nighttime? Now put your book down and gather some leaves, we're making a fire."

My stomach churned, though I couldn't tell if it was from hunger or mild disgust. "So you got us a squirrel for breakfast? I'm not sure if I could eat that, morally speaking."

He scoffed and grabbed a large stick off the ground, nodding towards another one near me. I reluctantly handed it to him and he got to work. Through several huffs and grunts, he managed to say, "You can eat cows, chickens, and pigs, but this is where you'd draw the line? Do you wanna eat or not?" He stopped to wipe some sweat off his forehead, wincing as he realized he'd just smeared dirt and blood across the scars. I sighed and stepped forward to help him with the fire. They make it seem so much easier in books and movies. This is some cut-the-shit thankless work.

When we finally got something going, our worries went through a sudden shift from "how do we start a fire without killing ourselves" to "how do we keep said fire from spreading to the entire forest." We decided that at least one pair of eyes must be kept on the stones at all times, and the second the meat had been cooked enough the flames had to be put out. Luckily, we didn't have any significant problems with either of those. The forest floor was already pretty damp, so putting it out was no big deal. The worst part, or really the only bad part in general, was that Jeff had been right; squirrel, besides not tasting all that different from other meat, was actually kind of good. This discovery saddened me, particularly because I'd hoped my entire life that I would never find out what it tasted like in the first place—a hope I had never even realized until that point.

After our meal, we spent the rest of the day walking around the woods and looking for things to do. Our choices were very limited; climb a tree, rip up some leaves, make a mound of dirt and plant a little flag in it as if we were five-year-olds playing in a sandbox. And while the idea was charming, I had a feeling it wouldn't divert us for long. So we mainly sat around, seeing how far we could look past the trees from one spot until our vision gave out. I remembered all too quickly that Hodek couldn't blink when I was about to propose a staring contest.

Eventually, dusk arrived like it always would. The day couldn't have gone by any slower, and oddly enough, the boredom almost revved me up. I was itching to go out and be in a more open space, to run around and climb the wall of some random person's house. Hodek's excitement was definitely more restrained than mine. I guessed that he'd experienced many days like this before, what with being on the run. I wondered why I had a harder time dealing with it than him. Maybe he's just better at hiding it. Like everything else.

Looking out from the clearing and towards the setting sun, I decided to take a seat just outside the woods and start mapping out any possible routes from there. Eventually, though, my mind drifted elsewhere. Hodek sat down next to me and picked at the ground with his Swiss Army knife.

"You thinking?"

I nodded. "About what you said to Jane."

He tapped the earth with a couple fingers, coming over all fidgety. "Which part?"

"When you were telling her not to hurt me."

Hodek looked like he wanted to be annoyed with me, but couldn't find the energy. "And what about it," he muttered.

"Well, I thought it was sweet of you."

"Hm. Let the record show that I, of all people, care about my partner getting killed by a vengeful teenage girl in a wig. Shocking." He laid back and stretched out his arms. "You wouldn't have been able to handle it, anyway."

I had to stop myself from laughing. "Teenage? And you got your ass kicked by her twice?" Though what I really wanted to say was, Let the record show that you, of all people, care about me enough to remind her that you were the target. Turning my attention back to the sunset, I now realized it had been a horrible decision to sit facing it. The light was about to blind me, and the heat made it unbearable to wear my mask for much longer. I tried shielding my eyes for a couple seconds, decided it was no longer worth it and took the thing off, heaving a sigh of relief. Hodek looked to me, probably to say something else, but stopped dead when he saw my face. I was about to ask if there was something off but then realized after a good minute that this was the first time in a while he'd seen me without my mask. He cleared his throat and turned back to face down the hill.

"Um. Thanks," he muttered.

"For what?"

"You know...calling me 'sweet,' or whatever." He sighed, resting his head on a hand. "I keep on forgetting. It's almost like you're a real person now, isn't it?"

I raised an eyebrow. "What's that supposed to mean? You don't think I'm a person?"

"No, no, that wasn't...it's just, your mask. You wear it everywhere. This is, what, the second time you've taken it off around me? And the first time I could barely even see you. I just started looking at it as a part of your face." He sighed and almost laughed. "I really thought...I thought that maybe, we were separate from the rest of the world. That we're subhuman. Or even above them. Either way, it's weird to see you without that thing on."

I didn't have any kind of response for that, prepared or not. I could tell he was lying; he'd been killing for such a long time, I would be surprised if he didn't see human life as miniscule. Insignificant. Maybe even a waste. But I didn't want to push the subject any further, so I just let my head fall onto his shoulder. He eventually relaxed, but not before a brief period of frozen panic.

"...how can you trust me this much?"

I kept staring straight ahead as I considered that. "At this point, I don't think I can afford not to. Staying with you hasn't been great. But it's been nice. In my opinion, that's really all we both need right now. Something nice."

After a minute, Hodek scoffed and leaned onto me a little more. "You're one of the stupidest people I've ever met."

"But?"

"...at least it doesn't leave much room for being a smartass. I don't know if I've already told you this, but Max, you're okay."

I looked down at my hands, thinking of my family. It felt almost wrong to say, but...

"Yeah. I am."

I was about to close my eyes when I felt a sharp pain in my skull.