“Of course you could have. You’re the strongest person I know.”
Harper gave Rylee a small smile. She appreciated the vote of confidence, but she wondered if anyone was strong enough to survive that without some major lasting effects. “Anyway”—she stood, taking the few steps around the chair and giving her friend another hug—“I’ve gotta run, but thank you for this,” she said, pointing to the trim she hadn’t really needed but that had allowed her to visit with her friend under the watchful eye of the salon owner.
“Stay warm,” she said as Harper handed her the money for the cut and a tip, folding it into her hand so she didn’t try to give the tip back like she always did. “And let me know what I can do to help with arrangements for your parents.”
“I will.” Harper waved goodbye to the other stylists she knew, the bell over the door tinkling as she left.
She’d only made it a block down the street when her phone rang. She pulled it from her pocket, and when she saw who it was, her heart picked up speed. She stopped, stepping close to the side of a building, so she wasn’t in the middle of the sidewalk. “Hello?”
“Hi, Harper. I was calling . . . well, are you sitting down?”
Harper’s breath caught and she leaned against the wood siding of the hardware store. Agent Gallagher sounded . . . off somehow. “Yes.”
“The coroner called me. Harper, there’s evidence that your parents were shot.”
“Shot?” For a moment the word didn’t make sense, as though he’d spoken in a foreign language she couldn’t comprehend. “I don’t understand.”
“I don’t either, but their case is now being treated as a homicide.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Drip. Plunk. Ping.
Winter was melting all around him, falling from the forest. The ground drank it up, taking it deep down where the life of the trees and the plants and the flowers waited to live again. Jak stepped on the soft ground, his eyes looking for some mushrooms, or something else to fill his empty belly. Soon there would be enough food again, and that thought brought a faraway gladness, though the heavy feeling that had weighed him down since Pup died, felt like it was crushing all happiness, making it smaller, not important. The heavy feeling was bigger, shadowing everything.
Pup.
A lump moved up Jak’s throat and he swallowed it down, his steps slowing.
The wind moved, a terrible smell making his nose wrinkle, his attention turning right before he heard a low grunt. Something moved in the brush to his left. A boar. He went into a slow crouch, waited for the fear to come, but it did not. That heaviness inside him made that small too.
Pig is going for lots of money in town. Bring me one, and I’ll give you a bow and arrow. It had been a long, hard winter without Pup. He’d gone hungry often. Scared. Alone. His ribs could be seen easily under his skin. He needed the bigger weapon now if he was going to live. Not only to have meat, but to kill animals big enough for the furs he needed to survive the freezing cold. And if he wasn’t going to live, then why wait for starvation to take him, slowly and hurting? Why not let the pig do it with one angry, squealing stab to his gut
? Wouldn’t that be better anyway? Quicker?
He knelt down next to a mossy tree trunk, going still and waiting for the pig to come out of the brush. He let his breath out slowly. Pinging water. Pig stink. The low growl coming from his own throat.
But the snuffling of that wild pig was not soft. It let out squeals—the ones that had always scared Jak before now. It sounded like a monster, or something he had thought might be under his bed when he was a little boy. The thing he’d asked his baka to check for but that she’d told him, he must face himself if he was strong boy like she thought.
He’d done it then. He’d do it now. Face the monster. Even if it felt like he’d already faced too many monsters.
And he couldn’t figure out if he hoped to win against this one. Or lose.
The pig came out from the brush. A huge male that had to weigh more than ten Jak’s. Prickly white hair covered his black and white body. Short, sharp tusks sticking from his mouth. He had the biggest set of balls Jak had ever seen on any living thing. He grunted when he saw Jak, letting out one of those high squeals and shaking his head back and forth.
Pig stink. Crazy stink. The scent of decay coming from his nostrils like his brain was rotting. As crazy and mean as Jak had ever seen before.
Jak moved toward him, taking out the pocketknife, the blade worn small after many winters and summers of using and then sharpening it again and again against rocks. But he hadn’t known he’d be facing down this beast today, and hadn’t brought the hunting knife.
The sharp gift of life the dark-haired boy had given him so long ago was all he had. It would help him live or help him die. Either was okay.
The pig raised its head, squealing again—the scream of a devil—and Jak felt the first sprout of rage begin to grow, wrapping around his insides. Jak raised his own head, letting out a scream that rang through the forest. He laughed, a crazy sound that came from deep inside his soul, a mix-up of the loss and fear and hurt and suffering he’d lived through. “Come and get me, you DAMN pig!” he screamed, rage exploding in him. “Do whatever you want!”
For a minute, the pig stood there grunting, its head lowered, and Jak thought it was going to turn in the other direction. He leaned forward, ready to chase it, when it suddenly charged forward, taking him by surprise. He stood his ground, planting his feet in the soft earth and bending his knees, the knife stuck out in front of him.
Fear swirled through him, but so did a wild excitement. “Come and get me, you ugly thing,” he said, only this time instead of yelling the words, he grunted them out under his breath, his jaw grinding. The boar lowered its head more and sped up, charging straight at Jak.
Jak had a second of confusion, his instincts screaming at him to run, his mind and his heart saying no. The forest was quiet for a heartbeat, two, like every animal, leaf, and branch had stopped to watch the beast and the skinny man/boy slam into each other, eyes stuck as the animal rushed forward as fast as its fat body would let it. And somehow, that huge animal moved with the quickness of a lightning flash.