Page 33 of Winter’s Teeth

I could scarcely believe what I was looking at the next morning. Bright and early, a message appeared in my inbox with a confirmation code and automatic reply that read ‘We hope you enjoy your stay!’

Arthur’s business photo smiled up at me in the footer of the message. Part of me wanted to print the email out just so I could scratch Xs into his eyes and give him devil horns. Maybe pin it up at the ax throwing gym for target practice.

Fox swore up and down while we had waited on the side of the main road for Angie and Riss that Arthur would never take my money and let me stay in the cabin for two weeks, but unlike Fox, Arthur wanted to play the game. He wanted to torment me while he dangled the truth just out of reach.

Maybe I was foolish for sitting down to play his game, but you had to play to win, and I wasn’t ever going to give up on Everly.

I rushed out the door after stuffing my computer into my backpack, but Riss caught me on her way back from the showers with a gray towel clutched around her chest. “Where are you off to? Don’t you have an exam this morning?”

I shook my head in passing. “Off to the registrar to drop out. Don’t worry, I’ll be back for my stuff soon!”

Riss blinked, her grip on the towel slackening, but she bundled it back up against her chest just before shrieking down the hall at me, “Rae Bennett! You get back here and explain yourself! You can’t just drop out!”

She chased after me when I didn’t stop, following me into the stairwell in just her towel and shower shoes. “Rae!”

“I got the reservation at the cabin,” I explained, my words echoing hollowly in the stairwell. “So, I’ve gotta withdraw and use all the money I would have spent on the semester to pay for the stay.”

“You don’t have to give up on this semester though! Skip the next.”

“I would have failed all my exams anyway! I can’t pass this up, Riss. You know there’s something going on out there.”

She chased me straight into the lobby of the dorm’s ground floor, cheeks pinched with a flush when a boy whistled at her in passing.

“Rae, listen to me. I know you want to find your sister, but your future and education—”

“Mean nothing if I lose my family.” I finally slowed, stopping with a hand on the door to turn back to her. “I know what I’m doing, Riss. I can finish my education any time. School’s not going anywhere, but my sister is in serious trouble, and I’m the only one who knows where to look.” Well, other than Ben, Riss, and Angie, but there was no way I was asking them to join me on this suicide mission.

“I know the police weren’t overly helpful last night, but if we just...” Riss trailed off, putting a hand to her forehead. The idea of dropping out of school was so against her coding that she physically couldn’t fathom it, even if she knew I was right.

I put a hand on her shoulder speckled with water droplets. “Go back upstairs and get changed. You have an exam today, too. I’ll be fine. While you’re in class, I’ll pack up most of my stuff so you don’t have to deal with it, and I’ll be heading up to the cabin tonight. I’ll check in when I can.”

Riss nodded, but her dark brown eyes watered. She never cried... Not even when she was boiling angry. That was how I knew my life falling apart had really affected her, too.

I can’t drag her into this any more than I already have.

“I’ll tell the others,” she croaked.

“Thanks. It’s gonna be alright.” I rushed in for a quick hug, saying the words for her benefit as well as my own.

Before I lost the nerve or she thought up a more convincing argument, I turned and fled.

***

I WOULD NEVER FORGET the looks of utter disappointment when I signed the papers to formally drop out of university. The women working in the office that morning asked me a dozen times if I was sure I wanted to do this. If I’d talked to my professors to ask for extensions considering my personal issue going on. Only one of them—an ornery woman who looked like she never left her desk by the state of her hunched back—was willing to help me.

She had me processed and out of there in less than twenty minutes. “Good luck, kid,” she said as I shoved the papers into my bag.

“Thanks.” I was going to need it where I was going.

My next trip to the bank to withdraw everything from savings was the most painful Band-Aid to rip off. Giving up on my education and career was temporary. Environmental science or geology would be waiting for me when I came back, but all the money I worked so hard to save up? That wasn’t coming back. Not without a lot of hours of backbreaking work. Hours I didn’t have to spare at the moment.

I held the seven-thousand dollars in my hand, sitting in the car for five minutes just to feel the weight of my future. It was lighter than I expected. Withdrawn in hundred-dollar bills, there were only seventy papers to weigh.

Once I handed the money over, once my withdrawal application went through, I would be officially homeless and bankrupt.

I tossed the cash aside when I’d wallowed and worried enough, then left to fill up my tank with the last of my savings. When the gas pump clicked, my tank full, I mumbled, “Now you’re bankrupt.”

A heady cocktail of emotions swirled around inside me as I drove back to Bald Eagle Forest. I clicked off the radio, opting to chew on my thumb nail in silence and stare at the scenery on the way back to the den of secrets—dangerous secrets.