Red Moon Rising

31. help

"Layla?" His voice is soft, piecing together what's before him. I hold my finger to my lips and his brow furrows, but he doesn't try to speak. Sam flicks off the light, and I watch him through the fading glow of the bulbs as he walks quietly to the larder, slips inside, and closes the door. "What are you doing?"

"I'm sorry," I try, and I listen to the sigh that leaves his lips.

"Sorry for what? What's going on?"

"Sam, I have to go."

"Go where? It's like four in the morning. And have you looked outside?" His fingers pinch the layered edges of my sleeves. "Jesus, were you really going to leave on foot? In that?"

"Sam..." Why do I think that I can trust him? Why should he be any different than Isaac, or Max and Reiner for that matter? But I think Sam has never wanted anything more from me than my company. I hear the ratcheting sound of the chain overhead, and a dim light flickers to life above us.

"He doesn't know, does he."

I shake my head, and Sam runs a hand over his face. "You shouldn't do this."

"I have to."

"Isaac could give you a ride..."

"Isaac can't know. Please Sam, you have to trust me on this."

He's quiet for a long moment, eyes searching my face until his lips turn in a grimace. "What did he do?"

"Sam..."

"What did he do?"

"I don't trust him," I breathe. "I'm going to leave. Are you going to stop me?"

I can tell he's considering my words, and then he reaches for me and tugs me into his chest, arms squeezing tightly as the burlap sack drops to the floor. "Of course not. But I'm going to miss you."

"I'll miss you too. You're pretty dear to me, do you know that?" I don't expect the words to catch in my throat like they do. He's been a constant point of happiness in my time here. I wrap my arms around him and pull him close. "You could come with me"

I can feel the way his heart beats faster. "I can't. I belong here."

"Why?"

"It's the way it is."

"I saw something yesterday, Sam..."

"I know. Reiner told me." He kisses my hair, and it breaks my heart to realize that he could never really show affection to me like this with Isaac hovering around. "Layla," he whispers, and his heart is beating even harder. "If anyone finds you, you have to run." He lets go of me to grab my elbows, trying to cement those words with his gaze. "If you leave him like this, you can't come back."

"What's going on here, Sam? What exactly is Isaac doing?"

He shakes his head and smiles grimly. "The less you know the better."

"When you said you can't leave..."

"Forget it, Layla."

"What about the truck?"

He shakes his head. "All the keys are locked up. Only Isaac, Max, and Reiner can get to them." Sam closes his eyes for a long moment before offering me a slight smile. "Which means you need to go now, while Reiner and Isaac are still asleep." He lets go of me to dig through several boxes in the corner of the larder, pulling out packaged protein bars and electrolyte packets. "Take these too."

"Sam, please come with me."

"Don't ask me to do that."

"I'm going back to Rust Cove, and I think you should come too."

"You don't get it," he says in a low voice. "If I cross Isaac, I'm dead."

"You think I'm going to get caught?"

"I hope not," he laughs softly, though there's no humor in it. "Stick to the woods near the western entrance road. You shouldn't run into any patrols in that direction." Sam pulls me in for another crushing embrace, and his eyes are wild with an excitement I've never seen before. "And if you do—run."

##

The road running west away from the school is quiet, drenched in a cloud of gently falling snow that seems to glow in the first grey light of dawn. The silence during snowfall is an oppressive sort of vacuum, a space where sound is absorbed and smothered by the fluffy fresh snow. My feet still leave tracks behind me, but I'm hopeful that by the time by absence is discovered my path away from here will be obscured. I can only hope that no one suspects Sam of helping me. He could have held me there or woken up Isaac to let him know that I'd left. I am beginning to think that he is right, that Isaac really would kill him if he discovered his betrayal. Maybe I should have tried harder to convince him to leave—but if something happened to him in the process, I'd never forgive myself.

I stay just on the edge of the trees where I can still see the road but where the drifts catch in the bordering spruce like a makeshift snow fence. The snow is falling heavily enough that the road will need to be plowed before any vehicle can make it down it with any sort of speed. But that doesn't stop me from constantly looking over my shoulder, expecting to see headlights in the distance.

It doesn't take long for the snow to soak through my boots and jeans. The weather is mild enough that I won't get frostbite right away, but I'm completely reliant on finding a dry place to shelter for the night. And if I find nothing? It may amount to freezing in a snowbank, or shifting to wolf and hoping the hollow fibers of my fur will protect me. Is freezing to death better than crawling back to Isaac? I remember Sam's words though—if I leave him like this, I can't go back. I don't want to know the side of Isaac that comes out when I betray him. I think Sam already knows it, and if it's vicious enough to quell any desire in him to leave, then it's not something I want to see.

The sky is light enough now to easily see through the woods, and already the rising sun seems to cut a little of the cold as it hits my back. Slowly, the snowfall ceases, leaving a glittering, fresh palette in its wake. It would be a gorgeous sight if it didn't clearly mark my tracks. Once I make it off-territory, how far would Isaac really go to find me? Maybe he wouldn't bother at that point. Maybe I'm overreacting to think he'd even bother tracking me once I left the school. But I think it isn't that simple; I think I'm one of Isaac's things now. And I think I've seen too much.

If I told the elder's council about the execution I witnessed yesterday, about Isaac's connection to the trappers, about the mention of that man being kept in a cage...they might bring war to Isaac's doorstep. Or they could call the feds in. Regardless, they would launch an investigation that would challenge Isaac's territory and possibly reveal a secret of this place he'd rather leave buried. 

Maybe I'll get buried with it too, I think, as the low rumble of an engine cuts the early morning birdsong. 

XX

I'll be posting another chapter before next weekend so you won't be left on too much of a cliffhanger!

 Any predictions for what's to come?

What are we feeling about Sam?