Adrian Cross's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

Adrian Cross had promised to build me a safe house, and now he stared at ground he could not break. We had run for three days. We slept under open sky, and the men who wanted me hurt were somewhere behind us. Adrian owned no axe, no saw, no nails. He owned two hands and a plan he had not yet made. He crouched by the treeline and pressed his palm to the dirt. "I can do this," he said. His blue eyes did not lift to meet mine. His soft hair hung damp with sweat. "You will sleep under a roof tonight. I swear it." He walked to a wild grove nearby. It hung heavy with flowers and fruit, more color than any orchard I had seen. Adrian did not eat. He tore long vines from the trunks and coiled them over his shoulder. He snapped fallen branches to test which held weight. He worked fast, checking the sky, because the light was already sliding toward evening. He dragged the branches to a low rise and drove the thickest ones into the soft earth with a stone. He lashed them with the vines. His hands bled where the bark cut him. He did not stop. He leaned poles against each other and bound them at the top until they held their own weight. An orange animal watched from the grass. It was built like a large dog, but striped like a tiger, with a thick furred tail. It did not run. It kept its eyes on the treeline behind us, ears turned back, guarding the direction we had come from. Adrian noticed and worked faster. By dusk he had a frame. He wove broad leaves and vines through the poles until the walls closed. He packed the gaps with mud from the grove. When rain came, it would shed. When wind came, it would hold. He stepped back and looked at the small shelter he had made from nothing but his hands and what the land gave him. "It is not much," he said. "But it is ours. No one gave it to us. No one can take it." I crawled inside. The floor was dry. The roof held. For the first time in three days, I was not under open sky. But the striped animal did not lie down. It stood at the shelter's mouth, tail low, a growl building in its chest. It stared back toward the trees we had come through. Adrian went still. He heard it too. Voices. Far off, but moving closer. The men had not lost our trail. Adrian picked up the stone he had used to drive the poles and stepped between me and the sound. "Stay inside," he said. "They found us."