Marina Dre's Arc

Chapter 4 of 14

The cabin sat below them, dark timber wet with fog. Melody pointed through the brush. "That's it. Mia's inside." Marina studied the shape and did not move. A cabin she'd never seen was a cabin full of traps. She would not walk her daughter into a snare dressed as a rescue. "I need someone who knows this place," Marina said. "Every door. Every board that creaks." Melody nodded and led her to a woman waiting under the trees. She wore a worn plaid shirt and mud-caked boots, hands buried in her pockets. She looked Marina over once, quick and flat. "Laura," Melody said. "She kept this cabin for years." "Kept it, cleaned it, patched it," Laura said. She didn't offer her hand. "You want in without dying, you listen close." Marina liked her at once. No promises. Only facts. Laura crouched and drew lines in the dirt. "Front door sticks and screams. Don't touch it. Side window latch is broke — has been for ten years. That's your way. But you walk the north side, not the south. South porch board snaps like a shot." Marina memorized it. Still, a route wasn't proof. She had to see her daughter with her own eyes before she trusted a single wall. From her pack she pulled a slim mirror on a jointed pole. She had built it to look over fences without lifting her head. She crept to the broken window, keeping low along the north wall as Laura said. She raised the pole slow and angled the glass. The mirror caught the room. One lamp. One chair. A young woman sat with her knees drawn up, brown hair loose, an indigo tail curled beneath her. Marina's chest went tight. Mia. Alone. No men. No shadows behind the door. She lowered the mirror and breathed for the first time in an hour. "She's there. By herself." "Then go get her," Melody said. But she caught Marina's sleeve first. She pressed a band around Marina's wrist. A glowing dot pulsed at its center. "I stay out here and watch the trail. If the anchor men come, this shakes. Two buzzes means run. It talks without a sound." Marina tested it. A soft tremor rolled under her skin. No one three feet off would hear it. She nodded. She slipped to the window and worked the broken latch. It gave without a whisper. She climbed through and dropped to the floor inside. Mia turned. Her face broke open. "Mom." She crossed the room and folded into her mother's arms. Marina held her hard, counting her whole again. Then the beacon on her wrist shook. Once. Twice. Two buzzes. Run. Marina pulled back and gripped her daughter's shoulders. "They found us. We go now." The safe route in was worthless. She needed a way out, and Laura's map only pointed one direction.