“Tomorrow?” I asked impatiently. I wanted to go now. I didn’t see the point in delaying things any longer than necessary.

“We can’t head out in the dark, and we wouldn’t have enough daylight left today by the time we went back into town again to go to the store and then came back to head out. Let’s eat dinner, get a good night’s rest, and then go to the store first thing in the morning. As soon as we get the necessary supplies, we’ll come back to pack them all up in our backpacks and then head out.”

I looked at Michael and huffed.

“Fine,” I said. “But the part about getting a good night’s rest isn’t going to happen until Rob is back and I know that things are okay.”

“Well, then you can just lay in the bed and stare at the ceiling while you give that leg another night of rest at least,” Michael teased.

Michael’s teasing was a good balance to my impulsive desire to launch into the woods and get this whole situation solved. We were a good balance to each other in every way, come to think of it. I wanted to curl up in his arms tonight, and I knew that the underlying issue of whether or not we shared a father was still at the front of his mind as well. I resigned myself to thinking that the best thing to do for tonight, was nothing.

We ate dinner, and I drank several shots of whiskey in order to make myself stop thinking and feeling anything other than a warm and fuzzy numbness. Then I started to get sleepy on the couch and my eyes started to close without my permission. Just before I fell completely asleep, Michael picked me up and carried me to the bed. I smiled when I felt both of them on either side of me, and I pulled them both closer around me. Adam gladly pressed up against me willingly and laid an arm across my waist. When Michael got a little too close (damn it I wished this wedge between us was gone already), he tried to pull away. But this time I didn’t let him.

“Stop,” I said. “I just want you to hold me and for all three of us to cuddle together tonight. Even brothers and sisters cuddle.”

The reference to brothers and sisters caught him off guard. His face looked stunned and unhappy, but he got the point of what I was trying to say, and he scooted back closer to me on the bed. I was going to tell him that I didn’t mean it like that; that I didn’t mean we were brother and sister, and that I was simply trying to make a point. But the whiskey kicked in and I fell asleep before I could say anything.

In the morning when we woke up, I had a touch of a headache. Adam brought me a full glass of water and a couple of aspirin which I popped into my mouth at once to head off any gnawing aches. When we were ready and had fueled our caffeine need, we all got back in the car again to head into town for supplies. Michael explained on the ride what things we would need to get.

“We should all tackle one of stores so that we can get done faster,” I suggested. “You can go to the camping store, Adam can go to the liquor store (because what would we do on the treacherous hike without whiskey?), and I will go to the market to get food.”

“I’m not sure it’s such a good idea if we split up,” Adam said reluctantly. “I think it’s best if we all stay together, especially since we don’t really know what’s going on here.”

“I agree with Adam,” Michael said. He looked as if he had almost surprised himself with that statement. “That’s not something you hear me say often.”

Adam laughed.

“It’s fine,” I said. “All of the stores are practically right next door to each other in town. If anything weird happens, I’ll just scream and I’m sure that you two will come running.”

“Do you think she overestimates us?” Adam joked to Michael.

“Nah,” he said as he played along with the banter. “I think it’s a drastic underestimation, if we’re being honest.”

I huffed and smacked them both gently across the chest.

“Okay, really funny,” I said. “We’re splitting up, each taking a store. Let’s meet back here in an hour.”

“One hour,” Michael repeated in a serious tone as if he was letting me know that a minute later would make him worry that I’d been hijacked.

I nodded my head and the three of us split to go knock out the necessary errands so that we could get back up to the woods and get a decent amount of ground covered before it got too late in the day. I walked toward the grocery market, looking in the shop windows as I went. When I passed the coffee shop, I stopped dead in my tracks. Rob was sitting at the high-top counter near the front window having a coffee. He looked up and stared at me, looking just as surprised to see me there as I was to see him. I knew that I had an hour, and I knew that I wasn’t supposed to stray from my errand, and definitely wasn’t supposed to pry with Rob anymore; but I couldn’t help it. I pushed the door to the coffee shop open and went inside. Then, I went right up to where Rob was sitting and sat down next to him to talk.

“Hey,” I said as soon as my butt touched the stool.

“Hi Lisette,” Rob said in a voice devoid of any emotion. He didn’t even turn to look at me. He just kept sipping his coffee and staring straight out the window at the passersby on the street.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“Having coffee,” he said. “Don’t tell me that’s unusual for me to do too?”

If he was trying to make a joke, the humor was getting lost in the tone of his voice.

“Rob, what’s going on?” I asked. “And don’t tell me that it’s nothing, because I won’t believe you. There’s something going on and it’s obviously something pretty damn big to get you to act like you’ve completely gone off the rails.”

I wasn’t trying to be mean, but I needed Rob to understand that he wasn’t fooling anyone. He set his coffee cup down on the counter and slowly turned his face to look at me.

I gasped a little and put my hand over my mouth. The entire right side of his face was beat to hell. It looked as though he’d had a fight with the front of a semi-truck.

“Rob,” I said sadly as I reached my hand toward him to gently touch his face.

He pulled away immediately and went back to looking straight out the window ahead of him.

“You’re ridiculously roughed-up,” I said. I wasn’t going to drop this and let it go. “What is going on? Tell me, please!”

Rob sighed and even though he kept his head up toward the window, he let his eyes drop down toward the counter. For a minute, it seemed as if he would open up and tell me. But then he thought better of it and stopped himself. He picked up his coffee cup and drank the rest of its contents. Then he kept staring out the window as he pulled his wallet out from his pocket and left a wad of cash on the table for the barista. I could see that he was getting ready to get up and leave without answering me.

“Rob, please,” I said as I reached to hold onto his wrist before he could get up and walk out. “Please, you have to tell me what’s going on and who is doing this to you.”

Rob stood staring at me as he wriggled his wrist out of my grip. His eyes darted to either side of the coffee shop without letting his head move, as if he was trying to look around the coffee shop without anyone knowing. Whatever had a hold on him certainly had its claws in deep. I was bound and determined to figure out what it was.

“They’re watching,” he said in a very quiet voice that bordered on silence.

“What?” I whispered. “Who is? Who’s watching?”

Rob turned to leave the coffee shop and I knew that he wasn’t going to give me an answer to that question. I didn’t even both to protest his leaving, or try to interrogate him with further questions, simply because I knew that it wouldn’t do any good. I found myself suddenly hyper-aware of everyone around me and everyone inside the coffee shop. Any of them could have been the people Rob was referring to; the people who were watching. But none of them stood out to me as doing anything other than drinking their coffee. There was nothing I could do—again. Except for going to the grocery market which I had almost forgotten was the real reason I had been walking this way. I started to get up to follow him out, but just then the barista came by and asked me if I wanted anything to drink. I tried to brush her away without being too rude.

“Oh,” Rob said just as he had his hand on the door. He turned back and looked at me as if he had forgotten to tell me something. “He’s not your brother.”

“What?” I murmured. I felt my eyes grow wide and heard my voice shake with even the one single-worded question. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” he said with slow purpose before he left. “That you and Michael are not siblings. The two of you are not related at all.”

Right after he said that, he pushed the door open and walked out into the street, leaving me to sit in sheer astonishment alone.

5

My head was spinning as I raced to tell the others. I couldn’t get the words out of my mouth fast enough, but then once I did, I didn’t know what else to say. Michael and Adam both stared at me as we sat on the couch in front of the silent and empty fireplace.

Adam’s expression looked almost disappointed as if he was hoping that any chance Michael and I had of being together had died and been buried. But it was Michael’s face that held my stare relentlessly. His eyes were practically bursting with hope, but he was careful to measure his reaction out of fear that it wasn’t true.

“How could Rob know that I’m not your brother,” he said skeptically.

“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. “But I do know Rob, and I know that he wouldn’t have told me unless he was absolutely positive.”

“She’s right,” Adam agreed. “Rob is the kind of good boy scout that wouldn’t just toss that around without being able to prove it in some way. As much as I hate to admit it, if Rob says you guys aren’t siblings, then you can believe it to be true. He must have found something out.”

I could see the flicker in Michael’s eyes, as if he wanted to reach over and grab me right here and now and carry me off to bed. It had been too long since we’d been able to truly be intimate with each other and the amount of pent-up angst that we had both been feeling had reached a torturous level. But there were other matters at hand, and so he pushed the desire down and took a few slow and steady, deep breaths. I could see it though—the relief that coated his face. I felt it too. And I almost didn’t want to think about anything else. But Rob was still in trouble and we had to help him.