I can get there on my own. you can leave me here alone.
They’ll go that way.
Through Loess.
It is not lost on him, the way edge of acid to the name, but he does not know how to broach the subject. And anyway, now is likely not the time to ask. Their daughter is missing and, while she is strong and smart and vicious and demanding, she is still a child and the temperatures have been hovering near freezing for days now. He wonders if they are impervious to the cold, his pair of vipers, but does not ask this either.
He glances toward the horizon again. Through the dense underbrush, he can see that the sun has begun its descent. They’ll have to hurry.
He nods, though abruptly gives pause when her expression changes. He blinks at her, swallows his surprise at the radical shift. She looks at him with wide eyes and the explanation for them slips a blade between his ribs. He swallows thickly around the vise tightening around his throat. It affects him deeply, of course, that she would think him too busy or too disinterested to help her go to the ends of the earth in search of their daughter.
Has his lack of panic, his rock steadiness, come off as apathy? He does not dwell on it. Drags in a small breath and fashions up a slanted smile – dim, foggy, but there all the same. “Of course I’m going to help you look for her, Adna.”
He feels no overwhelming need to provoke her, to turn this into a fight. He bites back whatever he’d thought to say about his qualifications as a father and kisses her head again. “Come on,” he whispers, and then turns in the direction of the meadow.
BETHLEHEM
I'm just tryin' to do what's right. oh, a man ain't a man unless he's fought the fight.
