Free The Road to Winter by Mark Smith Page A

angry.
    ‘Ah, Finn,’ she says. ‘You don’t know anything about me. You don’t know what I’ve done. You wouldn’t like me if I told you.’
    It seems to take all her effort just to get this out.
    I try to keep her focused. ‘We have to find Kas. She’s relying on us. But first you’ve got to get better.’
    Rose lifts her arm, puts it around my shoulder and draws me into her. My face is against her skin and I feel how hot and clammy it is.
    ‘Help me, Finn,’ she whispers. ‘Just help me.’
    She drifts off again, and I ease her back into the bed.
    Out in the kitchen I sit and stare at the tabletop. Rowdy comes over and lays his head in my lap. I miss Mum and Dad all of a sudden, their adult way of making things right.
    I remember Dad’s story of the day I was born. Mum went into labour really quickly and they had to make a dash for the hospital in their old Kombi van. They only made it halfway when Mum yelled to Dad that he had to pull over, the baby was coming. He climbed into the back and sure enough, I was entering the world right there on the back seat. Dad picked meup, made sure I was breathing and handed me to Mum. Then he got back behind the wheel and drove us to the hospital.
    He first told me this story when I was only about six or seven, and he made it sound like a big adventure with a happy-ever-after ending. When I was a bit older, though, he told me more about that day. He said he didn’t get emotional until we were safely in the hospital. Then it all hit him in a rush and he felt completely buggered. But when things were at their most critical he said he knew he had to keep a cool head. There was a job to do and he was responsible, though Mum always rolled her eyes at him thinking he was the one doing all the hard work.
    I know there’s a job to be done here and I don’t have the time to get emotional about it. I need to clear my head. In the meantime I have to make sure Rose doesn’t get any worse. And the weirdest thing is I feel like I have to make it up to her for all the bad things other people have done to her.
    Dad’s voice keeps ringing in my ears about the first thing you do when you have to make a decision—you put together a list. So I sit down at the kitchen table and get out a pencil and paper. There’ve been things stacking up that I’ve forgotten about. So I start with them.
    1. The traps.
    They’re still up along the fence line where I left them yesterday. This’ll be risky. The Wilders might have found them by now and realised I’ll be back to check them. I wish I hadn’t reset them when I caught my last lot of rabbits.
    2. Food.
    I can’t keep drawing on the supplies in the shed at this rate.I need fresh food. I haven’t been looking after myself the last few days. I’ll be useless to Rose if I get sick too.
    3. Ray.
    I haven’t been out to see him in a couple of weeks. He’ll be worried. If I check the traps first, I might get lucky and have a rabbit to take for him. I can trade for some veggies and I need to tell him about Rose, too. He’ll have a better idea of how to look after her.
    4. Kas.
    I don’t even know her yet but she’s going to need help. Once Rose is well enough to travel she’ll want to look for her sister anyway, so best to get organised for the trip and work out what I need to carry.
    Somehow I have to do all of this and look after Rose at the same time. I’m not even sure she’d understand me if I tried to explain it to her. I consider slipping off and getting something done while she’s asleep, but I don’t want her to wake up alone again.
    And then, of course, there’s the thing I don’t want to even think about. She’s pregnant. At least it makes more sense of her story—the vomiting, what she told me about Longley, their escape and Ramage’s mission to recapture her. I can’t help wondering how she got pregnant. Was it a Wilder?
    When I look in on Rose, she’s asleep. She’s pushed the blanket back and the sheet clings to