Chapter 3: Chapter 3
Tommy pushed off the wall, the motion easy, practiced. "Right. Let's go." He didn't wait for her to agree, just started walking towards the mess hall doors. Jess stood, the movement pulling at the wound in her side. A sharp, fresh stab of pain made her suck in a breath, her hand pressing against the bandages under her shirt. She grabbed her pack from the floor, the familiar weight a comfort, and followed him out into the late afternoon.
The air outside was cold, a biting chill that seeped through her thin, torn shirt immediately. She crossed her arms, her breath frosting in the air.
Tommy glanced back, his eyes noting the way she hunched against the wind. "You'll freeze," he said, not unkindly, just stating a fact. "C'mon. Storage is this way."
He led her past the greenhouses, their glass panes glowing with weak, interior light, past a workshop where the sounds of hammering and muted conversation spilled out into the dusty street. People nodded at Tommy, their eyes sliding over Jess with a mixture of curiosity and wariness. She kept her gaze forward, her shoulders tense.
The storage building was a long, low-slung structure that smelled of dust, oil, and mothballs. Tommy shouldered the door open and flipped on a battery-powered lantern, casting a jaundiced yellow light over rows of shelves crammed with sorted clutter: tools, cans of paint, bundles of fabric, stacks of folded clothing.
"Winter gear's over here," he said, moving towards the back. He rummaged on a shelf and pulled out a jacket. It was a worn canvas work jacket, lined with something synthetic, a dark olive green faded by sun and use. There was a small, neat patch on one sleeve. He tossed it to her.
Jess caught it, the material rough against her fingers. She held it up. It looked sturdy, warm. "This someone's?" she asked, her voice low.
"Was," Tommy said, leaning against a shelf. "Guy named Eli. Headed west last spring. Didn't come back." He said it simply, no drama in it. Just another fact of life here.
She hesitated for only a second before sliding her arms into the sleeves. It was too big, the shoulders slumping down, the cuffs covering her hands. But it was warm. The residual chill in her bones began to retreat almost immediately. She rolled the cuffs back, twice, until her hands were free.
"It'll do," she said.
Tommy gave a short nod. "Good. Now, your place."
He led her out of the storage building and turned, not back toward the heart of the town with its communal buildings and grouped houses, but east, along a narrower, packed-dirt path. The sounds of Jackson faded behind them, replaced by the sigh of the wind through pine trees and the distant cry of a crow. They passed a few scattered sheds, then a large fenced-in area where a couple of goats lifted their heads to watch them pass.
"Quieter back here," Tommy said, his boots crunching on the gravel. "Not much traffic. Some folks like the buzz of the main square. Some don't."
The path ended at a small, standalone cabin. It was made of weathered logs, with a stone chimney and a sloped roof shingled with mismatched tiles. A narrow porch held a single wooden chair and a pot with a dead plant in it. It looked old, but cared for. The windows were clean.
Tommy mounted the two steps to the porch, pulled a key from his pocket, and unlocked the heavy door. He pushed it open and stepped aside.
"Home sweet home," he said, his voice flat.
Jess stepped past him, her eyes adjusting to the dim interior. It was one room. A bed with a metal frame and a real mattress pushed against the far wall, stripped bare. A small wood-burning stove sat cold in the corner opposite, a neat stack of split logs beside it. A plain wooden table and one chair stood under the front window. There were shelves built into the wall, empty. The floor was clean-swept plank wood. It smelled of pine sap and old smoke and dust.
It was the most peaceful place she'd been in years.
"It's... nice," she said, the word feeling strange in her mouth. She meant it. It was secure. It had a door that locked. It had a stove.
Tommy stayed in the doorway, not entering. "Maria'll have someone bring linens, a blanket. There's a pump out back for water. Outhouse is fifty paces into the trees, marked with a red X. You're on your own for meals, but you can use the communal kitchen in the mess hall during open hours. Just clean up after yourself."
He looked at her, his scarred face unreadable in the fading light. "Work assignments start at dawn. Maria'll find you. Don't be late."
Jess nodded, still taking in the four walls, the solid roof, the profound, unsettling quiet.
Tommy turned to go, then paused, his hand on the doorframe. "Eli was a good guy. That jacket kept him warm for three winters. It's a good jacket." He didn't look back. "Get some sleep."
He pulled the door closed behind him. The latch clicked into place.
Jess stood in the center of the empty room, the silence swelling to fill the space around her. She could hear the beat of her own heart. Slowly, she shrugged off her pack and let it drop to the floor with a soft thud. She walked to the window, looking out at the gathering dusk, the pine trees stark against a bruised purple sky.
She touched the patched sleeve of the jacket, her fingers tracing the rough stitching.
It was warm. The room was solid. For the first time since the QZ burned, she was somewhere that wasn't moving, running, or collapsing.
She didn't know what to do with that. The stillness felt like a held breath. She sat on the edge of the bare mattress, the springs groaning under her weight, and stared at the cold, black mouth of the stove. The memory of the stew, the warmth of the mess hall, Maria's unwavering gaze, all of it churned inside her, a confusing counterpoint to the deep, animal instinct that told her to run.
Dawn would come. Maria would have a job for her. It was a transaction, she told herself. Work for shelter. Nothing more.
She pulled her knees up to her chest, wrapping the jacket tighter around herself, and waited for the dark to settle in completely.