The porch boards were damp and the cold came straight through her socks where the boots gaped. Samantha stood at the rail and did the arithmetic before she could stop herself. Two million and thirty thousand at six. Seventy-seven thousand an hour. Eight twelve.
She hated that she had done it.
She bent down and laced the left boot, then the right one, as tight as they went. Her hands were shaking. She wanted to walk down the road past Seth and the tracks and keep going.
Also possible.
“Fuck him,” she said to the yard.
The door opened behind her. Marcus came out with her jacket over his arm and Doug’s notebook in his hand, walking on the side of his bad foot. He held the jacket out until she took it.
“You forgot this,” he said.
“I didn’t forget it. I left.”
“Put it on anyway. It’s twenty-six degrees.”
She put it on. He lowered himself onto the top step with his bad leg straight out in front of him, which took a while.
“You look like an old man,” she said.
“I slept with my foot on a milk crate and Vlad yanked it out from under me. Banging it on the ground didn’t feel good.” He set the notebook on the step next to him. “He’s inside eating Seth’s granola bar like it’s a punishment.”
“Good.”
“I don’t trust him,” Samantha said. “He fixed my code yesterday knowing it was his, and I said thanks. He let me call him lazy to his face and said Also possible. If Ostvik hadn’t been signing, he would have taken it to the grave.”
“Probably.”
“That’s not helping.”
“I know.” Marcus rubbed his ankle. “I sent Seth a text at three in the morning the night you found it. You didn’t trust me either.”
“That was different.”
“It was one text, and it was worse. And then at the top of Cottonwood Pass a Fed had a flyer with my face on it, and nobody threw me to him.”
“Nobody decided that. It just happened.”
“It didn’t just happen. You stepped in front of the flyer.”
“Do you trust him to fix it?” Marcus asked.
“Yes.”
“That’s the part we need by eight.”
“Eight twelve.”
She looked down at the notebook on the step. A week ago, on the far side of the pass, she had read half of Persephone to Vlad while he wrote it on the inside of his arm, because she didn’t want to be the only one who knew. Nobody moves alone, he had said.
She picked up the notebook and went inside. She didn’t wait for Marcus to follow.
Vlad was in Doug’s chair with half a granola bar in his hand. He put it down when she came in.
She sat down on the milk crate in front of him, close enough that their knees almost touched.
“You should have told me yesterday at two,” she said.
“Yes.”
“I’m still angry.”
“I understand.”
“The camera on the spur,” Samantha said. “The first week. Marcus thought it couldn’t send.”
Vlad looked at her for a second and then at Marcus.
“What camera?” Marcus asked.
“There was a trail camera on a tree at the top of the spur,” Vlad said. “I told you it was not sending from there. That was true. In October somebody will carry it down to his truck, and it will find a signal before he reaches the highway. I let you think the rest.”
“It has all three of us on it,” Samantha said. “Walking right past it. Your face is the one everybody has.”
Marcus looked at Samantha. “You knew that?”
“I knew it on the trail. I didn’t tell you.”
“Why not?”
“Because we were already fighting about everything else, and I wanted to get off the mountain. I’m sorry.”
Marcus sat down on the arm of the couch with his weight off the bad foot and looked at her, not at Vlad.
“You stepped in front of a flyer for me,” he said, “and you let a camera keep my face until October.”
“Yes.”
“Is there anything else?” he asked. “Anybody?”
Samantha shook her head. Vlad didn’t move. The microwave clock said 6:52. Eighty minutes.
Samantha opened the notebook to a clean page and wrote 8:12 at the top and underlined it.
“Tell me who at nib has ever answered kolobok,” she said. “One of them has to believe it before eight twelve.”
Vlad picked his tablet up off the floor.
She didn’t know yet what she was going to say to him when this was over.