#curtis evertt

“Think he’ll go looking for a new place for us soon?” Jacob asked you.

How did you answer that?

“Maybe,” you replied.

Your group was going to have to move before too long just to survive.

“He doesn’t want to leave you,” Yona pointed out.

So they were thinking what you already knew. Curtis was probably afraid you’d try to run again.

“I’m sorry,” you muttered, working on folding a pair of huge trousers.

“No,” Yona said, placing a gloved hand on your arm. “Don’t be sorry.”

“He’s just looking after you is all,” Jacob pointed out. “Considering that a couple of Nick’s friends -- or ex-friends I guess --  are still around… I get that. But I’m here. He could leave someone else he trusts behind with us. Harvey maybe? Harvey’s little girl is here anyway.”

Was Jacob right? Was Curtis just wanting to make sure no one messed with you while he was gone?

Or was he afraid you’d leave?

Were you trying to get away from me?

Maybe he was worried about both?

Still, Jacob gave you an idea for later.

You nodded and he pitched in to help you and Yona get everything sorted. Rachel came over to help you while David told stories of some funnier things that happened at the back of the train. It helped pass the time.

The sun set and once again, Curtis wasn’t back at dark as they always had been before. You found yourself watching the entrance of the cave every few seconds, watching for him.

“They’re out there talking,” a new voice came from behind you.

Turning with the bundle of items you’d put together for Harvey’s daughter Eva, you found Luka standing there.

The young man had short dark hair, calm brown eyes. His nose and cheeks were red from the cold, and he removed the scarf from around his face, eyeing you curiously.

He’d been friends with Nick. He’d been the one you’d hit with the pipe when you’d tried to help the older couple they’d attacked after the crash. After that, in his defense, he hadn’t laid a hand on you.

But would he have if the night hadn’t gone as it had, and Curtis had let them drag you away? You shivered as you nodded quickly, hoping your terror didn’t show but knowing it did. You hung onto the clothing items in your arms a little tighter, hating that you were trembling.

Jacob moved between you. “Thanks. Appreciate it.”

Luka smirked at the other man, his thin lips making his mouth look like an angry line. His dark eyes swept over Jacob, sizing him up.

“You’re going to take care of business with one leg, are you?” Luka made his disregard of Jacob known. “Just mentioned Curtis is outside talking. Not your business.”

Something about the unkind way Luka was dealing with Jacob made you uneasy.

“Then move along,” Curtis told him, heading straight for you though his glare was on Luka.

Luka stalked off and you released the breath you’d been holding.

You could feel the tension rolling off Curtis as he came to a stop behind you, his hands on your shoulders. You knew he could feel you shaking.

Well, this wasn’t going to make him willing to go scouting for a safer location for the lot of you.

If Jacob had been afraid of him, it didn’t show.

“I don’t care if he sided with us,” he told you. “I don’t like him.”

“Where did they find you?” Yona asked, stepping up next to Jacob. “When you ended up here?”

Curtis’s fingers curled into your coat.

“There was an older couple,” you explained. “They were neighbors of ours before my father died. After the crash, Nick and all of them were trying to take the lady’s fur coat. When the man asked for mercy, they started… beating him. Kicking him. They hit her… I had to try and help them. I found a pipe and headed out there… I think Luka was the one I hit with it. Then they got a hold of me.”

Jacob shook his head as he listened. “You thought you were going to take on six of them?”

You shrugged nervously. “I had to try.”

“No, you didn’t,” Curtis’s voice was close to your ear. “If they’d decided to… hurt you then and there…”

He didn’t have to tell you that you might not be here to tell the tale right now.