Apocalypsis 04 - Haven

again, so you’re going to have to fix that. That’s all on you, not her and not me.”
    I squeezed Paci a little around the middle and he got my signal exactly, spinning the horse around and walking the opposite direction. Now was a perfect time to check on the other riders and kids walking at the back while enjoying the side benefit of avoiding Gail.
    “Wow,” said Paci.
    “Yeah. Wow.”
    “Think she’ll stay?”
    “I’m not even sure if she’ll enter,” I said. “Winky’s right. She has to agree to our oath or we can’t let her in.”
    “You’re much easier on people than Trip or even Kowi was.” Paci’s voice hitched a little at the mention of his brother’s name.
    “How are you doing?” I asked softly, knowing the loss of his chief was bad enough, but the fact that Kowi was much more than that to Paci had to be tearing him up.
    “As good as I can be. I haven’t had time to process it, I think. We have too many emergencies going on for me to focus on it.”
    “When we get to Haven, we’ll have a ceremony.”
    Paci nodded but said nothing. He probably didn’t want to cry in front of all these people, so I didn’t press the issue anymore.
    We rode near the kids who were walking and eventually I got down to join them. I limped along for a mile or so before my sore butt allowed for a normal gait. Paci kept pace beside me.
    I found myself looking up at him a lot, studying his profile. He was so strong. I never thought about it much before, but there were a lot of similarities between him and Kowi. Besides both being handsome and very muscular, they were both patient and wise beyond their years. And intense. Something about Paci was just so magnetic to me. I wasn’t sure everyone felt that way about him, but it was stupid for me to deny it wasn’t the case for me.
    I was ashamed to think that it was these feelings I had about Paci that made me less tolerant of Bodo’s recent behavior. Would I be more forgiving if Paci weren’t in the picture? Would I be less sensitive to the things Bodo was saying and doing if Paci wasn’t so damn cute? I didn’t have any answers, but I did know one thing: I loved Bodo, and while it might not mean anything to him, it meant something to me. I had to figure out what was going on with him and do what I could to repair the relationship. If he didn’t want it anymore, then that was a different story, but I wasn’t ready for it to be over. I didn’t give my heart to someone and then just yank it back at the first sign of trouble. Love is supposed to be forever.
    Someone shouting up ahead dragged me out of my emotional wallowing.
    “Look! It’s Haven!”
    I walked out to the side a little so I could see around the group in front of me. The first thing I saw was the fence that surrounded the property. The prison was far from the edge. This would be the area where the animals would graze, at least until we had something else figured out. As my eyes scanned the building, I noticed something else.
    “Holy crap,” I said as I tried to decide whether my eyes were playing tricks on me.
    “Is that smoke?” asked Paci.
    “It looks like it,” I said, my heart leaping into my throat. “Help me up, Paci.” I reached my good arm towards him and gripped his elbow when it came down.
    He took off at a gallop as soon as I was on and my arms were wrapped around him in a death grip. I ignored the painful stretching of my wound and my sore butt. I was more worried about falling from this running mountain than popping a few stitches, knowing the stitches would be a lot less painful. And my bruised private parts would heal eventually. I couldn’t bear the thought of arriving too late to help again. Please not Peter! Please let Peter and everyone else be okay!
    The closer we got to the prison building, the more freaked out I became. There was one hell of a fire going on somewhere, and we couldn’t enter the property from where we were. We had to run around the perimeter to get to the front gate. I prayed we hadn’t arrived too late.
    Paci urged the horse on stronger, yelling, “Get up!” as he kicked his heels into its flanks. The beast surged forward, and I had to hold onto Paci with all my strength. I kept my face plastered against his back and lost sight of what was going on ahead of us.
    I felt us turning the corner and the horse slowing a bit, so I took a chance and leaned my head away from Paci’s back to see what I could. When I was finally able to focus on