Eleven years of square meals and soap have civilized me somewhat, but I still keep a pack beneath my bed, just in case: cornmeal, dried venison, a good knife, a jar of mead. Everything I need to survive. May knew what I was; she’d found my pack when we were kids. But she hadn’t pitied me or mocked me. She’d only asked if I would take her with me when I ran. And I said yes—easily, honestly—because by then she had become one of the things I needed to survive.
