“River.” I can’t place the voice as I slowly drift away from sleep and into consciousness. “It’s time to wake up.” Someone shakes me by my shoulder and I grab Emery’s hand, pulling him into me with closed eyes. “Someone’s changed their mind,” he laughs not moving as he brushes my hair out of my face. “You still have to get up, though. Your mom went into town to get groceries while the sky is clear and told us to shovel before she left with Emery and your dad.”

My eyes instantly fly open and I come face to face with Vince. Cheeks turning pink, I avoid his eyes as I push away from him. I pull up the covers to my chin and realize I must look like a mess.

“Get out!” I yell, trying to finger brush my hair while Vince watches in amusement.

“I guess you didn’t change your mind, did you?” He asks with raised eyebrows, while I pull the comforter up to completely cover every inch of me, including my face.

“I was half asleep, so no! Just get out and I’ll be downstairs in a minute!” I snap, hating when anyone saw me in the morning. Vince laughs lightly and heads out of my room, shutting the door behind him. Sighing, I drop the blankets and look to the empty spot beside me where Emery was last night.

One Hour Later:

“This sucks,” mutters Vince, shovelling the walkway beside me. “I can’t believe your family doesn’t have a snow blower.”

I roll my eyes. He’s been complaining ever since we started, twenty minutes ago. No, we don’t have caller ID or a snow blower, because my dad wants to stay ‘old fashioned’ like when he was raised on this farm.

“Well we have a plough for my dad’s truck,” I tell him, moving my shovel under the two feet of snow and throwing it into a pile a few feet away. “However he took his truck and it won’t fit on mine.”

Vince groans and I bite my tongue to prevent myself from snapping at him. This is the Vince I’m used to. The one who complains to the point when you want to cut his tongue out of his mouth with a butter knife. Then he really would have something to complain about. If he could.

“Hey Vince,” I mumble, avoiding even seeing him out of the corner of my eye while I shovel. “Want to do me a huge favour?”

I hear him stop shovelling and I know I have to turn around. He’s looking at me, leaning his chin on the handle of the shovel that he holds onto in front of him. His eyebrows are raised and I know he’s telling me I’m in no position to be asking him favours.

“What is it?” He sighs, meeting my eyes.

I give him a hopeful smile and copy the way he’s leaning on his shovel. “Can you and Emery at least try to get along?”

Vince rolls his eyes and stops resting his head on the shovel and begins moving more snow. Obviously he doesn’t want to even give it a chance, so I drop my shovel and run in front of him to start beginning.

“Please,” I whine, trying to get him to look at me while he acts as if I’m not standing in front of him while he shovels, flailing my arms. “Who knows how long you two will have to deal with each other?” Vince shoots me a look and I rush my words. “Hopefully not long, but please, just try to get to know him. It’s not like he’s competition anyways.”

Vince exhales noisily as he raises his shovel full of snow. In one swift movement, he throws it at me. I cover my face as the cold snow hits my stomach and falls to the ground.

“What was that for?” I snap, brushing myself off before I can get wet.

“For lying,” he smirks.

I roll my eyes. “Vince, I already said I choose neither. Can you just drop this? Please, for me?” I give him my best puppy dog face and bat my eyelashes, hoping that I can pull off the same look Mary has given me when she wants something.

“Fine,” he sighs, focusing again on getting our work done. “There’s a party near here tomorrow night, if the weather holds up. I’ll ask him if he wants to go.”

My eyes narrow and I glare at Vince. Emery going to a party doesn’t sit with me very well, especially while he’s already injured.

“What?” Vince straightens up and turns to meet my eyes. He’s clearly not happy. “You want me to give him a chance and when I say I will, you change your mind?”

“No,” I mumble, feeling my cheeks go red. I throw myself into shovelling again, turning my body so I don’t have to face towards Vince. “Its fine,” I lie.

I continue shovelling, wondering if the conversation I’m going to have with Emery will go as well as it went with Vince. I highly doubt it, but it’s worth a shot.

Three Hours Later:

“No,” Emery snaps, walking past me and out the front door. I have no idea where he is planning on going but I scramble to put my winter clothes on him to follow him anyways.

“Emery, please,” I whine, jogging to catch up with him. He doesn’t even glance at me as I walk beside him. “Just give Vince a chance.”

Emery exhales noisily as we walk around the cow pen. “Something tells me that chances and Vince don’t go so well together,” he mutters, heading towards the old shed. I haven’t been there in years, because there’s nothing really in there. It’s a faded dark grey colour, complete with peeling paint and rust.

“Come on,” I plead, grabbing his good arm. “If you two don’t even try to get along, life here will be horrible. Remember what it was like when you and I were at war? Do you really want that with Vince?”

Emery rolls his eyes and grabs the cold, rusty handle of the shed door. “Just drop it, River,” he snaps, yanking open the doors. It squeaks and suddenly the dusty, old smell hits me. I resist the urge to cover my nose as I pull Emery towards me while he tries to walk in.

“Vince is willing to give you a chance. Can’t you-“

Emery cuts me off as he spins around to glare into my eyes. “He’s willing to give me a chance,” he spits, jerking his arm free of my grasp. “Because he doesn’t want you have any reason to suspect him of what he said to me on the phone, River.”

Sighing, I roll my eyes. “Either you tell me what he apparently said, or stop bringing that up!” I whine, annoyed that suddenly I’m not allowed to know details about things that include me. Snow is falling so much that we can barely see the house through the white snowflakes and I have to keep blinking them out of my eyelashes.

“River,” he says sternly, looking seriously into my eyes. “You know I can’t do that. It would tear you apart.” I grab onto his arm again and take a step closer to him.

“Isn’t it obvious that I’m already shattered into a million pieces?” Emery doesn’t answer, as he walks into the shed, falling out of my grasp. Sitting in the middle of the almost empty shed, surrounded by scattered tools and other things, is a blanket. Well, not just a blanket, as it’s obviously covering something.

Emery grabs onto it with both hands and throws it into the air, not letting go. It reveals the motorcycle I saw in my dad’s truck when Emery showed up that night. There’s nothing really to describe about it, except it looks extremely old and the black paint is peeling off.

“So it’s yours?” I ask with raised eyebrows, as he drops the blanket onto the cold wooden floor. He nods while he circles it, checking it out as if it’s for the first time. “Where did you get it?”

Emery smirks, not meeting my eyes as he examines the bike. “Your dad gave it to me.” Suddenly I start choking on air and cough a few times. As soon as I’ve calmed down, I let common sense sink in.

“My dad gave you a motorcycle,” I say, looking at the old thing. It looks like it should be put out of its misery. “Why would he do that?”

He only shrugs, swinging a clearly painful leg over the side. Sitting on it, he smirks. “He figured that if I’m coming back to the farm, I might as well have a way off it. Besides,” he tells me, grabbing the handle bars with his good hand. “I’m pretty sure that it was your dad’s.”

I raise my eyebrows and try to remember seeing my dad on the one that sits before me. The only memory I get is a vague one of a photograph.

“Let me guess,” I sigh. “He picked it up from the same guy who gave us the horses and goats?” Emery nods and I exhale noisily. “Figures. He’s always either holding stuff for us, or dumping random junk on our farm that he doesn’t want.”

“Like me?” I flinch as I turn towards Vince, who just walks into the shed. His eyes quickly move from me to the motorcycle and he whistles. “Wow, other than the fact that it’s a piece of junk, great bike.” He gives a shy smile and Emery doesn’t return it. Instead, he only nods.

“Hey Vince,” I mumble, shooting him a look. “Isn’t there something you wanted to ask Emery?” Instantly Emery looks to me, giving me a glare but I only give a hopeful smile back.

“Oh, yeah.” Vince scratches the back of his head and takes a step towards Emery. “There’s a party a couple roads over tomorrow night. Want to go if the weather’s good?”

All eyes are on Emery, who’s looking back at Vince. I give him my best you-better-say-yes-if-you-know-what’s-good-for-you look and hope he doesn’t be his normal unpredictable self. He meets me eyes briefly and sighs as he turns back to look at Vince.

“Sure.”

Vince nods awkwardly and takes a step towards the door of the shed. “Well, I better get back to work,” he mumbles, stepping into the snow. Just when I think he’s gone, he peeks his head back in. “Again, nice bike,” he calls, before leaving again. Emery just gives him a nod, even though he’s already gone.

“Are you going to teach me how to ride it?” I smirk, sauntering over and climbing onto the back of the motorcycle, behind Emery. I wrap my arms around his waist to steady myself and imagine what it’s like riding it.

“Do you actually want to?” Emery turns his head to smirk at me and his dark hair falls out of his eyes.

“Of course,” I grin. “Why wouldn’t…” I trail off, noticing something on the back of his neck. “Turn around for a sec,” I tell him; smiling so he doesn’t assume anything is wrong. Once he’s facing forward, I slowly reach out towards the back of his neck. Gently, my hand pushes the strands of black hair out of the way and I pull down his clothes to see his upper back when I gasp.

Emery instantly jerks away from me and tries to get off the bike, only tumbling onto the floor and taking me with him. I brace myself as my body collides with the hard ground and make sure I don’t hit my head. As soon as I’ve assessed that I’m okay, I start to move the bike off Emery and I, who’s obviously in pain.

“You okay?” I mumble nervously, climbing to my feet and brushing dust off myself. I grab Emery’s good hand before he can protest and pull him to his feet. He doesn’t respond and instead tries to walk out of the barn. I grab his shoulder and yank him back. “What is that?”

Emery doesn’t meet my eyes. “What is what?”

My eyes narrow. “Don’t you act like you don’t know,” I snap, taking a step towards him. “The…the scar!” It’s just under his neck and shaped like a narrow football.

“I-It’s nothing,” Emery says, raising his voice. “Just forget you saw it.” He tries to leave again but I pull him back towards me.

“Did they do this to you?” I yell, my grasp clenching into a fist around his shoulder. When he doesn’t answer and avoids my eyes, I shake him. “Did they!” He still doesn’t respond and I let go of him. “They did,” I sigh, feeling tears form in my cheeks. “How?”

Emery looks at the ground. “With a knife.”

My eyes grow wide as he storms out of the shed, slamming the doors behind him. I’m left in complete darkness, as tears fall from my cheeks. I count the days since Emery came and roughly when his father’s friends found him. Once I’m done, I kick open the doors of the shed and storm towards the house. Before I can even come close, I feel a hand clasp around my mouth as Emery grasps me tightly.

“You can’t tell your dad,” he whispers angrily into my ear. “Or anyone.” I start to cry harder but don’t try to escape his hold. “Do you understand?” When I don’t respond, he shakes me and holds me tightly. “Do you?” I slowly nod and he lets go before disappearing. I don’t see where through my blurry eyes as I hug myself tightly.

Emery has apparently been found by his father’s friends only a few days ago. Before he left, I know for a fact that there was no scar on the skin of his back. However, wounds from a knife don’t leave a scar in only a few days.

I crumple onto the snow, not caring about how cold it is on my jeans. All I care about is Emery. He needs to tell me what happened without lying. Because I know for a fact that someone stabbed him and it wasn’t just a few days ago.