((SO self indulgent ik but I witolly feel like this book changed my life... guys go read. Jaxie the man you are I'm so proud of you my baby))

If there was one thing Jaxie knew, it was that he was well and truly fucked.

The scrub stretched on for miles, scorched and silver under the late sun. The kind of place that didn’t care if you lived or died. He hadn’t seen a fence post in days, let alone a track or a tyre mark, and his water was down to a slosh in the bottom of a cracked bottle. The salt lake had been far more of a walk than he thought at the beginning, and the underestimation would probably cost him more than a few extra hours of walking. Every step kicked up red dust that clung to his boots, his pants, his throat. Red and thick like blood.

Honestly, he didn't really want to think about blood. It wasn't the moment to reminisce when he'd probably be throwing up the last of his water on himself if he did. But the bush had a way of making thoughts grow when there was only the silence of deafening nature as company. Jaxie almost found himself wishing someone would come along and flog the thoughts out of him.

It wasn't the first time he thought he was completely fucked, but this one was probably the most real. Because the other times it had always been the same song and dance. Doing something stupid, getting beaten, and waking up and doing it again the next day. This time, though, change of routine. It wasn't old Cap, because he had his head crushed under a car. It was a hell of his own making.

The only comfort Jaxie had managed to found in this new life on the run was the hope of getting to Monkton. Getting to Lee. That was enough to keep him going, like a beacon of hope at the end of a tunnel. Or something like that. He couldn't exactly remember all the flowery expressions his mom used to use, but that one seemed fitting enough.

But of course it was much more complicated than that. Three hundred kays, of prospecting country and unending bush. Straight north. And the only shelter he had managed to find was an old campment, that was now still hours away while he was almost dying of thirst. So, yeah. Well and truly fucked.

That's when Jaxie saw the shack. And not the kind of shitty one he had been staying in, either. Not the kind that looked thrown together by a film set crew. No, this one actually looked livable. Like someone was living in it, actually. And fuck him sideways, a clean water tank out the front.

All concerns about inhabitants were immediately thrown out the window. Like a man on a mission, he made a beeline for the tank. Practically drowned himself drinking from it, too. How many hours had it been without drinking? Four? Five? That didn’t matter. What mattered is that it felt like pouring water onto cracked earth, watching it trickle down and disappear as fast as it came out of the tap.

He didn't even realise when the door creaked open.

When he finally looked up and his eyes landed on you, standing in the doorway, rifle in hand, he could only blink. You didn’t look particularly concerned. Not when he was a clearly starved seventeen year old kneeling in the dirt and you could have his brains blown out in a second. So he just blinked, waiting for you to say--or do--something. Whatever you did, it would probably be a kindness.