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So I just kept running until, eventually, I did it. Mostly on instinct, I guess.
I made it back to the cabin, where I quickly shut and barricaded the door, then covered the windows before lighting up the place with the hurricane lamps my father had kept scattered around.
“It’s okay, baby,” I cooed at the puppy who launched himself under the bed, and refused to come out. “We’re gonna be okay,” I added as I added wood into the embers the stove, and worked on getting it going again.
It felt risky to start a fire with a killer in the woods. But I couldn’t let us freeze to death, either.
Finished with that, I stripped out of my soaking clothes, drying my wet hair, then slipping into a dry pajamas before draping my wet clothes around the space, letting them drip dry, since I had no other option.
I set out a bowl of water for the puppy, then broke up the jerky into pieces and set them on a plate.
There was obviously no dog food around, but the pantry had some freeze dried meals for emergencies, and some rummaging had me finding a chicken, carrot, and rice meal that could hold the puppy over until he could get a proper meal.
I sat up with him as the storm raged, trying to coax him out with the jerky. But it wasn’t until the sun was beating against the windows that he finally started to crawl out, sniffing, then nearly taking my hand off to try to get the jerky.
I gave him the rest of that while I boiled water to rehydrate the chicken and rice meal for him.
As soon as he smelled it, he was at my feet, whimpering, wagging, jumping up on me for it.
“It’s hot, bud,” I said, reaching down to pet his head as I blew on the food until it was an appropriate temperature before setting it on the floor for him.
He wolfed it down in no time, then looked up at me like he wanted more.
“I don’t want to make you sick, okay?” I said, petting his head. “We will have more in a little bit, okay?” I asked.
It wasn’t long until the long night, the storm, and the full belly finally caught up to him, leaving him curling up in front of the stove, and passing out.
Similarly spent, I curled up on the bed myself, watching his little feet pedal in the air while he slept.
“I’m gonna call you Storm,” I said, refusing to admit it to myself, but somehow knowing there was no way I was going to give him up now that he found me.
His presence might take the sting out of my grief.
As I drifted to sleep, though, it wasn’t sweet puppy kisses and a forever companion that I dreamed about.
It wasn’t even the horrors I’d witnessed that made me run.
Oh, no.
It was the man in the woods.
And the crime I couldn’t report because I didn’t want to be found.
I woke up with just one comforting thought.
He didn’t see me.
So we were safe from him.
Or so I thought.
CHAPTER THREE
Silvano
“Earth to Sil,” Ant, said, snapping in my face to shock me out of my thoughts, making my head whip up to look at him standing on the top step of Lorenzo’s Brownstone.
“What’d you do to your neck?” I asked, seeing a bandage held there by tape.
