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But I can’t bring myself to destroy them.
When will I see fresh-cut roses again?
Get rid of them.
A shallow creek cuts through the frozen subsoil and branches off to the cliff, its edges shimmering with rime and arctic moss. Any day now, it’ll all be frozen beneath snow, preserving everything that travels in its current.
I step to the stream and sit on a large flat rock. With a shuddering breath, I drop the bouquet into the water. It floats toward the cliff, bobbing and separating and slowly submerging until the fuchsia blooms vanish.
My eyes blur. My nose stings. A suffocating ache rises in my chest and tries to break loose, splintering the bones of its cage. The force of it doubles me over, and my hand flies to my breastbone, where I tap frantically, trying to clear the attack.
Breathe, dammit. Fight it.
I don’t want to feel this. I don’t want to come to grips with it.
But my captors are forcing me. After my bourbon binge and subsequent hangover, they unanimously cut off my access to alcohol and painkillers. I can’t numb myself. Can’t black out. Can’t sleep. Can’t outrun the pain much longer.
If only I had a cigarette, but I ran out of those this morning.
I’ve been running and chain-smoking. At the same time. Irrational and laughable. Fits my new reality. Madness is all the rave here.
If you can’t beat them, join them.
I haven’t smoked since college, but it was easy to pick it up again. I’m not a nurse anymore, and my health means fuck all in the grand scheme of things. I just need a buzz, an instant rush of pleasure and energy to take the edge off, even if it never lasts long enough.
Wolf has a stockpile of smokes somewhere, but I don’t want to ask him. Or look at him. I don’t want anything to do with any of them.
My soul is too bruised, too crushed beneath the boots of men.
Since when have I let anyone or anything wreck me so completely?
Never.
This isn’t me.
I’ve been a lot of things in my life. Naïve. Reckless. Outraged. But this? I don’t know how to be this. I don’t even know what to call it.
Gutted?
Trapped?
Lonely?
But not alone.
The four demons of Hoss are my constant shadows, taking shifts in their vigilance, always watching, even when I can’t see them.
So I’m not surprised when the sound of footsteps trespasses on my solitude.
I don’t bother glancing over my shoulder to see who it is. Whether it’s the smooth, dangerous glide of his gait, a kiss of motor oil and cedar on the breeze, or something inexplainable, I already know.
“Never thought I’d say this.” Leo’s silken baritone caresses my spine. “I miss the sound of your voice.”
I haven’t spoken a word since the video. There are too many conversations going on in my head, none of which involves my captors.
“Tell me what you’re thinking.”
He knows I’m thinking about Monty, but that’s not what he’s asking. He wants to know what I’m going to do about it.
“Do you have a cigarette?” I don’t look at him.
“No.”
“Bourbon?”
“No booze. No pills.”
“Way to kill my mellow.”
“You’ve never been mellow. And right now, you need to be sober.”
I don’t care if he’s right. “Sobriety is the thief of joy.”
“So is betrayal. What are you staring at?”
“My death.” I lift a shoulder, eyes on the cliff. “I’m not afraid.”
“Ah. So this is a pity party.”
“Party of one. Get lost.”
Rather than fucking off, he steps around me in a rude invasion of heat and scent. He must’ve come from the workshop, drenched in that manly mechanic smell that always clings to him. I try not to like it, but it’s so distinctly him. The heavy smells of muscle and power tools. Raw and rugged and capable.
He wears a coat with a fur-lined hood, his hands stuffed into the pockets and breaths rising in white clouds. With the plunging temperatures, the threat of snow and ice lingers in the air. Soon we’ll trade daylight for the endless darkness of polar night, and I’ll be trapped here for the winter.
In the dark.
With them.
“The woman I met six weeks ago wasn’t a quitter.” He tips his head, studying me. “She was unwanted, unprotected, alone, miserable, lost, despised, and scared out of her fucking mind. Yet she was so gangster that she admitted all that to me while holding a kitchen knife to my throat.”
“I’m out here without a weapon. Not so gangster now, huh? Here’s your chance. Push me over the cliff or feed me to the wolves. It’s what you want.”
“I should.” He crouches beside me, his knees brushing my hip and his gaze bold, holding tenaciously. “You’re so fucking beautiful it hurts to look at you.”
I look away, pretending his words don’t produce a flutter in my chest. “You’re an idiot.”
“An idiot obsessed with wild red hair.” He sweeps an icy hunk of it behind my ear and stares at my profile. “And vicious green eyes. And those flawless features, sharp as steel and just as deadly. With a single glance, you cut a man at his knees. Even in pain, you look so goddamn regal, like nothing can shatter you.”
