Nic paused beside a twisted pine. Despite the cold, sweat slicked his back. He wasn’t warm from the trudging—just feverish, raw. His skin was clammy, chest tight. It felt like illness, but he knew better. It was the sleeplessness. The aftermath of screaming through the night. The echo of Helen’s tears still rattled in his marrow.
He longed for water. His mouth was dry and bitter, but there was no stream. No relief. He pressed his shoulder to the treetrunk, letting his weight sag into the bark. Just a moment. Just enough to breathe without feeling like he was choking.
Behind him, his footprints smeared the thin layer of melting snow, a single dark wound on an otherwise pure field. He stared at the mark, unsettled.
Was he that mark, in Helen’s life? A stain on her quiet beauty. A muddy scar she would never fully scrub away.
What if all his love had ever done was ruin her?
A rustle snapped his thoughts in two. From the brambles, a thin gray fox emerged—its patchy coat mid-transition, unsure of what it wanted to be. Winter hadn't yet claimed it fully. It looked awkward, half-forgotten by both seasons.
The creature caught his gaze—unflinching. Then, without warning, a second fox leapt from the shadows. Bigger. Equally disheveled. They seemed to recognize each other. In the next breath, they were gone, darting into the scrub, the flash of their white-tipped tails lingering in their wake.
Nic exhaled, dragging a hand through his disheveled locks. He stood at the crossroads again. Go back to Helen, or keep walking nowhere.
What was left between them, really?
They loved each other. That wasn’t in question. But love hadn’t stopped the damage. Every time he held her, he bled. Every time she tried to hold him together, he pulled her apart.
He’d begun to wonder, sometime after midnight—was this love, or simply a habit they were both too terrified to release? Could she really fix someone this broken? And could he live with himself if she tried?
Maybe staying was the most selfish thing of all.
He looked once more down the path he hadn’t taken.
No, he wasn’t ready to go back. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
He needed to walk. To burn off the rot. To stop expecting Helen to carry what was his to reckon with.
The wilderness didn’t judge. It didn’t ask him to talk. It just let him move.
And for now, that was all the healing he could bear.
It took another few miles before Nic stumbled upon a hunter’s lodge—run-down, crooked, and half-reclaimed by the woods. Like most, it was more ruin than refuge. The roof sagged, the walls leaned as though weary from decades of storms. Still, it was a shelter, and that was something. The sun was slipping below the treetops, and the idea of sleeping under the open sky—with no fire, no blanket—had long lost its romantic edge.
Hungry, parched, and worn through, Nic stepped inside the single room. The door groaned and resisted, wedging askew in its warped frame. Gaps yawned between the boards. The scent of rot clung to the air. Weeds and tree roots broke through what remained of the floor, and the only furniture—a warped ledge nailed into one wall—was littered with leaf debris and a thick coat of dust.
There was no pot, no cup, no tinder. No fire had burned in the lodge’s iron grill in many winters. Still, it was enough. Shelter was shelter, however hollow its bones.
He looked up at the sagging beams and gave the ceiling a crooked smile. “Perfect place for a romantic getaway. Shame I came alone.”
He noted the places where wind bit through the slats. On the way to the nearby stream, he’d gather branches and tall grass—whatever might keep the cold out.
The stream wasn’t far. Nic crouched on its muddy bank, water lapping softly at his hands. He scooped the icy flow into his mouth. It pooled heavy and chill in his stomach, but it couldn’t quench the deeper burn—the ache of regret, the gnawing hunger he couldn’t name. He splashed his face andneck, but the clamminess returned in moments. Nothing shook loose. Not the guilt. Not the pain, twisting into knots behind his ribs.
He hadn't meant to walk this far. When he left Helen’s villa, he had been all fire—rage, shame, heartbreak. He hadn’t thought to pack a lamp or coat or compass. He simply walked, driven by something primal—by the need to beaway. The forest had swallowed him before he noticed.
On the walk back to the lodge, he tore branches from trees and pulled handfuls of long grass. He jammed them into the cracks in the wall, doing his best to seal the lodge against the night. A branch wedged into the doorframe might keep curious wildlife out. He built a nest in the corner, a rough pile of grass, and curled into it. Coat drawn tight. Hood up. Face buried in fur. Eyes closed.
Night fell hard.
The cold came like a tide—slow, steady, ruthless. It seeped through the walls, poured beneath the door, crept into the seams of his coat. It settled deep—into joints, into marrow, into the very center of his chest. Even sleep recoiled from it. Each time he drifted, the cold seized him back into wakefulness.
He curled tighter, teeth clenched. Tried to count. Tried not to count.
And still, he listened.
Even now, the world outside was alive. In warmer seasons, he might have relished this—the wild theater of nocturnal lives unfolding in shadows and moonlight. He had always loved the peace and dance of the forest at night, the way its creatures moved with purpose under starlight. He knew their rhythms. He had learned their songs. The brush of paws. The twitch of wings. The breath held before a pounce.
