“Cold?”
Her thirty-second hesitation makes it clear she doesn’t want to talk to me, but finally she mutters, “A bit.”
There’s limited heat because temperatures don’t affect me. But it was built with a thermostat that helps maintain the pipes for showers. I crank it much higher, the system whirling as it kicks in.
“Thanks. Do you have any food, by chance?”
She wants something out of me.A chance to provide. Sunlight has never been more of a curse than this moment, because there’s zero human food here. I’ll have to run to town to steal something, which will need to be after sundown.
“No, but I’ll get you some.”
Her eyes flick deliberately towards the kitchen and back when I don’t move right away.
“I’ll have to get some from out back, but in a bit.”
Her brows furrow deeper, and it’s like a silent conversation passes through her head before they lift again and she accepts with a shrug. After a few more minutes of silence, she lowers her forehead to her knees.
When more time passes, I wonder how her injury healed, or if it’s hurting again. The last time I healed a human was…never.
“You should lie down.”
“I’m fine.” Her voice shakes.
“You were in an accident. Your body needs rest.”
Apparently, humans have endless patience, because an even longer stretch of silence passes before she gives me a curt nod. She slowly unpeels herself from the couch, clinging to the cardigan as she skirts the edge of the room, keeping a wide berth between us.
Instead of sitting on the end of the bed how I want, I claim her place on the couch. Her trace masks the other scents—dirt, musk, and age. She’s as imprinted into this place after a day as she’ll be forever.
Sawyer lies down and feigns being a corpse for the rest of the afternoon.
CHAPTER 5
Sawyer
I needto get out of here.It’s definite, confirmed by my non-escape attempt.
I’m not an idiot. Not a complete moron, anyway. Negative forty is way too cold to even stand on the porch for a measly minute, let alone go tromping through the woods, off the beaten path, with snow halfway up my knees—if not deeper. It’d be a march straight to my death.
Pretending to try confirmed my suspicion, to decide my next steps. His reaction established he’s a psycho.
Man or bear. Well, it’s become man versus freezing. Lucian is…strange. Nice one minute and downright terrifying the next. What I do know, deep in my gut, is that he’s hiding something—something dangerous. No explanation I spent the afternoon trying to invent feels right.
There’s no food in this place—only out back, which he can’t get until later. I can’t even make up an excuse for that weirdness.
No car, but lives in the mountains, and yet, he somehow found my car accidentandgot me back to his desolate home?
Taking my chance in the woods may be the only way. If I die… Well, freezing to death seems better than remaining here with him.
Life sucks. I thought it on the drive up, I think it all the time, and I’ve been living it for years. I’m in this trauma cycle with Mom, compelled to help even though she’s never helped me, and I work endless hours with no gratification. I go through the motions of surviving—but not living.
Being trapped in some mystery man’s cabin is the star on top of the non-existent Christmas tree. How I see it, death had its grip on me years ago. Surviving this long is simply a phenomenon, and my time is up.
The moose was how fate deemed my life being nearly finished. Lucian made it stretch longer, for his own selfish and sick ill-intent. So, I’ll steal that possibility and risk death in the forest and die on my own terms, not his.
And if Idomake it to a town, then it’s a fucking Christmas miracle.
For the rest of the afternoon and into the evening, I rest and plan my next move, listening for any sign of Lucian.
