“What?” Harper asked.
“Someone used this.”
“Recently?”
“Recent enough.”
She took in the room, suddenly less like shelter and more like borrowed time.
It smelled of mold, old metal, and machine oil soaked deep into the walls. Stale air that hadn’t turned over in years. A single room, lined with concrete sweating damp.
A metal desk was bolted to the floor next to a chair on its side. And above her head a radio perched on shelving half torn from the wall. A barometer hung crooked near the door, the glass cracked, and a chalkboard beside it listed temperatures in Cyrillic. Numbers scrawled, erased, written again—then stopping mid-line.
On the desk, a logbook lay open, its pages warped with moisture. Harper ran her finger down one page. Wind direction. Pressure. Temperature. The last entry ended halfway through a word.
But it had walls. It had a roof. After two days of snow and forest and running, that was everything.
“Home sweet home,” she said, because if she didn’t say something light she was going to cry.
Pav turned from the window where he’d been checking outside. Frost had crept across the inside of the window, feathering the glass from within. He tugged a tattered drapeacross the window, then kneeled in front of the stove, assessing it.
She clutched her elbows, fighting a shiver.
He raised an eyebrow at her. “Let’s get you warmed up.”
There was a small stack of wood and kindling. Pav unhooked the fire starter from around his neck. He kept his injured arm close to his body, braced the fire starter against the stove, and struck sparks one-handed. He built the fire, feeding it small sticks, and she gravitated toward it, hands out, the heat biting first—almost painful—as feeling returned.
She sat on the floor, knees drawn up. The fire found every bit of damage—the bruise on her jaw, her wind-burned cheeks, the filth and exhaustion of survival. She must look a mess but she didn’t care. Being warm was enough.
He pulled an energy bar from his pack. “Last of the food.” He broke it in half and offered her the largest piece before he dry-swallowed two painkillers from the med kit.
No water or pause. Pain was just another variable to manage. Pav would never stop. She saw that now.
He waited until she took a bite, and then they ate in silence. The storm raged outside as the fire crackled and snapped.
Pav stared at the flames. The tension that she thought lived permanently in his face softened. Golden light highlighted his hair. He looked exhausted. Human.
She finished her half of the bar and pushed to her feet. Too much adrenaline still buzzed in her veins. She couldn’t sit still. Her body needed to move, to investigate, to do something with the energy that had nowhere to go now that they’d stopped running. She checked the shelving, opened the desk drawers, and ran her fingers over equipment she didn’t recognize.
The radio on the shelf was small and olive drab, the dials yellowed with age. Soviet military issue, she guessed.
“Think it works?” She held it up.
“Probably not.”
She clicked it on because probably wasn’t the same as no, and she felt a small spot of hope as static hissed. The batteries still had charge. She turned the dial. A sound broke through. Faint. A melody fighting through the interference—scratchy, distant, a woman’s voice singing something slow and aching in Russian. She didn’t understand the words. She didn’t need to.
Relief unfurled inside her. She was alive. Pav was alive and there was music.
She looked over her shoulder. Pav studied her with an expression she’d never seen—wary, almost, as if he knew what she was about to do and was already preparing his defenses.
“No.” His voice was gruff. Reflex. It was there in the tension humming across his shoulders.
“I didn’t say anything.” She smiled.
“You were about to.”
Her hands wouldn’t stop shaking. “Dance with me.”
