The first hunter raised his rifle, aimed at Pav’s stomach. “You’re going to put that trap back where you found it. Now.”
A wolf would have shown its teeth first. Men enjoyed pretending right up until the moment they pulled the trigger.
Pav exhaled a controlled breath. He didn’t have the patience for this shit. His feet were cold, he was hungry, and the hunter’s stink of vodka and sweat was already crawling under his skin.
He lunged and his hand shot out, grabbing the rifle barrel. The hunter’s grip was loose—drunk and overconfident. Pav jerked the weapon free and reversed it in one smooth motion of muscle memory. Some things never left you, no matter how long you stayed dead.
Violence arrived fast. Thought arrived later.
He smacked the rifle butt against the hunter’s temple. Wood on skull made a meaty crack. The man crumpled.
Too easy.
Pav pivoted, the rifle already leveled at the second hunter. The vodka bottle hit the snow with a muffled thud. They stared at each other, the hunter’s breath rasping in and out, clouding the air between them.
“Well?” Pav tilted his head.
“Fucking lunatic.” The man ran, high-stepping through deep snow, rifle bouncing on his back. “You haven’t heard the last of this!”
Pav waited until he’d disappeared into a stand of dense wood before he bent and pressed two fingers to the other man’s throat. Steady. He’d wake in an hour or two with a killer headache and a story. Pav straightened, faintly disgusted with himself for checking.
He emptied the rifle, pocketed the rounds, and threw the gun down beside the unconscious man. He picked up the trap and vodka bottle. The man was snoring now, soft and rhythmic.
Pav turned west—the opposite direction from the fleeing hunter—toward home. The stove would be down to embers by now. If the wind shifted east overnight, he’d have to cut more wood before morning.
As he hiked, a wolf howled.
Female.
A warning. Or maybe a thanks.
An hour later, darkness cloaking him, he slowed fifty feet from his cabin. Nothing looked wrong. But something was.
The forest had gone still around the cabin. He dropped the trap, unslung his rifle, and moved through the trees, circling wide. Snow gave beneath his boots with the faintest crush.
Two sets of boot prints in the snow. Military grade soles. Fresh. His cabin door stood ajar by an inch. Muted conversation drifted from inside. Masculine laughter.
The sound hit like a pressure wave and his ears rang. For one heartbeat, the forest tilted, and copper flooded his mouth. His hand flexed, searching for a radio that wasn’t there.
Command, say again.
Static. Then nothing.
His lungs burned though he hadn’t moved. Too late, his body told him. You’re already too late.
No.
This was not then. No storm. No brother bleeding out beyond reach.
Just men in his cabin. And men meant questions. Noise he had no tolerance for. He’d come here because no one asked you to choose when you were alone. The mountains didn’t care what you sacrificed. Only whether you survived.
And now the world had followed him anyway. Pav raised his rifle and paced forward.
Time to see who’d made the mistake of finding him.
4
“Hands! Show me your hands!”Pav kicked the door open, rifle up, finger beside the trigger.
