The voice vibrates low against my ear. A rumble of granite and warning.
Boyd.
I freeze. The panic doesn’t leave, but it shifts, curdling into a knot of dread in the pit of my stomach. I stop fighting. I force my muscles to unclench, signaling compliance.
The tension leaves my frame, the surrender absolute, and slowly, deliberately, he peels his hand away.
I suck in a ragged gulp of air. The air in the room tastes freezing, bitter and sharp, smelling of stale ash and the metallic tang of fear. The heat filling the room hours ago is gone, replaced by a cold vacuum.
“We’re moving.”
Not a discussion or a suggestion. An order delivered with the finality of a gavel strike.
“What time is it?”
My voice scrapes like a wreck, a croak of confusion raw with sleep. I push myself up on my elbows, blinking against the oppressive darkness. I reach out, seeking him.
“Boyd?”
“0400.”
He moves away from the bed, a shadow detaching itself from the gloom. I barely make him out: a silhouette of hard angles and tactical gear silhouetted in the faint gray light filtering through the snow-packed windows.
He’s already fully kitted, vest and all, and the sheets beside me have gone cold. Somewhere in the hours since that message lit his phone, he made the call to run, and he spent the dark getting us ready for it.
He isn’t the man holding me last night. He isn’t the lover tracing the line of my spine with desperate tenderness, whispering possession against my skin.
That man is gone.
In his place stands the US Marshal. A machine calibrated for one thing: survival. He engaged the protocols, locking the emotions behind a firewall, reverting to factory settings.
“Get dressed. Thermals. Wool. Boots. You have two minutes.”
He turns his back on me, focusing on the gear spread out on the armchair.
The sounds of preparation echo in the dark. The metallicclick-clackof a magazine being checked and seated. The slide of a zipper closing over supplies. The heavy thud of a pack hitting the floor.
The sounds echo loudly in the dead silence of the structure. Violent. The sounds of war encroaching on our sanctuary.
I scramble out of the warmth of the covers.
The cold hits me like a physical blow, stinging my bare skin, raising gooseflesh instantly. My feet hit the hardwood floor, and the chill travels straight up my legs, seizing the muscles. The fire in the hearth died hours ago. The house feels abandoned already, the heat leeched out by the storm raging outside.
The wind screams. A low, constant moan outside the glass walls, a hungry thing trying to find a way in. It buffets the structure, testing the integrity of the seals.
I fumble for the clothes he threw onto the foot of the mattress. My fingers are clumsy, numb with cold and shock. I pull on the thermal leggings, fighting the fabric clinging to my skin. I drag the thick wool sweater over my head, the scratchy material trapping a layer of air close to my skin.
My ribs tighten around my lungs. A slow squeeze, blood thudding against bone, marking time.
“Is it them?” I keep my whisper tight in the dark. “Are they here?”
“Not yet. But they’re coming.”
Boyd doesn’t stop moving. He’s a blur of efficiency, checking pockets, securing straps. He sweeps the room with a small, red-lens flashlight. The beam cuts through the darkness like a bloody wound in the air, highlighting dust motes dancing in the freezing air. It passes over the unmade bed, over the indentation where my body rested moments ago, and moves on without pausing.
“They know where we are. We’re burned.”
“How?”
