“Doesn’t matter.” He turns to me then. The red light catches his face, casting deep, ghoulish shadows into the hollows of his cheeks and face. He looks demon-haunted. Dangerously sharp. A man who already accepted the outcome of the battle. “Grab the pack. On the chair.”
He points to the corner with a jerk of his chin.
I grab the backpack. It’s heavy, laden with supplies I hope we never use. Medical kits. Ammo. Rations. The weight settles onto my shoulders, a physical reminder of the stakes.
“Let’s go.”
We move out into the main living area.
I stop short.
The room is unrecognizable.
The comfortable chaos of our few days here: the books on the table, the blankets on the couch, the half-empty mugs of coffee. Vanished.
The furniture sits pushed back against the walls, creating clear lines of fire. The rugs lie rolled up, exposing the bare concrete. The surfaces are wiped clean, stripped of any trace of humanity. A sterile, cold tomb where people used to live.
Boyd moves through the space like a ghost, his red light sweeping the corners. He checks the kitchen one last time. He checks the fireplace, ensuring the ashes are cold and scattered. He checks the monitors, now dark and lifeless.
He’s erasing us. Scrubbing our existence from the record.
It hurts. It hurts more than the cold. It feels like an admission that what happened here, the connection, the intimacy, the breaking of barriers, was just a temporary glitch. A momentary lapse in protocol now corrected.
“Clear.” He mutters the word to the empty room.
He moves to the back door and pauses, his hand hovering over the handle. He looks at me. His gaze is a dark void in the red light.
“The wind is gusting to sixty. Visibility is zero. Stay directly behind me. Hand on my belt. Do not let go. If I stop, you stop. If I go down, you get low, and you stay low.”
“I understand.”
“Check your pockets. Phone.”
I pat the heavy parka he gave me.
“Inner pocket.”
“Evidence.”
“Parka pocket. Zipped.”
“Good.”
He pulls his hood up, cinching it tight around his face. He settles the heavy pack on his shoulders, adjusting the weight, and grips the door handle.
“Welcome to the suck.”
He shoves the door open, and the world explodes.
The wind isn’t just a sound. It’s a physical assault. It hits with the force of a shockwave, nearly knocking me off my feet. It screams, a deafening white noise swallowing the entire world. The snow drives sideways, hard pellets of ice stinging my exposed face like buckshot.
“Move.”
Boyd’s shout sounds barely audible over the gale.
He steps out into the maelstrom.
I reach out, my gloved hand clamping onto the back of his tactical belt. The nylon feels stiff, frozen. I wrap my fingers around it, anchoring myself to him, and follow him into the void.
