I shove it down. Lock it deeper.
The cabin feels smaller than it did this morning. The walls press in. I can still smell her: something sweet and alive, like spring water and wildflowers and sunshine. It clings to the air near the door, lingers in the clearing outside.
I hate it.
I hate that she found this place. That she stood there with her camera and her bright eyes and her complete lack of survival instinct, looking at me like I was something interesting instead of something dangerous.
I hate that she smelled like that.
My hands shake as I cross to the small shelf where I keep the bottles. The mason jar of moonshine is half-empty from last night. I pour three fingers into a tin cup and knock it back, welcoming the burn.
It doesn't help.
The bear is still awake, still restless. It hasn't been this alert in months, maybe years. Ever since I started drowning it in alcohol and isolation, it's been quiet. A distant rumble I could ignore.
Now it's pacing.
*She smelled like home,* the bear whispers. *Like safety. Like—*
"Shut up," I growl out loud to the empty cabin.
I pour another drink. Then another.
She'll go to the ranger station like I told her. She'll leave in the morning, go back to her life in town, forget this ever happened. Delete the footage like I told her to. Move on.
People always move on from things that scare them. And I saw the fear in her eyes, even if she tried to hide it. She knows what I am, even if she doesn't know what I am. Some part of her recognized a predator when she saw one.
Good. Better that way. Safer.
I drain the cup again and slam it down on the rough-hewn table I built three years ago. The impact sends a crack running through the bottom.
I gave her twenty minutes. Twenty minutes where she sat by the stream in my clearing, in my space, filling it with her presence. I watched from the window like a coward, unable to look away even though every instinct screamed at me to ignore her until she left.
She looked good. Curves everywhere, the kind of body that shouldn't survive out here but clearly did. Her braid had come loose during her hike, dark red strands escaping around her face. Freckles scattered across her nose and cheeks. She'd smiled at me even when I was growling at her to leave.
Who smiles at a monster?
The same kind of person who hikes twelve miles alone and goes off-trail without telling anyone. The kind who sees a massive, scarred stranger emerge from the woods and decides to strike up a conversation instead of running.
Stupid. Reckless. Dangerous.
And now I can't stop thinking about her.
I grab the bottle and take it to the porch, dropping into the chair I carved from a fallen oak. The night is cold, stars scattered across the sky like broken glass. The forest is alive with small sounds—owls hunting, rodents scurrying, wind through the branches.
Usually this soothes me. The reminder that I'm alone, that I'm far from everything I destroyed.
Tonight it feels empty.
I drink until the bottle is gone and the stars blur together. Until the bear finally quiets, retreating back into its cage. Until I can convince myself that tomorrow I'll wake up and this will feel like a dream, hazy and unimportant.
I'm still sitting there when the sun rises.
A few hours later…
The forge is already hot when I realize I've been working for three hours.
Sweat drips down my back, soaks through the tank top I threw on this morning. My hands move, hammer striking hot iron, the rhythm as familiar as breathing. The small garage I built fifty yards from the cabin is filled with heat, smoke and the ring of metal on metal.
