I’m up and bolting for the mouth of the cave before the word’s finished leaving me.
I don’t make it. His hand closes on my arm, and I spin into it—no plan, just the last of me trying—and then I’m against him, both hands flat on his chest, shoving at something that doesn’t move and doesn’t seem to feel the shove. He’s warm. Warmer than a person should be. Standing this close makes my head swim, and I hate it, and I shove harder anyway.
He grips both my forearms in one hand and walks me back to the wall. I don’t go quietly—I drag my feet, I twist, I get my teeth near his forearm, and he lifts me off the ground long enough that I can’t reach anything, and that’s all it takes. He sets me down. He picks up the rope and reties my wrists, one hand pressing both of mine flat while the other works the knot. His hands are big. Warm. That’s not a thought I want to be having. I’m having it anyway.
He steps back.
“What the fuck am I going to do with you?” Low, mostly to himself.
What?
Did he just take me on a whim? Like some kind of psychopath?
I look at my hands, firmly bound. There is nothing I can do to this man with my body. I knew it in the truck. I know it better now.
“Let me go,” I say, doing my best to sound reasonable. “That’s the thing you can do.”
He doesn’t answer.
I let it sit. Then: “Why did you bring me here?”
He looks at me a long moment. “I wish I knew,” he says.
I keep my face still, and I hold onto that. A man who doesn’t know why he’s done a thing can be worked on. I hope. Because I have to get out of here. I have to find Serenity. After what happened today, the deal with the Syndicate is off.
What if she’s already gone?
I can’t think that way.
And I can’t go back to Aurora. That bridge is burned. They know I’m the mole, and the mole doesn’t get to go looking for anyone. I can’t hand him this. Not him. Not anyone.
He crosses to the far wall.
A boulder sits near the mouth, chest-high on him, though I’m sure it’s taller than I am. He sets his palm to it, pushes, and rollsit across the opening. It settles into a groove worn smooth for it. The sound it makes is low and final. The last of the outside light goes with it.
Then he comes back and unties my hands.
I don’t move. There’s nowhere left to go, and we both know it.
When the feeling comes back into my fingers, I press my palms flat to the stone and look at where he’s brought me.
This isn’t just any hole in a mountain. A cot stands against the far wall, a blanket folded at the foot and a heavy fur draped over the end. He moves across the space, and within moments, a lantern throws warm light across a shelf cut into the rock—a small stove, tins, two cups set close together. Firewood stacked with care, the pile even. Gear on iron pegs, each thing on its own peg. There’s a dark gap in the back wall where the rock keeps going, and the sound of water somewhere past it.
Somebody lives here.
Helives here.
What kind of person lives in a cave?
A bear does.
He’s brought me to his den. Why the hell would he do that?
He moves to the stove, and the air warms where he passes. I felt it in the truck too—the heat coming off him, soaking into me. The cave is cold rock on every side except the one he’s on, and I catch myself turning that way before I’ve told myself to.
I make myself look at the firewood, but my eyes keep sliding back to him.
Just like before, in that storeroom, I’m struck by his size. He’s big in a way the cave doesn’t shrink—wide through the back, thick through the arms below his rolled sleeves.
