"The lines are imaginary," I say. "There's just what works and what doesn't."
She looks at me across the flames. "You work," she says softly. "You work really well."
My mouth goes dry. "Aris …"
"I know," she says quickly. "Friends. Boundaries. The mission."
"The mission," I repeat, but the words feel hollow.
"But when the mission is over," she says, steady and deliberate, "and we're not guide and client anymore … maybe we can redraw the lines?"
The offer hangs there. It's a possibility, nothing more. A maybe.
And coming from a woman who deals in hard data, a maybe feels like a massive victory.
"Maybe," I say.
"Okay." She stands up, brushing snow from her pants. "I'm turning in. It's going to be cold tonight."
"I'll be in soon," I say. "Just going to bank the fire."
I watch her crawl into the tiny tent. I wait until I hear the zip of her sleeping bag.
The fire burns low. The dark river runs black. The stars don't move at all.
Dean Reynolds can go to hell. The wolves can come if they want. I have a rifle, I have a solar panel, and I have a woman who thinks I "work."
I bank the fire, check the perimeter one last time, and crawl into the tent.
It's cramped, intimate, warm.
Aris is asleep, her back to me. I slide into my bag, careful not to touch her.
But in the dark, her hand reaches out. She finds my arm. She doesn't grab it, just rests her fingers against my sleeve. A point of contact, a connection.
I don't pull away.
I close my eyes, and for the first time since the crash, I sleep without dreaming of falling.
Chapter Thirteen
ARIS
Today the forest'ssilence feels heavy, like a held breath waiting for bad news.
We've been moving for three hours, breaking trail through a dense stand of black spruce Nash calls "The Tangle," the branches woven so tight they catch at our packs. Nash stops suddenly ahead of me, raising a hand, and I pull up beside him, legs burning, cold seeping into my boots.
"What is it?" I whisper. "Wolf sign?"
"No," Nash says. "Smell that?"
I inhale deeply. At first, all I smell is pine resin and cold air. Then, beneath it, I catch something faint and sweet-sick. It smells like decay, like wet fur and old meat.
"Carrion?" I ask, my stomach turning slightly.
"Not quite," Nash says. "Come look."
He leads us into a small clearing where the snow has been trampled down into a hard, dirty pavement of ice and droppings.
