Page 118 of These Tears

But I need water. I don’t know where I am or how long it might take me to get to a place with people – and I surely don’t have time to melt the ice from the cooler.

Snatching an empty jar stacked atop the fridge, I stop in front of the sink.

‘Right…’

I’m not religious. But when held captive in Norway—

‘Nice and easy now.’ I draw a sign of the cross over the tap. ‘Work with me.’ And I turn it.

It groans. Sputters. Then, blessedly, flows; a harsh stream of crystal-clear, glacial-cold water.

I fill the jar, already fingering a length of kitchen twine that sits in a basket atop the fridge. I use it to knot it securely under the lip of the jar.

As I spin to dart out, my eyes catch on the hatchet. My legs take me slowly towards it and I palm it like it might bite me.

As I lift my chin, the bed comes into view.

The sheets are still twisted from where we slept. From where I lay beside him with my fingers in his hair until he drifted into sleep.

I should feel victory right now: unlocked door, dawn outside, the clean, hard survival pointing the way out.

But as my gaze follows the hollow his body left in the mattress, I hold my breath.

I wish I hadn’t seen his fingers twitch in sleep. Hadn’t heard him choke on words he couldn’t get out. Hadn’t felt the way he had wrapped himself around me only after consciousness let go of him.

I wish he’d stayed the thing I needed to escape.

My gaze flicks to the brass door handle leading out.

Then back to the bed.

The hatchet gains a strange kind of weight that drags at my hand.

The dent in the mattress doesn’t hold the shape of a monster. That somehow makes the door harder to reach.

This isn’t betrayal, I reason with myself. Because one doesn’t betray a man who stole you.

An awful, irrational ache blooms – the kind one might feel when leaving a wounded animal sleeping by the fire.

But I turn away.

I force my legs to move.

And as I step towards the door with water in one hand and the hatchet in the other, it feels as if I am carrying two weapons: one to survive the wilderness. One to survive him.

The worst part, though, is the hesitation in my hand when I imagine raising either to get away from him.

21

Layers of old snow lie thick and untouched around me. Elias’ bootprints are stark against the perfect surface. I follow them for a while.

His strides are long – my legs can’t match them, so I give up and settle into my own rhythm, stepping between his prints until I reach the forest edge.

It feels ancient. Massive pines and silver-skinned birch loom overhead. The snowfall is thinner in this area, the canopy catching most of it. That helps.

Still, I keep turning, trying to memorise my surroundings so I don’t circle back.

Every few paces, I score the bark of a tree with the hatchet – a small slash. Enough to mark my trail.