Page 121 of These Tears

But then it starts getting gradually louder.

An engine.

Meaning crawls very slowly into my half-frozen brain. It might be a saving grace. But then I realise it might also be the sound of punishment barrelling my way.

A sickening lurch rolls through my gut.

I break into a run. The trees are scarcer here, leaving the snow thicker on the ground. I flounder through it, trying to push ahead. My jar of frozen water drops away halfway, but I don’t stop. The sound of the vehicle is already sharper.

In a single moment of panic, I glance behind me, and I see him—

White snowsuit, hood over his head, goggles, a white balaclava framing his face. I don’t need to see it to know what kind of expression has calcified there.

Tears start spilling from my eyes, freezing against my lashes before they can even fall.

‘No!’ I cry to no one.

The engine cuts out.

I risk a glance back and see him running on foot. Faster than is natural in the snow that reaches up to the ankles. Faster than the panic ripping through me.

One look at the tightening gaps between the trunks and I realise the machine can’t follow him through here.

A ridiculous spark of hope catches. If the trees stopped the machine, maybe the snow can slow him too.

My boots sink, drag, sink again. Each step is a small theft of time, and I don’t have air to spare.

Behind me, only the crush of his boots through the drift follows, closing the distance one stride at a time.

Branches whip my face as I cut through a line of birches, keeping to the trees where the snow is shallower. And for three delicious seconds, I think I might have a chance.

Suddenly, the faint rasp of breath through fabric resounds behind me.

My throat burns as I give the last of my strength to my thighs. My vision pulses at the edges; the winter chews at my chest every time I inhale, slicing down my ribs.

I veer left, aiming for thicker trees. If I can force him to slow – if I can make him choose a harsher path—

I’m yanked by my hood so hard my spine jolts. An ugly cry tears out of me. My legs scissor for purchase, my boots skid, and I twist on instinct, swinging the hatchet up without thinking – as if that would even scare him.

The blade whistles through the space and bites into nothing.

He’s already moved. His arm locks around my waist from behind and he lifts me off the snow.

For half a second, I’m suspended, weightless, stolen from the world.

My back slams into his chest. The impact knocks the breath out of me. My gloves scrabble at his forearm, trying to pry it away, but winter gear and muscle make his arm feel carved from the same wood as the forest around us.

I buck. I twist. Slam my elbow back, aiming for where his ribs should be.

He takes it like it’s nothing.

‘Enough!’ The growl slams into the back of my skull.

His arm tightens and heat floods my lower belly in a sick, humiliating flare of fear and adrenaline – the body’s grotesque confusion when terror comes in the form of someone it already knows.

But there’s something else. It makes my skin feel too tight for my body. It doesn’t carry a yes, it does not mean safe, does not mean wanted. It’s my instincts tangling around him in ways I don’t understand.

‘No!’ I wrench my arm free enough to swing at him again, wilder this time – not thinking, just going for it.