Page 248 of These Tears

‘It’s just me. You’re safe.’

‘Safe?’ My laugh comes out cracked and ugly. ‘Two men in wooden masks shoved me into a car!’

Tears begin to press against my lids. I welcome them because they seem to thaw the frost caught on my lashes.

Her mouth pulls taut. ‘I know. I know. It’s a stupid family tradition.’ She takes a step towards me. I hold still this time. Then she takes another, and another, until she is close enough to wrap the blanket around my shoulders and pull a thick, insulated cape over it with careful hands. ‘Jakob was supposed to tell you… The preparations for the Hunt have never happened like this before. They were not meant to grab you that way,’ she murmurs, ‘and you were not meant to run up the mountain—’ Her brow furrows. ‘Why would you run up the mountain? Never mind—’ She shakes her head as she stands and dusts herself off. ‘The sledge is just below the ridge. I’ll take you back, get you warm, and explain everything before Jakob finds us and murders every male relative I still tolerate.’

My body is too cold for proper outrage and my thoughts are delayed.

‘H-hunt?’

‘I’ll explain. Put your arm around me, I’ll get you onto the sledge.’ She reaches for me.

My breastbone fills with blistering heat until it feels as if it might split straight through my middle. I leave her hand hanging in the air as I grit my teeth.

‘Does El—Jakob know?’ I ask, hoping for the right answer. A violent shudder runs through me.

Guilt pinches Inga’s face into an expression far too sheepish for the circumstances. ‘He probably knows what’s happening by now.’

My brows draw together. The world stops for one intake of breath. ‘What does that mean?’

‘I swear,’ she says, taking another step towards me with both palms up in surrender, ‘I will explain everything. Right now, we need to get you off the mountain and get you dry.’

By the time I can hold a mug without sloshing half of it over my fingers, my wet clothes are hanging near the fire and I’m buried beneath three blankets, wearing Inga’s change of clothes – one size too large. She has checked my speech, my hands and whether I know my own name often enough that deliberately answering ‘Margaret Thatcher’ has begun to feel reasonable.

‘Hold on,’ I say in disbelief. ‘I was traumatised – chased across a frozen mountain – because of some ritualistic Sámi… thing?’

‘The Hunt…’ Sunna starts. Her mouth attempts a smile, then thinks better of it. ‘It isn’t Sámi. We are, but the Hunt is just an old Halvorsen story that became a family game many generations ago, based on the reindeer herding traditions.’

In its sane form, the ceremony begins with the woman choosing a route through a marked section of a forest. If the man reads her tracks right and reaches her before the agreed time, the family declares that he is fit to have her. Meanwhile, the woman needs to survive in the forest to prove she is worthy of such a capable man.

I can now see Elias’ charms are a hereditary affliction.

Inga, Sunna and two other cousins smile over their cups. ‘It means he can protect you,’ Sunna says mildly.

I stare at her. ‘Right.’

The word drags slowly, because this seems like too fragile a moment to point out that Elias and I are not, in fact, engaged, and that if anyone in this tent knew the real version of events, they would gasp and yelp and call the authorities.

I glance from Inga to Sunna to the cousins, all of them sitting there with their heirloom mugs and bright eyes that match the handsome devil’s, and a downright terrifying loyalty – to their family.

One of whom is Elias.

And… now that I consider it, they are probably more likely to help him hide a body than report one.

The mug creaks in my grip.

Feeling returns to my fingers in a vicious scatter of pins and needles, hot enough that I keep flexing them against the mug. The sensation keeps reminding me of the moment I saw the damn masks.

Markus and Olle, the culprits behind that wonderful idea, are nowhere in sight. Sunna had mentioned Inga sent them away when Elias found out one of them had tried to chase me.

Also, there is the small, inconvenient detail that I absolutely would not have survived being hunted through the cold wilderness if a stubborn someone hadn’t spent months teaching me how to read wind, tracks, snow and landmarks – and how to fight back.

That kind of planning feels too much like Elias had been preparing me for something even then.

Warmth unfurls beneath my ribs before my good sense can stamp it out.

Surely—