Page 83 of These Tears

And surviving here would mean surviving not just nature… but him – a volatile man with the temper of a bull, the mind of a philosopher, and a past drenched in shadows.

‘Do I look like someone who crochets and chops wood?’ I rumble.

He’s been under psychiatric care since he could barely walk, Cromwell’s words echo in the back of my head. They should make it easier to understand this.

But they only deepen the guilt I have no reason to feel.

Do I?

Wordlessly, he begins a slow circuit around me, gracing me with that particular Elias Crane stare, while perusing me from head to toe like a craftsman inspecting something unfinished.

Another bite. Three loud chews. A swallow.

He disappears behind me and emerges on my other side. Then lifts the apple to my mouth again and waits. His chewing stops abruptly, his gaze steels with a forewarning should I consider refusal.

He keeps loosening me just enough to let the air in, then tugs the leash to remind me who holds it. As if he finds my discomfort delightful. Like a cat batting a mouse around until it finally decides to eat it.

I bite the apple.

‘Harder,’ he says.

I go for another chunk, viciously tearing off more of the fruit than I mean to. Only then does he continue, as if my compliance has unlocked the next line of a rehearsed monologue.

‘“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.” Viktor Frankl. Psychiatrist. Holocaust survivor.’

My muscles lock. He shapes the quote not as comfort, but as law.

‘A man who understood that survival is not what the body endures, but what the mind refuses to surrender.’

Now he’s quoting a Holocaust survivor to the woman he kidnapped.

The indecency of it almost makes me laugh.

Except this isn’t philosophy at all. It’s his terms. He is translating my panic into something he understands. Something malleable.

The apple tastes like ash as I swallow. He follows the motions of my throat again.

‘You can’t change where we are.’ A measured pause. ‘What got us here—’

‘You got us here, Elias!’ I snap, the words cracking like ice underfoot.

He dips down suddenly, gets into my face until my breath catches and I feel as if I’m staring down a wild animal.

‘You couldn’t keep away, could you?’ he rumbles. It’s not soft. It isn’t even accusing any more. ‘You had to dig and dig and meddle and poke until the ugly parts rose to the surface.’

‘What happened?’ I ask.

‘You,’ he says quickly. ‘You happened.’ It doesn’t sound remotely fond, either. And that curves like cold fingers around my heart and squeezes tight. ‘So you will listen, for once in your life. And you will be a good…’ he leans his forehead against mine as his eyes close for a brief, devastating moment, then reopen with his demons barely reined in. ‘Good girl.’

He pulls away, shoulders rolling back in private realignment until the sky is back up and the ground is back down. ‘And that’s what you’ll be. Change, if you have to,’ he says. ‘Adapt. Make an effort. Become the version of yourself that survives.’

The glance that follows skims my collarbone like a touch.

‘What the hell are you talking about?’ I murmur, trying to hold back my tears.

‘To live out here means to trust your instincts,’ he goes on, circling back to his original question with terrifying ease. ‘And either yours have been betraying you, or you have been betraying them. It’s not bravery. It’s the most ancient part of you stepping forward. For heat. Shelter. Food…’ He pauses. ‘Safety.’

‘You expect me to feel safe?’ I shoot back without thinking. ‘Like this?’