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Glancing at his digital watch, Fox shook his head. “It’s only been five hours. We should wait another two before we head down the mountain.”

“Damn... I really wanted to get moving again. I think my ankle is going to petrify and I’ll freeze to death if I don’t get my heartrate up again.”

A beat passed, and something unreadable passed across Fox’s face. He stared off into the woods, but whatever he was thinking, he didn’t start to say it until I was already blurting out my next thought.

“I could—”

“I think I’m going to walk a little and relieve myself in the woods,” I said over top of him.

Fox’s jaw snapped shut. He nodded.

“What were you gonna say?” I prodded.

“Nothing. That’s a good idea. Just don’t go far. Shouting distance, okay?”

“Got it. I’ll be back.”

Getting to my feet proved a struggle, and I shamefully leaned on his shoulder like a cane to get me up. Once on my own two feet, my whole body screamed in tense, swollen pain. Joints frozen and stiff, muscles stretched to their max, and new aches blossoming through my whole body—I was a certifiable wreck.

The bath I planned to have as soon as we were done with all this... I closed my eyes, blissfully imagining it. It would be hot enough to scald me, and I would soak until my whole body was a wrinkled prune.

It would be heavenly.

My little walk proved helpful as I traipsed through the brush and trees. Getting circulation going again in my stiff limbs loosened things up, and a few of my aches abated.

After relieving myself behind a bush, feeling massively proud of myself for being so outdoorsy, I suited everything back up and headed back the way I came. My boot prints led me home, the indented snow lit silver in the fractures of moonlight breaking through the heavy-ladened branches.

I ducked under the final branch to our little cover of pine needles, only to find it empty. If it weren’t for the bag of supplies Fox left behind, I would have thought I went the wrong way and ended up lost under the wrong tree.

Probably just relieving himself somewhere, I told myself as I sat down beside the bag. With two hours to kill, I forced myself to drink and eat a little something more, then proceeded to stretch out my limbs, keeping them as limber as possible.

After running through all the stretches I knew and was capable of doing, Fox still hadn’t returned, so I picked through our bag of supplies. Inspecting the hatchet Angie sent with me, I chipped the rusted bits with a fingernail, imagining how good it would feel to embed it in Gavin’s chest. If it didn’t kill him, I hoped the tetanus did.

A small branch cracking drew my gaze up, but it was only a silent bird taking flight in search of another branch to occupy for the night. No Fox.

Daring to break the silence, I called out, “Fox? You around?”

Shouting distance, remember? He wouldn’t have gone far, right?

No answer echoed back to me, making my heart kick up at a dangerous pace.

I stood, clutching the hatchet as I crept out from under the tree. Every ten paces, I stopped, listened, and waited for any hint of him.

None came.

“Fox? Where’d you go?”

The longer I went without a response, the more worried I grew. Every heartbeat drummed painfully against my ribs, and every breath was tight enough to snap.

At last, I heard another sign of life. A rustling twenty paces behind me had me whirling, but when I peered into the deep dark of the forest, there were only shadows and branches. No discernible figures.

“Fox?”

No answer.

I took a step back, and the rustling drew closer. I thought I saw a figure moving in the dark from tree to tree.

“Fox, is that you?”