AllFreeNovel
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“Fine. I’m heading to the workshop. Do you need anything?”
You.
“I’ll go with you.” My breath steams against the glass.
“You promised you would stay here.”
“Except to bring food and check on you.” Turning away from the window, I smile at him. “I’ll do both right now.”
“No.” A withering glare. “You need to conserve your energy.”
I open my mouth to argue and quickly close it.
I’m a nurse, for fuck’s sake. I know cold exposure is metabolically expensive. To keep warm in low temperatures, the body burns four hundred calories an hour through thermogenesis. That’s three hundred percent more calories than if I stayed here by the fire.
I need those damn calories.
So does Kody.
Reaching up, I trace the sharpening lines of his features. Sunken cheeks. Thinning jawline. He’s still a big man, but he’s shrinking. His muscle, his already zero-percent body fat, it’s all wasting away. Hell, I can see his ribs through his thermal shirts.
“Stay.” I clutch his coat, fidgeting with the clasps. “He doesn’t need twenty-four-hour surveillance.”
“Not taking that risk.”
“Can he escape?”
“He’s capable of anything.” He folds his arms around me. “He’s not only a threat to you. He’s a threat to himself.”
“Aren’t psychopaths immune to suicide?”
“Maybe, but I’ve never locked one in a subfreezing cage.” He holds me tighter, his nose in my hair, and breathes like he’s fighting a war with himself.
I’m making this harder on him, and that’s not my intention. So I grudgingly slide out of his embrace and let him go.
For the next few hours, I dive into some of the survival books from the library. When my eyes grow heavy, I journal in the sketchbook, documenting what we’re doing, what we’re planning, including my own experiences and thoughts.
When I can’t ignore the stabbing pains of hunger any longer, I boil snow in the fireplace—a first for me—and use the water to make hot tea and rice. Add a scoop of beans and dried jerky, and voila! Dinner for three.
Huddled in a thousand layers, I pack up the meal and carry it to the workshop.
I find Kody sitting at the worktable, staring at Wolf’s cockpit illustration. The sketch is wrinkled with wear from folding and unfolding countless times. All four of us memorized the dials and gauges. Still don’t know how to fly the thing.
One problem at a time.
“Eat.” I place two bowls in front of him and carry the other toward the cage.
“Wait.” Snatching Denver’s portion from me, he sits it on the floor beside the bars and pushes it through with his boot.
I don’t want to see Denver. Don’t want to make eye contact. Sure as fuck don’t want to talk to him. But if there’s a million-to-one chance I can convince him to help us, I have to try.
Kody blocks the door with his body like that can stop me.
I wriggle around him and find Denver sitting on the floor, wrapped in blankets from head to toe.
Thin. His face, his hands, the breadth of his shoulders. He’s thinner than I remember. And shivering.
“Explain something, Son.” He drags the bowl onto his lap and sucks a scoop of rice off his fingers. “Why are you still a virgin? She’s a sure thing, takes it in every hole, and you are…” His hooded gaze trails over Kody as he smacks his lips. “You are extraordinary.”
Kody grips my arm and tries to haul me away.
I wrestle free and return to the door. “I thought you were smarter than this. Just turn on the power.”
“The fear in your eyes keeps me warm at night.”
“The fear in my eyes won’t keep you alive. Turn. On. The. Power.”
He makes a humming sound and rests his head against the wall. “You look so pretty when you’re afraid. It’s a shame to end it.”
“This isn’t the end, Denver. Not for me.” Shivering all over, I keep my voice steady. “Do you love your sons?”
“More than life.”
“Yet you turn off that emotion, as easy as a light switch, when they stop you from doing unspeakable things. Their lives are in your hands. All you have to do is fix the generator. But you won’t. You’ll let them die. You know why? Because you don’t love them. Never did. Psychopaths are incapable of love.”
“Did you learn that in your small-town, state-college, nursing program? Or did you discover your own inner psycho while kneeling for the resident billionaire and sucking his cock like a gold-digging whore?”
A feral growl erupts beside me, and Kody throws himself against the door. “Call her that again, and I’ll send an arrow up your ass!”
“No, you won’t.” Denver noisily eats from the bowl. “I’m the only one who can slow her imminent death. She’s already half-dead from starvation and clearly not suited for this climate. Look at her. Only been away from the hearth for five minutes, and she’s shaking worse than I am.” He tips his gaze at me. “I thought you were stronger than this.”
