I should pity him, but I don't. It might be easier, but what I feel is kinship. I know what it is to be defined by the worst night of your life. I know how quiet can feel safer than questions. I know how a myth can feed you when nothing else will.
"You left the world before it could bury you," I say. "You wrote your own obituary and moved into it."
He turns his head, a single slow movement. "You came to read it."
"I came to rewrite it." The words surprise me. They do not feel like a plan. They feel like the truth.
He leans back. The fire throws a restless shimmer across the ceiling. The floor under my bare feet has the faint warmth of the stove in the next room. I anchor myself to these details because everything else in me wants to float.
"I scared you tonight," he says. "In the bathroom. I pushed you hard."
"You did," I say, holding his gaze, "but I wanted it."
He closes his eyes for a breath. When he opens them, the wildness has faded. "I won't break you."
"You already did," I say, and I do not regret the words. "You broke something that needed to snap. I don't want gentle fromyou. Everybody who knows about what happened twelve years ago treats me like I'm fragile..."
"You aren't. Most people would have died twelve years ago and again when you came looking for me."
I nod. He understands. "I want truth."
He reaches for my hand. He does not grip. He only holds my fingers between his palms as if they are a fragile bird he plans to warm. The quiet that follows is not empty. It holds promise and danger in equal measure. It holds consequence.
The storm lifts its voice. Ice rattles against the windowpanes. The logs pop in the hearth, and a spray of sparks jumps and dies. He releases my hand and stands.
"I have to check the Toyo stove in the woodshed to make sure Brenner doesn't freeze to death," he says. "I'll arrange to get him and Weber to the authorities. They can deal with him. Death is easy. Years of enhanced interrogation is not. I'll wrap the dead guy in tarps and pack him in snow. That'll remove the risk of the scent on the wind for scavengers or a sign for anyone else watching the ridge."
His words are practical. The decision is not. My stomach tightens. "Don't go." The plea leaves before I can leash it. "You said the enemies are circling."
"I'll only be gone for a little bit. I want to move Weber away from us. They'll circle whether I stay or not." He pulls on his coat and checks the shotgun. "If I go now, I can be back before the worst of it hits."
He pauses and looks me over, one slow pass from head to bare feet and back to my eyes. He is not asking for permission. He is not asking for forgiveness. He is memorizing me in case the mountain decides to keep me and not him.
"Promise you'll come back," I say.
"I'll come back."
I want to believe him, but I'm not sure I do. Fear scurries up my spine and takes a seat behind my ribs. It does not feel like the fear of a girl in the storm. It feels like the fear of a woman who finally admitted what she wants and does not know what she'll do if standing this close she loses it.
He crosses to the door. The latch clicks. He slips into the drift and the cold slashes the room, stealing the fire's heat. He glances back once, and the look spears my chest and lingers there. Then he vanishes into white.
The cabin exhales. Wood moans. I sit frozen and count. One hundred. Two hundred. The storm answers each number with a threat. Frost webs the glass until nothing exists beyond it.
The folder waits. My own face stares back from photographs that cut deep. I don't burn them. They belong to us now, brutal and unmerciful. I make tea I don't drink, clinging to the ritual. Water. Flame. Steam. My hands cradle the mug, but my eyes stay on the door. I listen for his boots, his voice. Only the wind answers.
Time stretches thin. I remember nights whispering to a man I couldn't name, begging him to come. Maybe he whispered back and I never heard. Maybe that's why I'm here, drawn by need I can't kill.
I pace. The floor groans like it resents my weight. The storm blinds the window. Waiting hurts. Still I wait.
Then a sound. Not wind. Not ice. Heavy. Slow. My breath stumbles. I tell myself it's him. I want to believe. But the noise isn't right.
The latch trembles. I press my palm to the wood. "Zeb." His name leaves me like a plea.
The latch trembles again. Then stops. Silence.
14
ZEB
