And then?—
Crrck, Crrck, Snap.
A sound I know too well.
One of my snares, triggered. A second later, the device in my back pocket delivers its silent vibrating confirmation.
Fuck this bullshit.
The axe drops from my hand, the log forgotten. My blood kicks to life, fast and hard, the way it used to before a match.
Someone’s trespassed.
On my mountain.
And if Eagle’s Crown doesn’t chew them up first, I sure as hell will.
I pullthe device from my pocket just long enough to verify the location.
Then I head in that direction.
I don’t rush.
I never do. I figure whoever or whatever had the balls to step onto my land deserves to sweat a little. Deserves to dangle and panic and wonder. Take a minute to think about the wisdom of their choices—of ignoring the two dozen keep-the-fuck-off signs I have staked all over my mountain.
Throwing an irritated look at the pile of logs I’m still yet to chop, I pick up the axe, slide it over my shoulder, and start down the ridge.
The path is no path at all—just steep shale and clawing pine roots, but my body eats the terrain like I was born to it. My boots crunch rock as my thighs burn and arms flex with every handhold.
I’m a fucking mountain myself, and every creature and leaf and stone on Eagle’s Crown bows to me.
The closer I get, the more the silence grows—no birds, zero wind, just the metallic squeak of military-grade wire under strain.
And then…thirty feet away…color.
A flash of buttercup yellow between the pines. Bright. Beautiful.Wrong.
I stop dead.
It’s not an animal or some hunter with a rifle.
It’s a female.A girl.
She hangs tangled in my snare, rope biting into her calf and her dress riding up her thighs. Her blonde hair is wild and her cheeks are flushed from struggling, her eyes flashing like she’s ready to spit at the devil himself.
I don’t move. Can’t. My chest locks; the air sticks in my lungs.
Eight years alone, five years untouched to the day, and the thing my mountain gives me to celebrate the start of my sixth year is…this?
“Dammit.”
“God. No, no, no.”
“Help me.”
Her voice starts strong, irritated, but then grows thin, frayed at the edges, but still…it slides down my spine like sticky, honeyed fire. Sweet. Desperate.Alive.
My hands tighten on the axe.
