“It’s good to see you again!” she exclaimed. “What can I help you with? I have rolls fresh from the oven.”
I shook my head. “Actually, I was wondering if I could use your phone? I lost mine.”
Kathy’s eyebrows knit together briefly before her smile warmed her expression again. “Where’s your boyfriend?”
“He’s not my boyfriend,” I said tightly.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Kathy sympathized. “I thought the two of you were together…” She dropped her voice to a whisper and leaned closer. “Is he the reason you don’t have anything with you?” She glanced at the clothes bundled up under my arm.
“I…” I had no idea how to answer that question. I didn’t want anybody to think Viktor had harmed me or anything. I sighed. “It’s a long story.”
Kathy nodded. “I understand.”
I didn’t think she understood at all.
“You can use my phone. Here.” She offered me her cell phone, taken from a handbag next to the cash register.
“I’ll just call a cab. I won’t be long.”
“Whatever you want, sweetie,” Kathy said, her sympathetic smile a little syrupy.
Whatever you want. Viktor had said those exact words to me when we’d been here. I’d been all worked up and hot for him because of it, letting my mind roam to Viktor without his clothes on. So much had changed since then.
I used her internet to look up a cab company’s contact details and called for a ride. I handed her phone back and said, “Thank you.”
“It’s not a problem. I’m glad I could help. I would have thought you already passed through.”
I nodded, not knowing what else to say.
“Here,” Kathy said kindly. “Take this with you.” She bagged two fresh rolls for me and passed the brown paper bag over the counter.
“I can’t take this,” I said, shaking my hands.
“Nonsense! You’ll need something to eat on the road.”
I smiled, moved by the warmth and kindness as I accepted the rolls. “Thank you so much,” I said. “For all of it.”
Kathy nodded and smiled, and for a moment, I wondered if she’d hurry around the counter to hug me. Before our discussion could get awkward, I left the bakery and waited outside where the cab was going to pick me up. While I waited, I absently nibbled on one of the rolls. The cab pulled up. The driver climbed out with a smile but frowned when he looked around and saw no luggage.
“It’s just this,” I said, lifting the brown paper back and the clothing.
He nodded and opened the door for me, closing it behind me. “You’re lucky the roads have been repaired,” he said a few minutes later as we drove out of Snowmass. “Until two days ago, there was no way you could get from Snowmass to Grizzly Falls.”
“Was there a lot of damage?” I asked dully, making small talk although I would have preferred silence.
“Oh, plenty. The roads washed away, phone lines snapped,” he listed, shaking his head. “There wasn’t even cable to watch the game on the weekend. Didn’t you know about it?”
“I’ve heard some news, but not much,” I admitted.
“It was all over.”
“I’ve been… away,” I said.
“Well, let me tell you, these mudslides are no walk in the park. You’d think they’d be prepared for it, since the rain comes every year. But it’s never been this bad.”
He rattled on, glancing at me in the rear-view mirror every now and then as he talked. I zoned out a little, his voice a consistent buzzing in the background, and closed my eyes.
Viktor
By the time I returned to the cabin, she was gone. I’d watched her moving around inside, only a dark shadow in the window from my vantage point. I’d fought against the urge to walk in there and make her stay.
Maksim shouldn’t be a problem for Angela now that she was gone. They had no business with her, and at this point, I hoped to God they didn’t know she was a part of the picture. Maksim had sent someone to find me, but he hadn’t found Angela. She’d been in the cabin, exactly where I’d wanted her to stay.
She was safe. It was a risk I had to take, hoping she would stay safe. Maybe this was for the best. Maybe it was right that she left, so that she would be out of harm’s way for good.
After Angela left, I climbed the mountainside, pushing through the rocks and boulders until I found my crevice. My satellite equipment had died. I hadn’t been able to charge it with the weather as shitty as it had been. I took the equipment outside, setting the batteries in the sun to charge. I sat on the rock, drumming my fingers on my knees. Fuck, these batteries. They would take two hours to charge to half-capacity. I couldn’t do with less than that. It wasn’t a lot – usually, I went out to hunt and chop wood in this time.
I was impatient as fuck. I wanted the batteries to charge so I could see where the hell Maksim and his men were – if his boy that I’d let go had kept his mouth shut and they were out of my hair, or if I still had to worry about an ambush.
After an hour, I was over it. I took the batteries back into the little cave and powered up my equipment. I had enough of a charge to see what I needed. I watched the screen, curling my hands into fists, waiting.
When the radar popped up on the screen, there were no blips. There was nothing around, nothing to worry about.
I checked Russia, where Maksim had his headquarters. A bunch of blips moved around, which satisfied me. It appeared they had left the States and were back home minding their own business.
Fucking fantastic. At least I could relax a bit. I didn’t have anyone to hunt down and to take out my anger and frustration on. But that meant Angela would be safe. And I could carry on with my life the way I had before.
Before her. I whispered a quiet fuck as I felt an unfamiliar pain in my chest. Longing? Love? Both, I was certain. And I’d lost it, lost her, because of my past. It would never go away, never leave me alone, and my life was better lived in seclusion. No one to hurt, no one to hurt me.
Sighing, I left the cave, pushing through the crevice that always made me feel claustrophobic, and hurried back to the cabin. I could go hunting. It would be good to have meat, and God knew I wanted to shoot something.
Instead, I grabbed my axe and headed outside. I attacked a tree like my life depended on it. I didn’t use the neat chops I would normally make for firewood. It was the violent hacking I needed to diffuse some of my anger and frustration. The tree groaned as it fell, the leaves rustling. I started lopping the branches off, stripping the leaves, piling the thinner sticks together before I started on the trunk. My arms would be hurting tomorrow. I hadn’t worked this hard in a long time.
I was angry with myself. For the person I had chosen to be all those years ago, for the life I had chosen for myself when I hadn’t known what it would mean. I hated that hindsight was perfect.
The tree was chopped up by the time I realized I could have left those damn batteries outside again. I wasn’t thinking straight.
I piled the wood into my arms and carried it into the cabin bit by bit until the basket next to the hearth was full. The rest I stacked outside the cabin in a neat pile to fetch when needed. I cleared the branches I’d stripped off, putting them into piles to dump into the valley, when a twig snapped behind me. I spun around and attacked without thinking, going for the neck. But he was as fast, grabbing me in a death grip and swinging me to the ground.