He drops his gaze back to the fish, rips out the spine and entrails, and places the meat to the side. “No.”
I spot the face of his watch as he handles the bloody guts. “Twelve eighteen.”
He scowls at his wrist.
“Why wouldn’t you want me to know what time it is?”
I don’t know if he even knows he does it, but I catch a minute shake of his head.
“You don’t live out here full time, do you.” Not really a question. By the looks of that watch, he’s not only been to town, he’s also been into a decent-sized city that sells high-quality items. “So you park and hike in?”
I notice the violence of his movements become more aggressive. Must mean I’m getting somewhere.
“Do you have a two-way radio? Because I know there are people looking for me, and if I could just get in contact with someone—”
The knife clatters to the bottom of the tin basin, and he fists his blood-soaked hands.
“Your husband?” he growls. His head slowly turns to me, and his eyes look wild as they dip to the fake diamond on my left hand.
He thinks I’m married. Maybe it’s best that he think there’s someone out there who is legally bound to search for me.
“Y-yes.” The word gets stuck in my throat as it wars with the memories of seeing Lincoln and Courtney together.
His eyes narrow as if he’s trying to read my thoughts.
I turn away for fear he might see the truth. “He’ll be looking for me. Will probably show up here to claim me any day now, actually.”
Another grunt, and he goes back to the fish.
“Can you at least tell me your name? Or do you like me calling you Grizzly Adams?”
“He’s not coming,” he says in an ominous voice that makes the hairs on my arms stand on end.
I laugh humorlessly. “How do you know? You don’t even know him.”
He tosses the fish meat into a bowl and nearly knocks me over while taking the basin of bloody guts to the door.
“Where are you going?”
He kicks the door closed behind him.
He’s not coming. He said that with such certainty. My heart rate picks up, and panic floods my veins. As if he’s aware of where Lincoln is. Which is impossible, unless… he found Lincoln before Lincoln found me?
My head spins, and my hands shake. As often as he’s been away hunting, has he been hunting Lincoln?
I stumble forward on wobbly legs to the wall and grab the rifle. Eyes blurring, I lean against the ladder and aim, shakily, at the door.
Too soon, I hear his heavy footfalls, and the door opens to reveal his dark silhouette under a cascade of frozen rain. Every horror movie I’ve ever seen flashes before my eyes. I hold the weapon higher. He drops the basin and moves toward me through the door.
“Don’t come any closer, or I’ll shoot!” The weapon quakes in my hold.
He tilts his head, watches me, and moves closer.
“Stop! I swear, I’ll kill you where you stand!”
He’s soaked to the bone. Water runs in rivers down his cheeks to the shirt that clings to every muscled curve. His eyes stay on mine, cold, calculating, and without fear.
“What did you do to Lincoln?”
His steel gaze flickers. He takes another step forward.
“You said he’s not coming! How do you know that unless you stopped him?” A sob bursts from my chest. “Did you hurt him? He came for me, and you killed him, didn’t you!?”
He recoils as if my words are a shove to the chest. His expression morphs from cold indifference to fiery anger.
If he comes after me, I’ll have to shoot him. Resolve stiffens my muscles, and adrenaline steals any pain in my ribs as I take aim.
“I don’t know your Lincoln,” he spits through clenched teeth. “But if he truly gave a shit about you, he would not have let you go wandering through the mountains alone in the first place.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about—”
“I do.” He takes a step closer.
“I left on my own—”
“He should’ve been with you.”
“He was packing up camp.” I hate how weak my defense sounds. “I was only going to be gone for—”
“He doesn’t give a shit about you.”
“Don’t say that!” I shove the barrel of the gun in his direction.
Another step closer. “He’s not coming.”
In a blur of movement, the gun is ripped from my hands. I’m backed against the wall with the cold barrel pressed to my forehead.
“Never touch my things again!” he roars from his towering height above me. His eyes are wild with anger and his teeth bared in fury.
His finger flexes on the trigger.
I have a brief thought that this is the end. After everything I’ve been through, it’s a crazed mountain man who’ll take me out. I close my eyes and pray it’ll be fast—
Click.
Nothing.
I drop to the floor in a protective ball, and a sound that is half sob, half scream tears from my chest.
“You think I’d leave you alone with a loaded gun?” He takes the gun with him to the back of the woodstove while I cry and recover.
This man is sick!
And I’m never getting out here.
Six
Alexander
She hasn’t left her spot at the foot of the ladder to my bed platform. She’s no longer making that horrible whimpering sound, and I would assume she’s fallen asleep. Except that she flinched when I stepped over her to get to my dry clothes for bed.
I saved her life. I’ve tended to her wounds. I’ve fed her and kept her warm, and still, she demands more. Not only does she demand more, she treats me as if I’m her enemy. She touches my things and points my own gun at me. After everything I’ve done to keep her alive.
Why does she insist on pushing me?
My molars grind together as I scoop poached fish and rice into a bowl. I squat beside her, and her gray eyes stare blindly through me.
“Eat.” I set the bowl down and return to dish up my meal. When I take my seat at the table, I see she hasn’t moved. “I said, eat.”
Her arm shoots out and knocks the bowl across the room. “Fuck you!”
My muscles tense, and rage builds until my hands shake and my vision blurs. I use my chair to steady myself, and the wood creaks under my punishing grip. She doesn’t look up at me, her hateful eyes focused on the meal I caught and prepared. Stubborn and ungrateful woman. “I see now why he let you go.”
Her gaze snaps to mine, and her eyes tighten further into hateful slits. She pushes up to sitting, never once taking her eyes from mine. Her lips curl back off her teeth, seething like an animal on the verge of attack.
I brace for her to pounce. Flex my hands in preparation for restraining her swinging arms. My hunting knives are within her reach, but the unhinged glint in her eyes tells me she’d rather go at me with bare hands. Her chest heaves as she pushes to her feet, her stance like a feral possum, all teeth and hissing, prepared to fight to the death.
Right when I expect her to charge, she makes a sound like a cough. Her hard expression crumbles. Her lower lip trembles, and she bursts into tears.