4
Gregory
Iwake up with my neck screaming and my back doing its best impression of a rusted hinge.
Sleeping in an wingback chair.
Brilliant fucking decision.
The room is dim. Early morning light filters through the curtains. I straighten slowly, every vertebra protesting, and look at the bed.
She’s sleeping. Breathing steady. No more of that worrisome shallow panting from last night.
I stand and cross to her. Press the back of my hand against her forehead before I can stop myself.
It’s cool.
Her fever broke.
Relief hits me and my chest instantly loosens.
Christ.
I don’t want to consider too closely why I give a damn. She’s a stranger. A complication. Someone who wandered into my chalet during a storm and immediately became my problem.
Except she’s not just a problem anymore.
I watched her cry in her sleep about lost data and disappointed advisors. Held her hand when she was delirious. Washed her hair with coconut-scented shampoo when she was too weak to stand.
Fuck.
I need coffee.
And distance.
Mostly distance.
It’s feeling rather cool in the room, so I grab another two blankets and place them gently on top of her, and then I leave the room and head downstairs.
The chalet feels different in daylight. Less like a fortress and more like what it actually is: an obscenely expensive cage I built to hide from the world.
Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, I can see that the snow is still falling heavily. Going to be a frigid one.
Like her room, the kitchen is uncharacteristically cold. I check the thermostat. Sixty-two degrees.
Well, I shut down the generator last night to conserve what little fuel remains, keeping it only for essentials, so I suppose that is to be expected.
Speaking of conserving energy...
I pull out my phone first. Still no signal. The battery is at thirty percent. I power it off to save what’s left.
The satellite phone is next. Same result. Nothing.
The storm must be creating some kind of electromagnetic interference. The thick cloud cover, the heavy snow...
I grab my laptop from the counter and boot it up. Battery at thirty-five percent. The Starlink interface loads.
Searching for connection...
