And Gabriel.
The man who murdered my family.The man who tied me to a chair for three days.The man whose small acts of mercy didn’t erase his brutality.The man I refused to need.I’d rather die on my feet in a storm than live another day under his control.
I pushed off the tree and kept walking.
The wind shifted and carried something with it.Not wind.Not snow.A human sound.A voice.Faint but unmistakable.My heart lurched, adrenaline burning away a layer of numbness.He’d found the open door.He’d seen the cut ropes.He was coming.
I tried to move faster but my body had reached the limit of what it could give.My steps faltered, my legs refusing commands, every muscle locking and cramping from exhaustion and cold.I stumbled again and again, barely catching myself, consciousness narrowing until the white around me became a tunnel and the storm became a roar with no source.
The footsteps behind me grew louder.Snow crunching with purpose and speed.He was closing the distance easily, crossing yards in the time it took me to drag myself inches.I tried to force my legs to run but they refused.Three desperate half-running strides and something buried deep under the snow caught my numb foot.
I fell.
The snow cushioned the impact but it still slammed the breath from my lungs.I tried to stand but my arms shook violently and collapsed under me.I rolled onto my side, gasping against the cold, sucking in air that felt like razors.My body was done.It had nothing left to give.
A hand clamped around my upper arm—strong, sure, unyielding—and hauled me upright as if I weighed nothing.I tried to twist away but I had no strength left to resist.The world reeled around me as he spun me to face him.
Gabriel towered over me, snow clinging to his hair and coat, eyes gone black in the storm-dark.Fury radiated off him in waves.
“What the hell were you thinking?”His voice cut through the wind like a blade, fierce and raw.“You could have frozen to death out here!”
The words washed over me from a distance, my ears ringing, hearing fading in and out with the rhythm of my unsteady heartbeat.My knees buckled and would have sent me back into the snow if he hadn’t tightened his grip.His other hand anchored my shoulder, strong enough to hold me upright but careful in a way that didn’t make sense.
I tried to answer, to say something sharp or defiant or meaningful, but my jaw wouldn’t work.My lips barely moved.The cold had stolen articulation long before it stole strength.
His expression shifted.Not softer—Gabriel didn’t soften—but something underneath the fury cracked open enough to show fear.Not fear of me.Fear for me.His hands locked around my arms, steadying me with precision that felt practiced, like saving me was instinct even if letting me go might have been easier.
The black spots at the edges of my vision merged.I couldn’t see his face anymore, just the outline of him holding me up while everything else went dark.He said my name—distant, panicked, not the tone of a man who didn’t care whether I lived or died.I tried to hold on to the sound but the cold dragged me under.
I’d tried.I’d failed.And now I was collapsing into unconsciousness in the arms of the man who shattered my world, while a storm buried us both.
Gabe
She was dying.I saw it in the blue along her lips, in the way her eyes slid past my face instead of locking onto it, in the shivering that had gone from violent to uneven and weak.Hypothermia had moved past warning signs into the place where bodies quit.Ten minutes, maybe, before her core temperature dropped too far.Less, if the storm kept tearing into her like this.She had chosen this.Jeans, thin shirt, no boots.Death over staying in that chair with me.
The choice landed harder than it should have.I had seen people freeze before.I had left targets in alleys when the job required it, knowing the cold would finish what I started.This felt different.Her weight sagged against my grip, every muscle done fighting, and something in my chest answered with sharp, unfamiliar panic.
I could not let her drop.The snow here would swallow her and I would waste time dragging her out.Staying in the open was asking to die beside her.Wind knifed through my jacket and drove ice into every gap.I had layers, thermal gear, training.She had none of that.For her, the storm was a weapon with a single purpose.
A tree stood ahead, broad trunk visible through the white.Old growth.Good enough.I half-dragged, half-carried her toward it.Her legs tried to work and failed.Her body had started shutting down nonessential functions to keep the core alive.
I got her to the trunk and turned her so her back hit solid wood.The move was tactical, automatic.Tree behind her, my body blocking most of the wind, both hands free to assess damage.It put us close, too close, her face turned up toward mine, breath coming in broken little clouds between us.
My palms planted on either side of her head, fingers digging into bark.I caged her there without meaning to threaten, just keeping her upright, keeping her conscious, keeping her here.The tree took some of the storm.Snow still swirled around us, but the howl dropped a notch.The sudden relative quiet rang in my ears.
“What were you thinking?”My voice came out harsher than intended, ripped raw by a knot of anger and fear.“You would have frozen to death out here.”
Her eyelids fluttered.She tried to focus.Her pupils looked blown wide in a face gone too pale, cheeks reddened in that bright, dangerous way that meant her body was losing the fight.Her lips moved.No sound.
I leaned in, close enough to feel the cold radiating off her skin.“What?”
“Had to...”The words scraped out, broken and slurred.“Had to try.”
“Try what?Suicide?”The anger climbed higher, hot enough to burn through the cold.“You would not have lasted twenty minutes.Less.Is that what you wanted?”
A spark lit behind her eyes.Even half gone, she still found room for defiance.“Better than...staying with you.”
The hit landed center mass.I felt it more than I heard it.I knew she hated me.I had seen that in every glare, heard it in every word.Hearing her say she would rather let a blizzard carve her open than stay where I could see her drove something hollow and wide right through my chest.
