I should not have cared.The calculus was simple.I killed her family.She hated me.Her opinion did not change the job.Vincent’s logic was clear and familiar: feelings were noise, obedience was survival.But for three days that voice had been quieter and hers had been louder.Now, staring at her half-frozen face, all I could think was that I had almost lost her.
Not an asset.Not a problem to solve.Her.
Violent shivers racked her body, full-body convulsions that shook her against the trunk.I felt every tremor through my hands.Her teeth chattered so hard the sound cut through the wind.The flush on her cheeks spread farther.Her core was dropping fast.I was out of time.
“I am not going to hurt you.”The words slipped out before I had decided to say them.Softer than the anger.Too close to truth.“Do you understand?I am not going to hurt you.”
Her eyes found mine and confusion mixed with the hate.“You already did,” she whispered.“You killed them.You killed everyone.”
My fingers dug deeper into the bark.No defense existed.I had shot her father.I had put holes in her brother and mother.I had emptied that house of life and then dragged the last surviving piece here because I did not know what else to do.Nothing I said would balance that ledger.
I could not give her justice.I could give her breath.Warmth.Time.
We were inches apart.Ice crusted her lashes, tiny white spikes catching the light.Her lips were split and blue at the edges, shaking as she tried to speak and failed.Her breath mingled with mine in small bursts of steam that vanished instantly into the storm.Green eyes stared up at me, the same eyes that had burned through me in that closet, and something inside my chest shifted in a way I did not recognize.
She was not a job anymore.Not a file.Not a name on a list.She was Mia Grant, stubborn enough to starve herself, smart enough to cut ropes with glass, desperate enough to step into this storm rather than sit one more hour tied to that chair.I had not met that kind of will before.
My gaze dropped to her mouth before I could stop it.Objectively, there was nothing inviting there.Cracked, blue, trembling.Still, some irrational part of me wanted to close the distance.Cover her mouth with mine.Warm her.Take something I had no right to want.
The thought was wrong on every level.I snapped back like I had touched fire.Put space between us while keeping my hands planted on the trunk.The moment shattered and the checklist slammed back into place: shelter, heat, dry clothes, medical.
“Do not run from me again.”The order came out low, scraped raw, more plea than threat.“Do you understand?”
She stared up at me, shaking so hard the movement looked violent.No answer.I doubted she could form one.Her pupils drifted, focus slipping.The cold was pulling her under.
No more time.
I hooked an arm under her knees and another around her back and lifted.Same position as that first night, but she felt lighter now, weight reduced by stress and not enough food.That thought lodged in my throat and stayed there.Her head fell against my shoulder.Her fingers curled weakly into my jacket, clutching fabric like an anchor.
I bent over her, trying to shield her with my body, and pushed through the snow.Drifts climbed halfway up my thighs.The wind shoved at us from every side, tearing at balance.I set my feet and kept going anyway.One step, then another.Breathe.Ignore the burn in my lungs, ignore the ache in my legs, focus on reach, plant, push.Stopping was not an option.
The cabin took shape out of the white in pieces: the roofline, the corner of the wall, the dark rectangle of the door.I followed the markers I had left when I went out—broken branches, disturbed snow that the storm had not completely erased.The door gaped open, snow piled in the threshold, the fire inside reduced to a faint glow.
I carried her across the threshold and kicked the door shut with more force than needed.The wind cut off and silence rushed in.Only the faint hiss of dying coals and our harsh breathing filled the space.Mia stirred in my arms, eyes fluttering, then closing again when the light hit them.
I took her to the chair closest to the hearth and lowered her carefully.Her body slumped toward the side, too weak to hold itself upright.I grabbed the wool blanket from the floor, then another from the cot, wrapping both around her until only her face showed.She needed out of those frozen clothes.I could not strip her down while she was barely conscious.First, heat.
I attacked the fireplace.Pulled the grate forward, raked the coals together, added dry kindling and small logs, breathing life back into the embers until flame flared.Larger wood went on top.Flames climbed fast, greedy and bright.Heat started to roll off the stone, pushing into the room, driving the worst of the cold away from her.
When the fire held steady and strong, I took the chair opposite and sat.My hands rested on my knees.They did not shake.That had stopped somewhere between finding the empty chair and seeing her collapse in the snow.Everything in me had gone very still.
She watched me over the edge of the blanket, eyes clearer now, color slowly returning to her skin in uneven patches.The shaking had eased into smaller, residual tremors.She was still with me.She would stay with me.Relief settled under my ribs, heavy and unfamiliar.
The silence that followed was not the same one we had shared before her escape.Not a cold war of glares and withheld food and stubborn defiance.This one carried new weight.She knew I had been scared for her, and not just because losing her would cause trouble with Vincent.I knew she would rather die than belong to me.Out there against the tree, something had shifted.Inside me, I suspected it had broken.
I let myself look at her fully.She met my gaze for a long moment, then pulled the blanket tighter and turned slightly away, building a barrier with wool and distance.I understood the impulse.I had spent years building my own.
The storm hammered the cabin, wind rattling shutters, snow packing higher against the walls.We were still trapped here.That part had not changed.Everything else had.
I had almost lost her to the snow.In that moment, with my hands on her shoulders and her breath frosting the air between us, I realized something that scared me more than anything Vincent had ever threatened.
I did not want to finish this job.I did not want to turn her into another body, another story I locked away and tried not to think about.I wanted her alive.Wanted her warm.Wanted her safe, even if she never forgave me.Even if she never looked at me with anything but hate.
And I had no idea how to live with that.
Chapter Seven
Gabe
