The church rose out of the storm like a memory of a world that didn’t exist anymore, its silhouette dark against a sky that hadn’t yet decided whether dawn would come.I didn’t know how long we’d been walking—hours, maybe more—because time had stopped meaning anything somewhere between escaping the burning cabin and putting one foot in front of the other through endless white.My body moved without thought, my legs numb, my mind fixed only on Gabriel’s shape ahead of me as we fought our way through drifts that tried to trap us with every step.When he finally stopped in front of the heavy wooden doors, I almost ran into his back because I was too exhausted to anticipate the sudden stillness.
“Here,” he said, barely louder than the wind.“We can...rest here.”
I looked up at the structure and felt a tug of something I couldn’t name.The steeple leaned slightly, surrendered to gravity years ago, and the stone walls were wrapped in dead ivy that clung like hands refusing to let go.Most of the windows were boarded, but a few fractured shards of stained glass remained, catching just enough moonlight to scatter faint color across the snow.The church looked abandoned in every possible way—forgotten, unused, unloved—and somehow that made it perfect for what we needed.No one searching for us would think to look for two fugitives in a place built for faith.
Gabriel pushed against the doors and they resisted at first, swollen from years of weather and neglect.He leaned into them with more force than I liked, and the wood groaned before giving.The darkness inside was complete, an absence rather than just a lack of light, and for a heartbeat I hesitated at the threshold before he pulled a flashlight from his pocket and flicked it on.The weak beam cut only a narrow path through swirling dust, but it was enough to show we were stepping out of the storm and into shelter.
Crossing the threshold felt like falling.The temperature inside was still brutal, but without the wind ripping at my clothes and skin it felt survivable.The doors swung shut behind us with a thud that echoed through the empty sanctuary, and then there was nothing except the thin light from Gabriel’s flashlight and our breathing.He swept the beam in slow arcs, revealing the interior piece by piece—rows of broken pews, a long aisle carpeted in debris, an altar that looked like it had been stripped decades ago, and walls stained with water damage that mapped a history of winters before ours.
“It’s perfect,” he murmured, and exhaustion warped the word into something closer to relief.“No one comes here.”
He took one step forward and faltered.Not enough to stumble, not enough to fall, but enough that my hand shot out before I could stop myself.When my palm touched his arm he leaned into the contact more than he meant to and that alone told me what he wouldn’t say.Something was wrong.Something had been wrong.For longer than I realized.
“Gabe?”I moved closer, trying to see his face through the dancing beam of the flashlight.“Are you—”
“Fine.”His voice was tight, frayed at the edges.He pulled away from me and sank onto a nearby pew with controlled movement that was too careful to be casual.“Just tired.We both need rest.”
He sat there like someone holding himself together with the last thread of willpower.His breathing was too heavy for the distance we’d walked, his hands gripping the wood so hard his knuckles were white, and the flashlight’s beam reflected off skin that looked washed-out in a way that had nothing to do with cold.I didn’t move for several seconds, torn between giving him space and dealing with the dread building inside me.Something was wrong, and pretending otherwise wouldn’t fix it.
“Look at me,” I said, stepping close enough that he couldn’t avoid hearing me.
He opened his eyes but didn’t turn his head.“Mia, I said I’m fine.Just give me a minute.”
The anger that surged wasn’t anger at him—it was fear wearing a sharper mask.“Bullshit,” I said, and reached for his jacket.His attempt to stop me was weak, uncoordinated, nowhere close to the speed or strength he’d had during the gunfight.The zipper came down and my stomach dropped because what I saw wasn’t snow or water or dirt.It was blood.So much blood.
His shirt clung to his chest, soaked through in multiple places with dark, sticky patches that turned red when I pulled my fingers close to the flashlight.The fabric was torn in a way that only violent impact could cause.Bullet grazing wounds.Knife.Something sharp and fast and lethal.He’d been bleeding for hours while we walked through that blizzard and I hadn’t seen it because he’d never let it show.
“Why didn’t you say something?”My voice broke on the words before I could stop it.
“Didn’t matter.”His eyes drifted shut again, and his speech blurred around the edges.“Had to get you away from there.Had to...keep moving.”
The jacket came off before he could stop me, and the shirt followed, buttons snapping under my hands.The damage was worse than I’d feared—bruising across his ribs, three distinct wounds that hadn’t clotted, dried blood flaking across his skin where cold had slowed but not stopped the bleeding.I didn’t know how he’d fought Victor like this.I didn’t know how he’d walked for hours through snow deeper than my knees.I didn’t know how he’d stayed upright long enough to get us into shelter.
I ran for the bags without thinking, tearing through them even though I already knew there wasn’t anything useful inside.Water.Two bottles.No bandages.No antiseptic.No medical kit.Gabriel had planned for running, not recovering.I grabbed the water and moved back to him, determination taking over where fear had been seconds earlier.If I panicked, he died.That was the math.There wasn’t room for anything else.
I tore strips from the bottom of my shirt, then more from the sleeves until there was enough fabric to cover the worst injuries.When I poured water over the deepest wound he hissed but didn’t pull away.Blood began flowing again with renewed heat and I pressed the fabric down hard, applying pressure the way I’d seen others do once or twice in my life.His blood soaked through instantly, warm against my palm, and I added more layers and more pressure.
“Stay with me,” I whispered, though I didn’t know if he was fully conscious.“Gabe, you don’t get to die now.”
His hand lifted, slow and unsteady, and wrapped around my wrist where I pressed against his ribs.Even weak, even bleeding out, his fingers curled with purpose.“I’m sorry,” he murmured, the words so faint I had to bend close to hear them.“For all of it.”
“No.”My voice shook, but the pressure of my hands didn’t.“Not now.Not like this.Save it.Just stay alive.”
He opened his eyes and found me in the shifting colored light filtering through broken stained glass.Something in his expression softened—not resignation, not surrender, just recognition.He saw that I was choosing him even after everything.He saw what it meant.
“Okay,” he breathed.
Then his eyes closed, his hand slipped from my wrist, and I felt all the weight of his body settle into the pew as his consciousness dropped.
I didn’t stop pressing on the wounds.I didn’t let myself cry or break or think about the church or the storm or the bodies we’d left behind.I stayed there with my hands drenched in his blood, counting his breaths, praying to a God I wasn’t sure I believed in even though we were sitting in a place built for prayer.The stained glass grew brighter as dawn crept closer, painting us both in fractured light that had nothing to do with mercy.
I held the fabric against his wounds and listened to every breath he took like each one was the only thing tethering him to this world, hoping the sun would rise fast enough to keep him alive.
I found the water at the back of the church, a thin stream leaking from a pipe that had cracked in the cold years ago, dripping steadily into a rusted basin left behind by whoever had once tried to collect it.My fingers burned with the temperature when I filled one of our bottles, but the water looked clear enough and we didn’t have the luxury of anything better.When I returned to Gabriel, he hadn’t moved.His chest rose in shallow breaths that were too slow and too weak, and each one sent a fresh bolt of fear through me because I couldn’t tell whether he was drifting into healing or slipping away.
Dawn had threaded itself through the sanctuary while I’d been gone, exposing details I hadn’t noticed in the dark.Plaster angels hunched in the corners of the ceiling, their faces softened beyond recognition by decades of water damage.The altar leaned crooked beneath a sideways cross, and someone had left a Bible there that time had swollen into a thick, warped shape that no longer closed.Dust coated everything and made the air taste old, as if we were breathing history rather than oxygen.It should have felt peaceful.It didn’t.
I knelt beside Gabriel and peeled away the makeshift bandages I’d pressed against his wounds hours ago.They’d slowed the bleeding but hadn’t stopped it.The wounds underneath were ragged, angry, and too deep for anything I was capable of fixing.His face tightened every time my fingers brushed a tender area, though he wasn’t fully conscious.I forced myself past the guilt of hurting him because not hurting him would kill him faster.I poured water over the deepest cut and wiped away the blood and dirt with more torn fabric, working with a steadiness that felt borrowed from someone stronger than me.
