My voice is rough when I finally speak. “It’s not about the offer.”
She looks up at me, searching.
“It’s what it reminds me of,” I say. “What people are willing to do for the right price. How many times I’ve been sold withouta word. How many hands I’ve held that let go when it got too heavy.”
Her throat bobs as she swallows. “I’m still here.”
“For now,” I say, and the words taste like ash.
She shakes her head. “I’m not going anywhere.”
I want to believe that. I do. But belief has teeth. And mine are still healing.
I let her go and turn back to the fire, the only thing left burning between us tonight. My voice comes quiet, but it doesn’t shake.
“We leave in the morning. We go north, find the caverns at Rensvik Pass. There’s shelter there. And less chance of your boss getting another signal through.”
I hear her exhale, slow and steady, like she expected worse.
She doesn’t argue. Doesn’t press. Just gathers her coat and steps toward the back room.
At the doorway, she pauses.
“You can keep trying to push me out,” she says without turning. “But eventually, you’ll have to look at me and see the truth. I’m not your past. I’m not your mistake. I’m the only one who didn’t walk away.”
She disappears into the dark, and I’m left staring into the fire, wondering how long it’ll take before I stop trying to burn down everything good that reaches for me.
14
ANGIE
The sky’s smeared in streaks of fire and frost, all orange and pale violet where the sun scrapes across the edge of the world like it’s fighting to hold on for just one more minute. The wind picks up harder the farther we go, carving into my cheeks like cold knives, and I can barely feel my nose. Cassian's ahead of me, long strides that don’t even look human half the time, boots sinking deep into the packed snow but never slowing down. He hasn’t said more than two words since we left the cabin, and both of them were about the map.
He’s doing that thing again, the one where he pretends he’s carved out of something ancient and untouched, where silence is safer than softness, where walls keep people warm instead of cold. I want to scream at him that I’m not afraid of what’s underneath. That I’ve seen it already, raw and bleeding and real, and I didn’t run then and I sure as hell won’t run now.
But I keep moving. Because he’s faster than me even when he’s angry. Especially when he’s angry. I’m not ready to stop walking until he turns around and realizes I didn’t fall behind, I followed him.
The snow shifts under my boots, packed tight from the last storm, and the sled we’re pulling groans under the weight of supplies we don’t even need anymore but neither of us wanted to leave behind. We’ve got three thermal packs, two rifles, a med kit, a stove, and a duffel full of his old things he won’t talk about. The dogs bark every now and then like they’re checking in, reminding us they’re still tethered and listening.
Then I see him slow.
His shoulders tense. He stops moving. Just stops like he heard something I didn’t. My breath fogs as I catch up, chest heaving from the climb. “Cassian, what?—”
He lifts a hand, sharp and fast, and I shut up.
The air changes. It's the weirdest thing. One second it’s just wind and snow and breath, and the next, it’s thick, like something invisible has stepped into the world and decided we’re not welcome anymore.
Cassian lowers his hand to his side, fingers twitching toward the knife strapped across his back. He doesn’t draw it. Not yet. Just stands still with that eerie stillness that doesn’t belong to people anymore. It belongs to predators. The kind that hunt in silence. The kind that don’t miss.
Then I see them.
Shadows moving out from behind the ridge to our left. Big figures in pale winter gear, heads covered, guns drawn. The first one’s already raising his weapon, too fast to mistake it for anything friendly.
Cassian doesn’t wait.
He lunges forward so fast I barely catch the movement. His body collides with the front man, and the sound it makes is brutal, like bones hitting stone. The man’s rifle goes skittering into the snow, and Cassian doesn’t pause—he pivots and slams his elbow into the second hunter’s throat before the third can get a shot off.
“Down!” he shouts, voice rough and sharp, and I throw myself behind the sled, breath catching hard in my throat.
