I hurt him, even though I tried not to. I cleaned his wound, dumped a shit load of iodine into it while his body stiffened into a locked board. Still, he never made a sound. I taped gauze over the still bloody hole, then helped him to don a clean wool shirt.
“It hurts,” he said, sitting back at last. “But if also feels better. Make sense?”
“Not really. Relax, I’ll put wood on the fire and start making something for supper.”
Magnus caught my hand before I could depart for the kitchen. “Thanks.”
“For what?”
“Not leaving me. You could have. Easily.”
I took his hand from mine, smiling. “I’m not that kind of girl.”
***
Warm, fed, halfway comfortable in the sleeping bags near the hearth, we slept soundly side by side that night. As I’d hoped, a fierce and icy wind swooped down from the mountains, bringing sleet, snow, and bitter cold to the city. Magnus’s plywood held, however, and kept the cold out while maintaining heat within the small house.
By morning, the storm had blown itself out, and covered whatever tracks my car made in the previous snow. I woke, stretched lazily, and looked over at Magnus’s black hair peeping from his sleeping bag. I slid my hand to his neck to feel for a pulse and found my fingers trapped in his.
“Morning.”
“Yeah.” I yawned again. “It is.”
“Sleep okay?”
“Like the dead.”
He gingerly rolled onto his back, wincing, then turned his head toward me. “Me, too. But nasty dreams.”
“How’s the wound?”
“Tolerable. I think I can help you out around here today.”
I turned my head to glance at the gently smoking hearth. “But you won’t. You’ll stay right there and rest.”
“Jeez. You’re bossy.”
The sitting room had grown cold during the night. Shivering, wearing my jacket, I rebuilt the fire. After a few trips downstairs for more firewood piled against the wall, I started the camp stove and breakfast.
“It’s nothing fancy,” I said, bringing two plates of oatmeal with cut strawberries on top into the front room. “But hot and nourishing.”
“Its smells great.” Magnus sat atop his sleeping bag, his legs folded, his left arm in the sling, and accepted my offering.
I let him finish his breakfast before I told him of my previous day’s adventures. He listened with stunned amazement as I explained how I hid from the Chevy, found the tracker, then dumped it onto a passing semi.
“They may have figured out by now what I’ve done,” I said, piling the plates so I could wash them. “They’ll be looking for my car.”
“Think they put one on Alix’s?” he asked, his blue eyes dark with worry.
“I’m hoping not,” I admitted. “But they could have.”
With fresh snow melted on the camp stove, I washed our few dishes, then set about making this house less dusty and stinky. Magnus lay atop his sleeping bag, resting and healing, while I swept and mopped, threw old rugs in the garage. In turning back, I stared at a pair of growling orange tabbies.
“Where’d they come from?”
Magnus craned his neck to look. “Oh, them. They live here. I don’t suppose you bought tuna? I sorta promised them some.”
As I’d closed the bedroom doors to keep the heat where I wanted it, I had no idea where they’d been, or why they came from hiding now. “Are you hungry?”
