Him.
My legs are numb, knees throbbing from being bent too long. The rope around my ankles bites into skin every time I shift, a punishing reminder that I’m not going anywhere.
And yet…it isn’t the physical ache that breaks me.
It’s the smell.
Pine sap and firewood. Smoke. Something sweeter underneath—cedar, maybe cinnamon. It smells like safety. Like Christmas. Like every fantasy I used to build in my head when I was thirteen and cold and scared and he was the only good thing in that hellhole.
Back then, that far-off cabin across the field was the place I feared most. He thinks it was our foster house that haunted me, but he never knew what happened out here. Sometimes a truck would idle in the snow outside this place, exhaust curling up through the dark while a girl’s crying floated thin across the yard. I learned to close the curtains. To pretend I didn’t hear.
Now I’m in the cabin.
Tied up in the middle of the woods, trapped in a place that only drags every ugly memory to the surface, with a fire blazing somewhere out there and stockings—of course—hung like he’s playing house. The boy I once protected is calling himself my savior.
The door creaks.
I flinch before I can stop myself.
Nick steps inside, boots heavy on the wood, brushing snow from his jacket sleeve. His dark hair curls damp at the ends, cheeks flushed from the cold. He looks annoyingly alive, like he just came in from chopping wood in some ridiculous cologne commercial instead of from kidnapping me.
“Hi” he says, almost cheerful. “I made dinner.”
I just stare.
He crosses the room in a few strides and crouches at the end of the bed. His fingers are warm as they close around my ankles, working at the knot.
“I’m letting you walk,” he murmurs, not looking up. “But you know better than to run.”
Do I? I don’t answer. I move my legs apart quickly when the rope falls away, wincing as circulation rushes back in sharp, needling stabs. The floor tilts when I stand; my knees buckle for a second, and his hands are already there, steadying my hips like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
Like we’re kids again.
We’re not.
He guides me out into the main room with a hand resting at the small of my back. The cabin glows. A fire crackles in the stone hearth, shadows leaping up the log walls. The table is set—real silverware, candles burning low, two mismatched bowls of stew steaming in the center, thick with chicken and potatoes and carrots.
Of course it’s stew.
My stomach growls, loud and pathetic in the quiet. Traitor.
“Sit,” he says, pulling a chair out for me.
I eye my zip-tied wrists and move toward it anyway, lowering myself slowly. The wooden seat is cold under my sore body. “Are you going to untie me so I can eat?” I ask, voice flat.
Nick’s mouth curves, not quite a smile, not quite a threat. “Now, Meredith. I’m not as smart as you, but I’m also not stupid.”
He takes the chair beside me instead of across, close enough that his arm brushes mine when he reaches for a bowl. He scoops up a spoonful of stew, blows on it, then brings it toward my mouth.
“Open,” he says softly.
I clamp my lips shut and turn my head away.
“Come on,” he murmurs, like he’s coaxing a skittish animal. The spoon hovers at my mouth again, nudging my lower lip. With my hands bound, all I can do is sit there and refuse.
The savory smell wraps around me—chicken, garlic, thyme—warm and thick and familiar enough to punch the air from my lungs.
Suddenly I’m not sitting at his carefully set table.
