I pulled my shirt off and wadded it into a pillow under her head. Then I rummaged through the mess by the hearth, found some dry twigs, and built a kindling pyramid.
I used the old lighter from my pocket, a battered Zippo with my club insignia on it, and flicked it until the flame caught the edge of the bundle. It took, then the twigs, then the thicker branches I fed in behind. The room glowed with orange andblue, and the warmth rolled out in waves. I stoked it until I was sure it wouldn’t die, then went back to the girl.
Her breathing had gone weird: shallow, uneven, almost a pant. Her eyes flicked open every few seconds, then rolled back, her face shining with sweat. She looked at me once, really looked, and there was something in her gaze that wasn’t fear, but a kind of desperate hope. She reached for my arm and gripped it with surprising strength.
“Don’t let them take me,” she said, barely above a whisper. “Promise.”
“I won’t,” I said, because that’s the kind of promise you make when you know you’ll have to keep it, even if it kills you.
She nodded, eyes fluttering shut again, and I sat by her side, watching the fire and the world beyond the window, where snow had begun to fall, flakes thick and clotted, erasing the world one inch at a time.
I watched her through the night, trading off between tending the fire and wiping the sweat from her brow with the corner of my shirt. The fever came and went in waves, each one wringing her out until I thought she’d break.
At some point, her lips started moving. "Agnes," she whispered, her voice thin as paper. "No, Agnes, I won't." Her fingers clawed at the furs. "Old Nan, please." Her head thrashed from side to side, sweat-soaked hair sticking to her temples. "Mother!" The word tore from her throat, half-scream, half-sob. I caught her hand before she could claw at her own face.
I leaned closer, ear almost to her mouth. Her breath came hot against my skin as she muttered about a garden, a promise, something about a man with cold hands. I filed each fragment away, each name, each broken plea.
The fire sputtered. I broke a branch over my knee, fed the splintered pieces into the flames. They caught with a hiss. Her teeth chattered. I slid behind her, my chest to her back, andpulled the jacket tight around us both. My heartbeat steadied against her spine.
"Not there," she murmured, then her lips curved upward. A soft exhale, almost a laugh.
Dawn crept through the window. The sheen of sweat on her forehead had dried. Her breathing came deep and even, her skin no longer burning against mine. I eased away, muscles aching from the night's vigil, and watched the steady rise and fall of her chest.
The storm had ended, leaving the woods glazed in blue and ice, every branch and stone rimed in crystal. The world was silent, waiting for the next move.
I didn’t know what would come next, but I knew I’d see it through.
For her, for me, for whatever future the circle had carved out of the bone of the world.
I reached for the tattoo, tracing the line of the wolf’s jaw, and felt its heat under my skin. It wasn’t just ink anymore. It was a promise.
***
By dawn, the lodge had gone quiet. I sat with my back to the door, inhaling the bitter tang of green wood smoke and the copper-sweet reek of sweat-soaked furs. Scarlette's fingers twitched against my jacket, clutching, releasing, clutching again. Her knuckles whitened each time. "Water, water," she whispered, then thrashed her head against the makeshift pillow.
Ten minutes later, her teeth chattered so violently I heard the click-click-click across the room. When I pressed a hand to her forehead, it came away slick. By the fire's light, I could see the raw, bitten crescent of her lower lip. "Lavender grows... in the garden where..." she mumbled, words trailing off. Thensuddenly, "Agnes!" Clear as day, before her voice dropped to a thread. "Moab," she breathed later, so soft I might have imagined it.
I’d seen this before, in men gutted by infection or junk withdrawal, in bikers who got too fond of their own poison. The trick was to keep them alive until their body decided whether it wanted to come back. The only thing I had in my favor was time and a knack for improvising with shit at hand.
There were herbs drying in bunches from the rafters, like some medieval Home Ec project. Most were for tea or smoking, but a few I recognized from my time patching up club brothers. Willow bark for pain, comfrey for swelling, a sprig of something that smelled like wintergreen, and it made my eyes water. I crumbled them together, crushed them into a paste with spit and rainwater, and spread the mess over the worst cuts. I didn’t know if it would help, but it was something.
The moon crawled across the window frame, inch by inch. I broke another branch, fed the flames. Her lips cracked like old leather when I pressed the wooden cup to them, water dribbling down her chin. At three marks past midnight, her eyes snapped open, pupils blown wide, fixed on something beyond my shoulder.
"Are you there?" she whispered, not to me but to whatever phantom hovered in the shadows. Her hand reached out, fingers grasping at empty air, before she slipped under again, her breath rattling like dice in a cup.
Those hours, my mind drifted back through the circle to Vin and the club, where neon beer signs buzzed against oil-stained walls, and Shivs always sat with his boots propped on an empty keg. I could almost taste the Jack Daniel's burning down my throat, hear the clink of bottles as we passed them around, smell the mix of motor oil and cigarettes. "When we hit Sturgis next year," Vin would say, his voice rough from shouting over enginesall day, and we'd nod like it wasn't the same bullshit promise we made every summer.
I thought about the girl, how she’d looked at me that first time, half afraid, half feral, but never for a second willing to give in.
At some point, my eyelids turned to sandpaper. I slumped against the stone wall, cold seeping through my shirt. The window blurred, doubled, then went dark. The rumble of the Harley's engine filled my ears—that sweet vibration climbing up through the handlebars into my bones. My fingers twitched, gripping phantom throttle. Then Scarlette burst through the trees ahead, her skirts hitched above her knees, hair a copper banner in the sunlight. She glanced over her shoulder, lips parted in a wild laugh I couldn't hear. "Wolf-heart," she called, the word punching straight through my ribs, leaving an ache like homesickness for a place I'd never been.
When I woke, the fire was out, and the sun was leaking blue through the hide-stretched windows. Scarlette was still asleep, but her breathing had gone quiet and even. The color had come back into her cheeks, and her hands were relaxed, no longer clutching for purchase on the world.
I checked her wound, sniffed at the bandages, and didn’t catch the stink of rot. Good sign. I leaned in close and listened for any hint of infection in her breath, but there was nothing but the soft, even rasp of a body healing itself.
For the first time since coming through the circle, I let myself hope.
I needed air, needed to see if the world outside had shifted in the night. I grabbed the jacket off the floor, shrugged it on, and stepped outside.
