"North," I command, shouting to be heard. "There is an extraction point two miles from here. An abandoned hunting cabin. We move."
I don't wait for her. I start trekking through the dense, unforgiving brush, my flashlight cutting a frantic, bouncing path through the trees.
The journey is a descent into absolute physical hell.
The mud is slick, grabbing at our boots like liquid concrete. The rain is blinding, a relentless barrage of ice-cold needles. My left side is completely numb, the bleeding unabated, the dark crimson completely washing away in the heavy downpour.
A mile into the trek, my body completely fails.
The darkness at the edge of my vision violently collapses inward. My legs turn to lead. I don't stumble this time; I simply stop functioning. My knees buckle, and I crash heavily into thefreezing mud, the tactical flashlight slipping from my grip to illuminate the wet roots of a massive pine tree.
"Thayer!"
Sybil is on her knees beside me in an instant. Her hands are on my face, completely frantic, completely desperate. Her thumbs wipe the freezing rain and the mud from my eyes.
"Get up," she begs, her voice completely shattered, sobbing openly now. "Please, Thayer. You can't stop. You have to get up."
I look at her. The midnight blue of her eyes is entirely wild with terror. The fragile, broken girl who walked down the aisle twenty-four hours ago is completely gone. In her place is a woman who refuses to let the monster die.
"I can't," I rasp, the absolute truth a bitter, humiliating defeat. "I'm bleeding out, Sybil."
"I don't care!" she screams, the volume of her voice cutting sharply through the roar of the storm. It is the first time I have ever heard her scream in pure, unadulterated defiance. "You don't get to leave me! You told me you would never leave me! You promised!"
The sheer, demanding force of her words is a violent electrical shock straight to my dying heart.
You promised.
She grabs the collar of my ruined tactical shirt with both hands, using every ounce of her small, fragile strength to pull me upward.
"Get up!" she cries, her tears mingling with the freezing rain on my face.
A dark, feral surge of possessive rage detonates in my chest. I cannot leave her to the wolves. I am the only wolf who gets to keep her.
I plant my right hand in the mud and push. I force my massive frame upward, completely ignoring the blinding, agonizing scream of my torn muscles. I stagger to my feet, swaying heavily.
Sybil immediately steps into my left side, throwing her arms around my waist, wedging her small shoulder directly under my armpit. She becomes my crutch. She takes the heavy, agonizing weight of my failing body, wrapping her arm tightly around my back to keep me upright.
"I've got you," she breathes, panting from the exertion. "I've got you. Which way?"
"Straight ahead," I murmur, my head dropping heavily until my chin rests on her wet hair.
We walk. The role is completely reversed. The captor is entirely dependent on the captive. We move at an agonizingly slow pace, fighting the wind, fighting the mud, fighting the inevitable darkness pulling at my consciousness.
Sybil is a revelation. She doesn't complain. She doesn't stop. She drags my heavy, bleeding body through the frozen hell of the northern woods with a sheer, terrifying willpower that I never knew she possessed.
Finally, a dark, jagged silhouette emerges from the trees.
The hunting cabin.
It is a small, dilapidated structure of rotting wood and rusted metal, entirely forgotten by the world. It was built by my father decades ago as a dead-drop point, but it still holds emergency supplies.
We stumble onto the rotting wooden porch. Sybil practically kicks the heavy wooden door open, dragging me inside.
The interior is pitch-black, smelling of dust, mildew, and stale air, but it is entirely shielded from the violent, freezing wind. Sybil guides me toward the center of the room, and I completely collapse. I hit the wooden floorboards hard, my back resting against the base of an old stone fireplace.
Sybil drops to her knees beside me, completely breathless. She fumbles with the tactical flashlight, pointing the beam at my shoulder.
The sight makes her gasp. The tactical shirt is completely saturated, the wound still sluggishly pumping thick, dark blood.
