1
CHARISMA
The tears made it impossible to see. Or maybe that was the snow.
At this point, the two had blurred together into one white wall of misery, and I couldn’t tell where my breakdown ended and the snowstorm began.
I shouldn’t have been driving. I knew that. But I also shouldn’t have gone to work tonight, and I definitely shouldn’t have smiled at the man in the corner booth when he waved me over.
I shouldn’t have done a lot of things, apparently. The internet had made that perfectly clear in the four hours since my life imploded.
“Does anyone know where this man’s mother is? She missed a lesson.”
The words had felt so good coming out of my mouth. Righteous. Justified. His hand had been on my ass, his fingers digging into my hip as he tried to pull me onto his lap, and I’d had enough. Enough of the leering and the comments, enough of pretending not to notice when customers “accidentally” brushedagainst me, enough of smiling through shifts that left me feeling like I needed to scrub my skin raw in the shower afterward.
So I’d said it. Loud enough for the whole restaurant to hear.
And someone had recorded it.
Of course, they had. Everyone records everything now. But they hadn’t recorded the part where he grabbed me. They hadn’t captured the bruise already forming on my arm where his grip had been too tight. They’d just caught the crazy girl in the too-tight shorts screaming at a customer about his mother.
I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand and squinted through the windshield. The wipers were going full speed, but it wasn’t helping. Snow came down in thick sheets, swirling in my headlights like something alive, and I had no idea where I was anymore. Somewhere on the mountain, heading toward Dagger’s cabin, but the GPS had lost signal twenty minutes ago, and the road signs were buried under white.
Dagger. My brother. The word still felt strange after twenty-three years of not having one. We’d found each other at Christmas, connecting through one of those DNA websites, and he’d been trying to get me to move to Wildwood Valley ever since.
“Come stay at the cabin,” he’d said. “Get out of Springfield. There’s a honky-tonk here where you could work. Tips are good, and you don’t have to wear anything you don’t want to wear.”
I should have listened sooner.
My phone buzzed in the cupholder. Again. I didn’t look at it. I’d stopped looking three hours ago, when the notifications became too much to bear.
The video had spread faster than I could have imagined, picked up by one of those accounts that posts content for people to mock. Last time I’d checked, it had over two million views and climbing. The comments were a nightmare.
She literally works at the Naughty Fork. What did she expect?
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
I’d grab her too lmao
Imagine being this unhinged over nothing.
Nothing. Like his hand hadn’t been under my shorts. Like I hadn’t told him twice already to stop touching me. Like I hadn’t been doing my job, trying to earn enough to cover rent and groceries and the electricity bill that was already two weeks late.
The road curved sharply, and I jerked the wheel, overcorrecting. My tires slipped on something slick beneath the snow, and for one heart-stopping moment, I felt the back end of my car start to slide. I eased off the gas, held my breath, and somehow managed to straighten out.
I needed to stop. Find somewhere to wait out the storm. But there was nothing out here. Nothing but trees and darkness and endless white.
Then I saw it. Through the curtain of snow, something dark and hulking appeared in my headlights. My brain—exhausted and tear-soaked—took a moment to process what I was seeing. A bear? Standing upright. But it was small and completely still. And positioned in a way that made no anatomical sense, like it was hugging something.
I blinked. The shape didn’t move.
That’s not a bear, I thought. Bears don’t stand like that. Bears don’t?—
Whatever it was, my car was heading straight toward it. I pumped the brakes, but the car continued its forward movement, the bear getting closer and closer?—
My front bumper connected with something solid, and the impact jolted through the car hard enough to snap my teeth together. I slammed on the brakes, skidded another few feet, and finally lurched to a stop.
For a long moment, I just sat there, hands shaking on the wheel, heart pounding against my ribs. What had I hit? A bear? A figurine of a bear? I didn’t understand.
