He paces to the window, staring at the whiteout. "I didn't come up here to play house. I came up here because I’m no good down there. In the town. With the people."
I stand slowly, using the wall. "Why?"
Silence stretches. The wind batters the glass.
"Because it’s too loud," he whispers. "The noise. The chatter. Everyone talking about nothing. And I’m always listening for the snap. The click. The intake of breath before the trigger pull."
He turns. The raw vulnerability in his expression tears at me.
"I was a scout. Recon. My job was to see things before they happened. To clear the path. Keep them safe." He taps the box on the table. "I missed one. Just one. And my unit paid for it."
The man in the photo.
"That’s why you’re the Vanguard," I realize aloud. "You’re still trying to clear the path."
"I’m dangerous, Avery." His eyes plead with me to run. "I see threats where there aren't any. I wake up with my hands around a throat before I know I’m awake. I’m not... I’m not built for soft things."
He looks at me like I’m made of glass. Like breathing the same air might shatter me.
"You haven't hurt me." I walk toward him across the mudroom floor. "You caught me when I fell. You fixed my ankle. You kept me warm. You’re the safest place I’ve ever been."
"For now," he says darkly. "Until the snow melts."
The words hang. Heavy. Suffocating.
Until the snow melts.
The fear. For both of us.
For him, melting snow means the return of the world. Noise. Expectations. Intruders. For me... the end.
I stop a few feet away. A cold knot forms in my stomach. I’ve focused on the storm, on the heat between us. Ignored the inevitable thaw.
When roads clear, I go back to my rotting shack. He goes back to solitude.
He built this life to keep people out. Fortified walls. Barred doors. Silence. I’m just an anomaly. A glitch caused by a blizzard.
"Is that what I am?" I ask, voice trembling. "Just something to pass the time until the roads open?"
His jaw tightens. He grips the window sill until the wood groans.
"You’re not a pastime, Little Bird." The nickname slips out, rough and unwilling. "You’re the first thing that’s made sense in five years."
My heart leaps. He crushes it with his next breath.
"And that’s why you have to go when the plows come through."
He pushes off the sill. Walks past me. Grabs his jacket.
"Where are you going?" Panic flares in my chest.
"Out," he says, not looking back. "Need to chop more wood. Those three logs won't last the night."
The door slams.
I stand alone in the mudroom. Cold air swirls around my ankles. I look at the floor where the box fell.
He tries to protect me. He thinks his darkness is contagious. A weapon to be kept in a locked cabinet.
