"Thin tents," Stephen muttered.
"Thin everything out here." Dev set his mug down with a deliberate clink. "You'd think two scientists would understand basic acoustics."
I should have laughed. Should have joined in, turned it into a joke, let their warmth carry me past it the way they kept trying to do. Instead I sat there with my hands wrapped around my cooling coffee and felt the careful numbness I'd rebuilt over the past two weeks crack along familiar fault lines. I stared into the fire and willed myself to be stone. To be ice. To be anything other than what I was—a woman sitting ten meters from the man who'd rejected her, listening to him make love to someone else while two near-strangers tried not to notice her humiliation. It wasn't jealousy. Not exactly. Jealousy implied I still wanted him, and I wasn't sure I did. What I wanted was to stop hearing evidence that I'd been replaceable, and the proof of it played on repeat every single night through canvas walls.
“So, what’s the deal with you and Nathan?” asked Stephen suddenly.
I froze. “What?”
"You and Nathan. There's clearly something there. The way you two avoid each other is, like, aggressively deliberate. And just now, when they—" He gestured vaguely toward the tent. "You looked like someone had stabbed you."
"Stephen." Dev's voice was quiet, but the warmth had drained out of it entirely. "Drop it."
"What? I'm just asking. We're stuck out here for months, possibly longer. If there's team dynamics we should know about—"
"Drop it." Dev's voice had lost its easy warmth. There was something harder underneath, something protective, and whenI glanced at him, he wasn't looking at Stephen. He was looking at me.
At my hands, which were shaking around the mug.
At my face, which I knew—despite every effort—had gone white.
"Mate," Dev said, softer now but no less firm. "Read the room."
Stephen's mouth opened, then closed. He looked at me properly, and whatever he saw made the colour drain from his own face. "Shit. Ellie, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to—"
"It's fine." My voice came out steadier than I expected. Flat and smooth, like water over deep ice. "It's ancient history."
The lie sat between us, obvious and ugly. Another moan drifted from the tent and Stephen jumped up.
"More coffee?" he asked brightly, already reaching for the pot.
"Sure," I said, grateful the subject had been changed. Dev gave me a quick smile across the fire, and I managed a small one back. The noise from the tent dropped, and then the wind picked up, whistling through the rocks above us, carrying something else with it. A sound that raised every hair on my arms.
Howling. Deep and resonant and impossibly distant, echoing across the steppe.
We all froze.
"Wolves?" I whispered.
"Yeah." Dev's voice had gone flat. "Big ones. Dire wolves, probably. They were common in this period."
The howls rose and fell, layered over each other in an eerie chorus. Something in the sound made my stomach drop.
Stephen laughed shakily. "Well, that's not ominous at all."
"They're miles away," Dev said, but he'd shifted closer to the fire. "And they don't usually approach camps with fire. We'll be fine."
I wrapped my arms around myself, suddenly aware of how small we were. How exposed. How utterly unprepared for this world despite all our planning and equipment and modern arrogance.
The howls faded gradually, swallowed by wind and distance, and eventually we all retired to our tents. Despite the wind outside, it wasn’t long before I fell asleep. The physical activity of walking for miles each day and setting up and taking down camps was enough to at least ensure I slept well every night.
Tonight though, I awoke after only a couple of hours. Something felt wrong. The air had changed, pressure dropping so fast my ears popped. Wind screamed around the tent, whipping the fabric so hard I thought it might tear free of its stakes. Rain hammered down in sheets, mixed with sleet that rattled like bullets.
The temperature had plummeted.
I fought my way out of my sleeping bag, heart racing, and fumbled for my boots and jacket. Through the tent wall, I heard shouting—Nathan yelling orders, someone else screaming about the equipment. Dev, I thought.
I shoved my way out outside into chaos.
