Observation three: They mentioned a group.We've been looking for him for a while now.Key word there iswe.So there are more.
Observation four: I'm terrified.
That last one isn't especially useful from a strategic standpoint, but it does feel important to acknowledge. Dr. Levinson is a big proponent of naming your emotions so they don't control you. So, there it is: I am terrified. My heart is hammering so hard I can feel it in my zip-tied wrists. There's a tremor running through my whole body that has nothing to do with the cold, though the cold isn't helping. And my brain keeps trying to short-circuit into full-blown panic, which I am holding off through sheer force of will and the knowledge that if I hyperventilate with duct tape over my mouth, I will literally suffocate.
So. That's motivating.
Without warning, the van slows, turns again, and grinds to a halt. The engine cuts. Doors open and slam. Footsteps crunch on gravel—two sets, one heavy, one lighter. Then the rear doors swing open and gray daylight floods in, making me squint.
"Out," Buzzcut barks. Not much of a talker, this guy.
When I don't move fast enough for his liking, he grabs my arm and hauls me upright, then drags me to the edge of the van bed. My legs are floppy noodles from being cramped on the floor, so when he shoves me out, I stumble and go down on one knee in the mud. The impact shoots up through my already-ruined ankle and I scream behind my tape.
Rolling his eyes in disgust, Buzzcut yanks me to my feet.
I look around.
We're in a clearing—thoughclearingmakes it sound pastoral and lovely, and this is neither. It's a logging camp, or it was once. There's a long, low-slung bunkhouse built from unpainted cinder block with a corrugated metal roof. A second structure looks like it might've been an equipment shed, its bay door hanging crooked on one hinge. A stack of cut timber, weathered to silver-gray, sits beside a rusting yarder that hasn't moved in years. The trees surrounding the camp are dense, dark, and dripping with snowmelt.
But there are signs of new life among the dilapidation. There's a generator humming behind the bunkhouse. Two trucks—a black F-150 and a mud-caked Tacoma—are parked beside the van. Extension cords snake across the mud like orange veins. Someone has rigged a tarp between two pines to create a kind of carport, under which sits a snowmobile.
Three more men are standing outside the bunkhouse. They were smoking, but they've stopped to watch.
Buzzcut steers me toward the bunkhouse door. Beanie follows.
Inside, the bunkhouse is exactly as charming as the exterior suggests. A single open room, maybe forty feet long, with metal-framed cots lining both walls. A woodstove at one end, glowing dull orange. A folding table in the center covered in fast-food wrappers, beer cans, a deck of playing cards, and an ashtray overflowing with butts. The floor is plywood. It reeks of propane, stale cigarettes, and unwashed men—a cologne I'm callingEau de Incarceration.
Buzzcut shoves me into a metal folding chair beside the table. The zip tie bites deeper as my weight shifts. Beanie leans against the doorframe with his arms crossed, watching me with those dark, beady eyes.
One of the men from outside wanders in. He's younger than the others—mid-twenties, with acne scars on his cheeks and a gold chain that looks wildly out of place in a logging camp. He takes one look at me and grins.
"Fresh meat?" he asks.
"Bait in the making," Buzzcut confirms. "Got a nasty set of chompers on her, though."
Buzzcut holds up his palm. Even from where I'm sitting, I can see the crescent of tooth marks. I'd feel a surge of satisfaction about that if I weren't, you know, zip-tied to a chair in a cinder-block hellhole with no way out.
"Boss know?" Gold Chain asks.
Buzzcut nods. "Radioed him on the way in. He's still out on the run with Dmitri and the others. Won't be back 'til tonight, maybe morning."
Gold Chain pulls up a cot and sits on it, still leering at me. "So what do we do with her 'til then?"
"We wait," Buzzcut declares. He's at the folding table now, pouring himself coffee from a dented thermos. "Boss wants to talk to her himself. Wants to know what the Russian told her."
"She don't look like she knows much."
"She was with him a couple days. Gotta knowsomething."
Gold Chain whistles. "Couple days with that psycho? And she's still breathing?"
"Sure seems like it."
They have no issue talking about me like I'm not here. I take it I'm not the first involuntary guest to make their acquaintance here. As I said, another day in the life.
I stare at the coffee stain on the plywood between my boots and think about Afon.
Not in awhat would Afon dokind of way, but just, like, Afon, the man himself. I'm getting a little kooky here, and maybe it's the repeated head trauma or the lack of blood flow, but I can't stop thinking of him asnoble.He has ethics, principles, boundaries that he placed on himself. This radiating auraof being a man capable of anything who nonetheless restricted himself to doing only therightthings. I wish there was a word for it because I don't feel like I'm making any sense.
