The sudden acceleration rips my voice out of my throat.
I scream as I wrap my arms around his waist and press my face into the back of his jacket. We lurch forward, engine bellowing, and tear out of the logging camp on a trail I can barely see. Branches whip past on either side, some painful. The headlight on the snowmobile cuts a jerky cone of white through the darkening woods, illuminating trees, snow, more trees, a rock that Afon swerves around at the last possible second.
Behind us, the sound of the returning truck's engine fades, replaced by the growl of our own machine and the wind roaring past my ears.
I have no idea how Afon knows where he's going. The trail, such as it is, seems to exist only in his memory—a series of turns and gaps between trees that he navigates at a speed I'd categorize asmedically inadvisable.We hit a dip and go briefly airborne. I scream again.
"You good?" Afon shouts over the engine.
"No!"
He nods and we keep going, out into the cold, dark night.
The cabin appears out of the darkness like a hallucination. For so long, it's been nothing but black woods and the pale stripes of birch trunks in the headlight. Then, abruptly, the forest fades and the clearing opens up, and there it is: cedar shingles, stonechimney, the woodpile, the whole rustic postcard of it. I wouldn't call it "home," but there's a distinct feeling of relief upon seeing it again.
Afon kills the engine and the silence that follows is so sudden and total that my ears ring.
Wolf is at the door before we are, barking over and over, a deep chorus ofwoofsthat vibrate through the porch boards. Afon carries me inside—I've stopped protesting, because my ankle feels like it's the size of a watermelon right now—and sets me on the couch. Wolf shoves his enormous head into my lap immediately, whining, his tail a blur.
Afon locks the door, moves the Remington to its spot against the wall, and crosses to the window. He stands there for a long time, scanning the clearing, one hand resting on the sill. Whatever he's looking for, he doesn't seem to find it, because after a while he exhales through his nose and pulls the curtain.
Then he kneels in front of the fireplace and starts building a fire.
I watch him do it. Kindling, then the smaller logs, then the larger ones. A match. The orange bloom of flame catching, spreading, stabilizing. His movements are steady and precise. He seems perfectly fine. If I didn't know any better, I'd say there's no way he just spent the last hour incapacitating six armed men and outrunning a seventh on a snowmobile through pitch-black woods with a grown woman clinging to his torso.
Meanwhile, I am coming apart.
It starts in my hands. They won't stop shaking. I press them between my knees, but that doesn't work, so I sit on them. But that doesn't work, either. In fact, it makes things worse. The trembling migrates up my arms, into my shoulders, downthrough my ribs. My jaw locks. My teeth chatter so hard I can hear them, this awful, involuntary percussion that I can't make stop no matter how hard I clench.
"Caroline."
Afon is in front of me. I didn't see him move. He's holding a blanket, the same plaid one from the first time we did this whole song and dance, and he drapes it around my shoulders, tucking it tight. His hands are warm and soft and enormous.
"Breathe," he advises.
I try. The air goes in but it doesn't find its way to anywhere useful. It just sits at the top of my chest in a hot, useless knot, and when I try to push it deeper, a humiliating little sob leaks out of me like air from a punctured balloon.
"In through your nose," Afon instructs. "Out through your mouth. Slow."
I try again. Same result. The shaking is worse now, not better. My vision is doing that thing from the bunkhouse, the black edges creeping in, and I can smell Gold Chain's breath on my neck even though he's miles away and almost certainly nursing several broken ribs.
"I c-can't—" I lick my cold-chapped lips. "I can't make it stop."
Afon studies me for a moment. I see his eyes sorting through options, ruling out this and that. Then he nods, like he's arrived at the final route and doesn't like it one bit.
Then he drags me down to the floor, puts me between his massive legs, and pulls me into his chest.
I don't know if he's ever been taught the concept of "cuddling" before. He feels like a man who's teaching it to himself based off first principles. It's a stiff, reluctant embrace, and I get the feeling that he'd rather be back in the bunkhouse bare-knuckle boxing, but he doesn't let go.
"You're safe," he whispers into my ear, close enough for his beard to tickle the delicate skin of my temple. "You're in my cabin. The door is locked. Wolf is here. I'm here. No one is coming."
I turn, press my face into his sweater, and cry.
I'm afraid it's an ugly girl cry. At least he lets me keep my face hidden from him. Because I justknowthat snot is running full barrel from both nostrils, my cheeks are blotchy red, and my eyes are already swollen. It bears zero resemblance to any sort ofGone with the Windstyle display of grand feminine sadness. No Hollywood director is rushing to film this for posterity and Oscars recognition. It's just what happens when the fear finally catches up to you.
I didn't let myself feel it back there, with Gold Chain's calloused fingertips sneaking up under my shirt, so it's all crashing down on me now, every suppressed second of it, an avalanche, a flood, a world-ending disaster.
Afon lets me have it. He refuses to let go of me. I stay there, nestled in the crook of his elbow, until the sobs ease, the snot dries, and the tears slowly retreat back from whence they came.
