You see, little Ghost, that’s the thing.
The part people expect to break you isn’t always the part that does. Sometimes it’s the moment you realize youcould havestopped but chose not to.
My body went slack under him; I didn’t have anything left to push against. The fight drained out of me all at once, leaving something heavier in its place. Something that sat deep in my chest and didn’t move when I tried to breathe through it. Zwierek let go, just like that. The pressure disappeared, his weight lifting off me as he stood, stepping back just enough to give me space without actually… leaving. I stayed where I was for a second, maybe longer. Then I pushed myself up, slow and unsteady.
The forest felt different now, like it had shifted while I wasn’t paying attention. He didn’t say anything at first, but then,
“Hey.”Not biting this time. I looked at him. Something in his expression had changed. He reached out and steadied me when I didn’t quite find my balance on my own.
“It’s done,”he said.
“You hear me?”
I swallowed.
“You’re still here,”he continued, his grip firm on my shoulder, grounding in a way I didn’t expect.
“Nothing changes that.”Everything changes that, I thought, but I didn’t say it.“It’s going to be fine,”he added, and it should’ve sounded empty, but it didn’t.“We just need to move.”
We…I nodded. He didn’t push for more. Just stepped back, giving me space again, but not too much. Never too much. I glanced past him, back to the way we came.
“Come on,”he said.
I followed, and as we moved deeper into the trees, something settled into place inside me. Something that didn’t feel like it was going anywhere. That’s when I understood it. There’s a difference between doing something once, and realizing you’recapable of doing it again. And I knew, even then, which side I was on.
The Ashes
Chapter 17
We didn’t stop that night. There were moments when the urgency thinned, when our steps lost their frenzy and settled into something slower, almost laboring, but we kept moving. The forest changed with depth.
At first, it was almost impossible to notice, just a weird feeling creeping under my skin. The trees stood closer together, the air got thicker, damp in a way that clings to your clothes and settles into your skin. The ground softens under your feet, less path, more guesswork. Zwierek knew where he was going, or at least he walked like he did, which was enough for me, so I followed.
We found it by accident. Or maybe he already knew it was there and just didn’t say anything. With him, it was always hard to tell where instinct ended and intention began.
It wasn’t really a house. More some kind of structure, the forest had started reclaiming, board by board, as though it had never fully belonged to people in the first place. A hunting shelter, perhaps. The kind raised for a season, used hard, then left to weather into obscurity. It seemed less built than stranded there, dark with age, held upright by habit more than strength.
The wood was worn, darkened by years of rain. Parts of the roof slightly uneven, one side sinking just enough that you noticed it if you stood still long enough. But it was still standing, and that was enough. Inside smelled like damp wood and old smoke. There was a rusted metal stove in the corner, a narrow cot pushed up against the wall, and a table that leaned almost imperceptibly to the left like it had given up trying to stay straight. It wasn’t much, but it was everything.
We didn’t talk about staying, we just did.
The first nights were the worst, because of the silence. When everything finally went quiet, it was not relief I felt, little Ghost, but the nearness of something waiting.
I didn’t sleep much. Every sound felt wrong. Every shift in the trees outside, every crack of something unseen, every breath I took felt too loud. Like it might carry further than it should. And underneath all of it, that thought.
They’re going to find you.
I expected it. Every morning, every time we got close enough to anything resembling a road, a village, a place where people existed, I expected to hear it. My name. Something about what had happened. I listened for it without meaning to. I think it was the only normal reaction I’d ever had to anything.
I lay every night in that cabin listening to rainwater dripping against the wooden boards while my mind replayed everything that had happened all over again. Waited for it. Days began to settle around the absence, finding their own rough order.
We learned by necessity. There was no choice in it.
Zwierek dealt with food first, though never systematically. It was trial and error, rough improvisation, fortune varying from day to day. He taught me first to track small things. Rabbits mostly. Birds, when we were lucky. Creatures taken through patience rather than skill. They did not resist much. Later, it seemed easier, or perhaps we had simply grown used to crossing that threshold.
There were other ways too. Small shops on the outskirts of nearby towns, where things could vanish piecemeal without remark. Bread, canned food, whatever could be taken quickly.
After a while, you learned the habits of attention. Where eyes settled and where they passed over. Money was never part of it. Clothes were scavenged the same way, taken where they could be taken, worn until they nearly came apart.
