13
Hannah
A breeze at my back and he’s gone.
Our bags rest where he left them.
My fursuit lies beside an unused fire pit.
None of the birch trees sway to reveal his path.
Jack’s boots scrunch this way over the freezing slush, but there’s no sound of Gleb’s retreating footsteps. It’s like he never existed.
“Hannah! Oh God, thank the heavens I found you! How did you survive? Come here.”
Jack’s bear hug makes my skin crawl.
His cologne, flowery detergent, and deodorant threaten to suffocate me.
It doesn’t help that he wraps his arms around my head in a crushing embrace.
I force my arms to hug him back, but the feelings I once had while holding him aren’t there.
Gleb’s words play on a loop.
Did Jack ask to be saved before Madison?
“I’m fine,”
I say, pushing out of his hug.
“See? No bumps or scraps.
What are you doing in the Arctic? The crash scene was cleaned and everyone evacuated.”
“Not everyone,”
he says, clasping my chin between his finger and thumb.
“My little bubble brain didn’t stay with her group.
She wandered off, didn’t she?”
“Stop it,”
I whine, folding my arms across my chest.
“Could you not call me that?”
“It’s my name for you.
You always make the most bubble-brained decisions.
It’s what I love about my fiancée.”
“When did you propose?”
“Let’s not kid each other,”
he says, placing a hand on my lower back.
He pushes me toward his campsite.
“After I rescue you from the Arctic, who else would you marry? We’ve been together for years and I… I… I realized what I had after you were gone.”
“I’m not marrying you,”
I declare as I’m pushed from where I want to be.
Jack raises an eyebrow when I grab my fursuit and hat, but doesn’t say anything.
He doesn’t know my winter coat is in Gleb’s bag or that I just changed into my jeans.
I’ll want the extra warmth of my soiled fursuit without Gleb’s body to keep me warm at night…
Shit, I already miss him.
I should demand to stay here while Jack tells me his version of our rescue from the ice sheet story.
Who am I kidding? I can’t stay at the campsite and wait for Gleb to return.
Maybe Jack’s right about my bubble-brained decisions.
If only I had told Gleb I wanted to have a conversation with Jack and hadn’t made up my mind yet.
I need time and space to process… Jack’s alive and determined to smother me.
Gleb’s offering what I’ve always wanted but thinks I threw his love away.
He vanished.
What I really want more than anything in the world is a hot mug of cramp bark and a soak in a bathing pool.
By myself.
“Don’t cry,”
Jack says when my sniffles start.
He pulls me closer, and I wedge the fursuit between us before he offers another bone-crushing hug.
“You’re safe now.
I won’t let anything touch you.”
It’s my stupid hormones that make me cry easily, but I don’t dare tell Jack that.
Something about my period pisses him off each month.
Maybe he’s scared of blood.
Gleb’s obscene response to my period floats through my mind. In the two of them, I found the two extremes.
“Anyway, I knew I’d find you crying,”
Jack continues.
“What I didn’t expect is to find you fed and relatively clean.
Who took care of you?”
My pride burns the tears from my cheeks.
“Why do you assume I had a hero? What if I was my own damn hero?”
“Bubble brain, you can’t go to a restaurant without Googling the menu first.
How could you survive out here without a phone? Seriously, you have your groceries delivered.
Who does that?”
“Someone without a car in Los Angeles,”
I snap.
“It’s not like I have a full staff with a maid and limo driver when I live in a studio apartment.”
“Don’t be testy.
It’s just my observation.
Not everyone is equipped to survive in the Arctic Circle.
You grew up to be an indoor cat,”
he says, rubbing my fur suit.
“Where did you get this?”
“This suit’s fire, isn’t it? You wouldn’t believe I killed a pack of wolves who attacked me? Then I skinned their hides, tanned them with my own urine, and then I used their innards to sew the suit together?”
I laugh out loud at his frown because it’s ridiculous.
He knows me.
That’s why he says I wouldn’t survive on my own.
Without Gleb… sigh …
“No, I wouldn’t.”
“Okay, truth is I met a survivalist in a fursona who gave this to me.
He fed me and let me sleep in his underground home.
I used his bathing facilities—”
“Quit messing with me!”
Jack ruffles my hair until I pull away.
“Now I know you are totally delulu if you expect me to believe that story.”
“Well, then I slayed wolves and made it,”
I snap.
Why can’t I hold it together? Jack’s presence always calmed me when we were in the city.
What’s changed? Me? I doubt it.
If anyone is the victim in our story, it’s Jack. He didn’t want to come to the Arctic in the first place. He was almost drowned and came back for me. His presence shouldn’t irritate me. What’s wrong with me?
“Sit, eat, and rest,”
he says when we reach his campsite.
He plants me the folding chair I bought for my first Fourth of July parade.
Where did he get this? Was he in my apartment while I was with Gleb? I spread the fursuit over my lab, careful not to touch the stain to the clean fabric of my jeans.
He hands me a protein bar.
As I unwrap it, he pours liquid from the thermos I bought for the trip into two copper mugs with Bridal Party written on the bottom.
Dammit, those are my wedding favors from my boss’s wedding where I was a bride’s maid! Not only did he raid my place for supplies, but he also had whatever luggage of mine survived the crash.
Was he bringing stuff to me or scrounging for leftovers—assuming the worst?
“Thank you,”
I mumble.
Would I miss modern food if I joined Gleb’s clan? This bar tastes like cardboard—same consistency too.
Jack’s right about how restaurants give me anxiety.
Being forced to eat gross food to fit in with my parent’s friends left a scar on my palette. I can’t handle spices, strong vinegar, or desserts that are too sugary. The trend of salting every step in cooking for fine dining also disagrees with my temperamental tastes. Most broths and sauces taste like ocean water.
“Whatcha thinking? We both know there’s trouble when you’re quiet.”
“Ocean water,”
I blurt out.
“I’m wondering how to ask you what happened on the ice sheet.
My adrenaline was pushing me hard, so my memory of the events is fuzzy.”
Jack sits inside the entrance of his red tent.
He pulls a portable generator from behind him and sets it between us.
His giant boots stretch out and shake snow on me when he claps them together.
I glare at him as he leans back on his elbows with a smirk.
“The ice broke off when Tubby Ms.
Greene joined us with Madison’s snowsuit—”
“Be nice! When we’re middle-aged I doubt we will look much better.”
“Fine, the ice cracked as you and the distinguished Ms.
Greene struggled to put on Madison’s sweater.
We floated almost a mile out to sea before I convinced you two to abandon it.
You were so scared, but I knew we would be okay. With Madison in your arms, I carried you—and Ms. Greene—to shore, where we met with a disaster relief team. You were so out of it that I took Madison inside the second bus. One rescuer took Ms. Greene behind me. I assume another would assist you. I’m sorry I left you behind…but I knew you would want the baby to come first.”
I’m sorry, what? The incredulous look on my face isn’t enough to stop his wild tale.
He left out Gleb’s swim to the ice sheet and his almost drowning.
I can’t ask him about his fight with Gleb if he doesn’t admit Gleb was there.
My guts churn with alarm and threaten to send the cardboard protein bar back up. Maybe Jack hit his head… Maybe Gleb’s memory was dampened by exhaustion… Maybe I’m making excuses because these two guys are my only hope of returning to LA…
Do I want to return to LA?
“Do you remember if anyone else was on the ice sheet with us? Was there a rescue worker who helped us—”
“Several pulled us ashore,”
he says with an eye roll.
“It wasn’t a flat beach like a resort, Hannah.
It was a rocky, dangerous place to stop.
We should have camped further inland. Our tour company is shady. Ms. Greene has started a lawsuit against them. I signed for both of us—”
“You signed my name when you didn’t know if I was still alive?”
“I had faith in you…and knew how much you would want to support Ms.
Greene.
Wouldn’t it look suspicious if her suit didn’t include the nanny she brought on the trip?”
“Not if I was dead!”
“Bubble brain, it would be worse for you not to sign when you are alive than to have you sign and be found dead.
Think about it.”
I don’t want to think about it because when I do, it sounds like fraud.
Gleb
Anger, brighter than I’ve ever felt, smolders in my ribcage.
I feel rage everywhere, from under my toenails to the roots of the hair on my head.
She chose him.
She’s eating what he provides. At least she isn’t making the happy noises she hums when I feed her. The sour expressions on her face settle my ego but don’t reduce the rage. She’s suffering at his fire when I could make her happy at mine.
She pushed from his welcoming embrace.
He snarled at her when she brushed by his kiss, but I don’t think she noticed the attempt or retaliation.
She drinks cold liquids from a metal cup instead of cramp bark tea, which warms and soothes her aches.
I bet she misses her mug. Why didn’t she take our bags? They argue, but I can’t discern the words from this distance.
It’s my turn to smirk in my hiding place when she fans her soiled fursuit over her lap.
I hope she reeks of me.
It may smell of her blood, but I hope Jack is sensitive enough to smell how she perched on another male’s lap in that suit.
She may sit at his fire, but she’s mine.
Our hearts, souls, and minds are connected. It’s fate. Only she knows why she chose Jack, but I must trust that Hannah will return to me soon.
All too soon, he invites her into his tent.
With a sad look over her shoulder, she crawls inside.
My heart shatters.
I don’t know how long I sit in the cold and watch the tent before the sun sets. We won’t get a full night, but the few hours of darkness are enough to allow the predators to hunt. I best get to work, starting smoke fires around their campsite. I doubt Jack would defend her if faced with a bear or a pack of wolves.
Small pits, no more than half a meter in depth or diameter, must be lit every four or five meters to make the smoke ring.
I remember that much from Sergei’s lesson.
We were butchering a large number of kills when time got away from us.
Artyom and Denis walked in one direction while we went the other to create the smoke ring in half the time. I was a juvenile, so my twenty paces between fires were comparable to Sergei’s ten. I split the difference now. That’s fortunate—my large fire is ready to go at my campsite, so lighting the little ones is easy.
Please don’t let it rain.
“Hey, baby, I know it’s late, but I have good news.”
The whisper draws me to Jack’s campsite like a moth to a flame.
His star-finder box illuminates him from below as if he’s about to be swallowed by flames.
“I found Hannah.
No, she doesn’t know we’re talking. She’s asleep in the tent. I had to wait for it to get dark to call you. You know there’s like no dark up here.”
Curiosity brings me into my smoke ring and to the edge of the treeline that protects him.
I sit in a cross-legged seat to obscure my height and blend in with the slushy ground.
“Yes, call the reward hotline.
Yeah, I hope you get to talk to them, too.
Can you believe that dumb bitch is their daughter? How can two famous actors create such a homebody? I know, right?”
I want to smash something—like his face.
I don’t know what a homebody is, but I hate the way he called Hannah the word.
Who is the other person in his star-finder box? This other person is who he wants to be with.
It’s obvious. Why is he with Hannah?
“Thanks for doing this.
I know you hate phone calls, but I couldn’t risk putting our plans in text.
We are in the home stretch.
We’ll collect the reward for finding Hannah and the settlement from the suit against the tour company. Double the money, baby! Have you picked out your purses yet? You better add matching shoes. Yeah, you know how I love your heels by my ears. You know it. Love you too.”
That seals his fate.
He plans to dump Hannah with her parents and disappear with the mysterious star-finder box person.
It will break her heart.
What is he doing? He throws his coat into the snow and opens the tent, releasing the scent of her blood into the smoke ring. Why would he risk their safety? My skin itches with the need to attack when he crawls into the tent with my mate. There isn’t enough room for the two of them.
If he hurts her…I may have to kill him again…