Chapter 2 - Rhett
The door shuts behind her and the silence rushes back in like water filling a hole.
I stand there, fist still clenched around the door handle, breathing hard like I've been running. My heart pounds against my ribs. Too fast, too hard. The bear stirs in the cage I've built for it, pressing against the bars, curious about the scent she left behind.
I shove it down. Lock it deeper.
The cabin feels smaller than it did this morning. The walls press in. I can still smell her: something sweet and alive, like spring water and wildflowers and sunshine. It clings to the air near the door, lingers in the clearing outside.
I hate it.
I hate that she found this place. That she stood there with her camera and her bright eyes and her complete lack of survival instinct, looking at me like I was something interesting instead of something dangerous.
I hate that she smelled like that.
My hands shake as I cross to the small shelf where I keep the bottles. The mason jar of moonshine is half-empty from last night. I pour three fingers into a tin cup and knock it back, welcoming the burn.
It doesn't help.
The bear is still awake, still restless. It hasn't been this alert in months, maybe years. Ever since I started drowning it in alcohol and isolation, it's been quiet. A distant rumble I could ignore.
Now it's pacing.
*She smelled like home,* the bear whispers. *Like safety. Like—*
"Shut up," I growl out loud to the empty cabin.
I pour another drink. Then another.
She'll go to the ranger station like I told her. She'll leave in the morning, go back to her life in town, forget this ever happened. Delete the footage like I told her to. Move on.
People always move on from things that scare them. And I saw the fear in her eyes, even if she tried to hide it. She knows what I am, even if she doesn't know what I am. Some part of her recognized a predator when she saw one.
Good. Better that way. Safer.
I drain the cup again and slam it down on the rough-hewn table I built three years ago. The impact sends a crack running through the bottom.
I gave her twenty minutes. Twenty minutes where she sat by the stream in my clearing, in my space, filling it with her presence. I watched from the window like a coward, unable to look away even though every instinct screamed at me to ignore her until she left.
She looked good. Curves everywhere, the kind of body that shouldn't survive out here but clearly did. Her braid had come loose during her hike, dark red strands escaping around her face. Freckles scattered across her nose and cheeks. She'd smiled at me even when I was growling at her to leave.
Who smiles at a monster?
The same kind of person who hikes twelve miles alone and goes off-trail without telling anyone. The kind who sees a massive, scarred stranger emerge from the woods and decides to strike up a conversation instead of running.
Stupid. Reckless. Dangerous.
And now I can't stop thinking about her.
I grab the bottle and take it to the porch, dropping into the chair I carved from a fallen oak. The night is cold, stars scattered across the sky like broken glass. The forest is alive with small sounds—owls hunting, rodents scurrying, wind through the branches.
Usually this soothes me. The reminder that I'm alone, that I'm far from everything I destroyed.
Tonight it feels empty.
I drink until the bottle is gone and the stars blur together. Until the bear finally quiets, retreating back into its cage. Until I can convince myself that tomorrow I'll wake up and this will feel like a dream, hazy and unimportant.
I'm still sitting there when the sun rises.
A few hours later…
The forge is already hot when I realize I've been working for three hours.
Sweat drips down my back, soaks through the tank top I threw on this morning. My hands move, hammer striking hot iron, the rhythm as familiar as breathing. The small garage I built fifty yards from the cabin is filled with heat, smoke and the ring of metal on metal.
This is meditation for me. The only thing that quiets my mind better than alcohol. When I'm working, I don't think about the bodies. Don't hear their screams. Don't see their faces.
I'm making a knife. Not because I need one. I have a dozen already, but because my hands need something to do. The blade is taking shape under my hammer, the edge forming with each strike.
I built this forge two years ago when the nightmares got so bad I couldn't sleep.
Taught myself blacksmithing from an old manual I found in an abandoned ranger station, trial and error and burned hands until I figured it out.
Now I make things. Knives, hooks, hinges, nails.
Practical things. Things that serve a purpose.
I sell them sometimes, on the rare occasions I go into town. Leave them at the trading post with no name attached, take the cash they leave for me. It's enough for the supplies I can't make or hunt myself.
The steel glows orange-red. I plunge it into the water barrel and steam hisses up in a cloud.
That's when I hear footsteps.
My whole body goes rigid. The bear snaps awake instantly, alert and focused. I know those footsteps, lighter than they should be for someone moving through the forest but determined. Confident.
No.
She wouldn't. I told her not to come back. Explicitly. Threateningly. But the footsteps keep coming, and then she's there, pushing through the trees into the small clearing where my garage stands open to the morning air.
Autumn West. Looking exactly like she did yesterday except her braid is neater and she's wearing a different shirt, this one dark green and already marked with sweat. Her backpack is smaller, a day pack instead of the full hiking bag.
And she's smiling.
Actually smiling, at me, the man who told her to leave and never return.
"Good morning!" she calls out, like we're neighbors, like this is normal.
I stare at her, hammer still in my hand, trying to process what I'm seeing.
"I told you not to come back," I finally manage. My voice comes out rougher than usual, raw from not speaking and from the smoke.
"You did," she agrees cheerfully, crossing the clearing toward the garage. "But I couldn't leave without thanking you properly. You saved my butt yesterday. The ranger station was exactly where you said, and, oh my God, are you a blacksmith?"
Her eyes have gone wide, darting around the garage. Taking in the forge, the anvil, the tools hanging on the wall, the racks of finished pieces.
"That's amazing," she breathes. "I've never seen an actual working forge before. Is this all self-taught? How hot does the fire get? What are you making?"
The questions tumble out rapid-fire. She moves closer, craning her neck to see the knife I just quenched.
"Stop," I raise my voice. "Don't come any closer."
She freezes immediately, and I see hurt flash across her face before she masks it.
"The forge is dangerous," I say, softer but no less firm. "You can't just walk into a working blacksmith shop. Hot metal, sparks, fire, you'll get hurt."
"Oh." She looks down at herself, then back at the forge. "You're right. Sorry. I wasn't thinking. I just got excited."
She backs up several steps, giving me space. But she doesn't leave.
I set the hammer down and move away from the forge, putting myself between her and the heat. Up close, in daylight, she's even prettier than I thought. Her hazel eyes are bright with genuine enthusiasm, no trace of the fear from yesterday.
She should be afraid.
"Why are you here?" I demand.
"I told you. To thank you." She swings her pack around and unzips it. "I brought offerings. Chocolate, fruit, some of those fancy granola bars from the health food store in town. I didn't know what you'd like, so I got a variety."
She pulls out the items as she lists them. Two chocolate bars, a bag of apples, another of oranges, a box of granola bars. She sets them on the workbench like gifts at an altar.
"I don't want your food," I say.
"Everyone wants chocolate," she counters. "It's basically a universal constant. Besides, you fed me yesterday. Fair's fair."
"That was so you wouldn't die on my mountain. Not an invitation for friendship."
"Your mountain?" She raises an eyebrow. "That's a little presumptuous. I'm pretty sure the national forest belongs to everyone."
"We're not in the national forest. We're on private land."
"Your private land?"
I don't answer. It's complicated. The land belongs to someone, probably, but they haven't been here in decades. I've been squatting for five years and no one's complained. As far as I'm concerned, it's mine by right of occupation.
She waits for me to elaborate. When I don't, she just shrugs.
"Well, either way, consider this a thank you. I really do appreciate you making sure I got somewhere safe. A lot of people wouldn't have bothered."
"Most people also wouldn't have shown up uninvited the next day."
"I'm not most people."
"Clearly."
We stare at each other. Her expression is open, friendly, completely undeserved given how I've treated her. There's no angle I can see, no ulterior motive. She genuinely seems to just want to thank me.
It's been so long since someone was kind to me that I've forgotten how to respond. She shifts her weight, glancing past me at the forge again.
"How long have you been doing this?" she asks. "The blacksmithing?"
"Why do you care?"
"Because it's interesting. Because you're interesting."
"I'm not."
"You're a hermit blacksmith living alone on a mountain. That's literally the definition of interesting."
"I'm dangerous," I say. "I'm not friendly. I don't want company. You should leave and not come back. Again."
"Are you going to hurt me?" she asks, and there's no fear in the question. Just curiosity.
"No," I say immediately. Then, because I need her to understand: "But I could. Easily. You don't know me. You don't know what I've done."
"You're right," she agrees. "I don't know you. But I know you made sure I had food yesterday. And directions. And you're working out here in a garage you built yourself, making beautiful things. People who make beautiful things aren't the ones I'm scared of."
She's wrong. So catastrophically wrong. I've made plenty of beautiful things with these hands, and I've also used them to kill. To tear apart. To destroy everything I ever cared about.
But I can't tell her that. Can't explain what I am, what I've done.
"The chocolate has sea salt in it," she says, apparently taking my silence as acceptance. "The dark kind, not milk. And the apples are Honeycrisp, best ones at the market. The oranges are just oranges, but they're organic or whatever."
She's babbling now, nervous despite her bravado. Good. She should be nervous, and I should scare her away. Say something cruel. Threaten her. Make her understand that I'm serious about being left alone.
Instead, I hear myself say: "Two years."
She blinks. "What?"
"Blacksmithing. I've been doing it for two years."
Why did I tell her that? What is wrong with me?
Her whole face lights up. "I knew it! I knew there was a story here. How did you learn? Where did you get the equipment? Do you sell the pieces or just make them for yourself?"
"No," I say firmly.
"No what?"
"No story. No interview. No vlog content. I answered one question because you brought food, not because I want to be featured on whatever channel you run."
The light dims a little, but she doesn't look offended. "Fair enough. Off the record, then. Just conversation. Do you sell the pieces?"
"Sometimes."
"Where?"
"Trading post in town. They don't ask questions."
"The one on Route 9? Run by the old guy with the eye patch?"
Despite myself, my mouth twitches. "That's the one."
"My mom buys jam there. He makes it himself from blackberries he grows out back." She picks up one of the apples and polishes it on her shirt. "Small world. Or small town, I guess."
She takes a bite, the crunch loud in the relative quiet. I've let the forge die down, and without the roar of fire and clang of hammer, the forest sounds filter in. Birds, wind, the distant gurgle of the stream.
"You're from Blackwater Falls," I say. Not a question.
"Born and raised. You?"
"No."
"Where are you from?"
"Doesn't matter."
"Everything matters," she says. "That's what makes life interesting."
I don't know what to say to that. Don't know how to explain that for me, for what I am, the less that matters the better. The smaller my world, the safer everyone else is.
She finishes the apple and tucks the core into her pack. She leaves no trace, good hiker habits, then picks up an orange.
"I should go," she says, but she doesn't move. "I'm sure you want to get back to work. And I have footage to edit from yesterday. I got some great shots of the clearing, but don't worry, I deleted the ones with you in them like you asked."
Something in my chest eases slightly. "Good."
"Yeah." She peels the orange. "I figured you had your reasons for being up here alone. Didn't seem right to broadcast your location to thousands of people without permission."
Thousands. She has thousands of followers. The thought makes my skin crawl.
"Here." She holds out half the orange.
"I don't—"
"You've been working in front of a hot forge for hours. You're dehydrated. Eat the orange."
It's not a request. She pushes it into my hand, and my fingers close around it. The fruit is cool, refreshing after the heat of the forge. I tell myself I'm only eating it to make her leave faster.
It's the best thing I've tasted in five years.
We stand there in the morning sun, eating orange slices in silence. Her pack is at her feet, the chocolate and granola bars still sitting on my workbench. She's humming something under her breath, some tune I don't recognize, completely comfortable despite my obvious discomfort.
She shouldn't be here. I should make her go.
But the bear has settled, calm for the first time since she appeared yesterday. And the cabin won't feel quite as empty if I have chocolate to look forward to later.
"Okay," she says, finishing the orange and tucking that peel away too. "I really am going now. Thanks for letting me see the forge. It's incredible. And for the orange-sharing moment."
She hoists her pack, adjusts the straps.
"Autumn," I say before I can stop myself.
She turns, eyebrows raised. "Yeah?"
"The knife. I'm making a knife."
Her smile could light up the entire mountain.
"Cool," she says. "Maybe you'll show me the finished product sometime."
Then she's walking away, back toward the trail that leads to town, leaving me standing in my garage with the taste of oranges on my tongue and the terrifying realization that some part of me, some stupid, reckless part, hopes she comes back.