Chapter 7 Avery
AVERY
The door slams shut, cutting off the howl of the wind. Cold clings to Oliver like a second skin.
He stands there, massive back to me, shaking snow from his shoulders.
He looks like a mountain—immovable, rugged, capped in white.
The tension radiating off him is thick enough to taste.
Gone is the heavy static of wanting that’s filled the cabin for twenty-four hours. The air feels sharp now. Metallic.
Dangerous.
"You okay?" My voice sounds small in the cavernous room. I sit on the rug by the fire, nursing lukewarm coffee, wrapped in a blanket that smells of him.
Oliver turns slowly. His jaw sets hard, a muscle feathering near his ear. His eyes, usually that warm mossy green, look dark. Guarded. He scans the room, checking corners, measuring distances.
"Fine," he grunts. He strips off his heavy canvas jacket and hangs it on the peg. His movements are stiff. Agitated. "Just checking the perimeter. Storm’s doing a number on the ridge."
Lying. Or holding back the full truth.
"I’ve learned to read him. I know the tight set of his jaw at a drafty window, the softness in his gaze when he thinks I’m not looking." This isn’t annoyance. This is adrenaline. He vibrates with it.
He walks past me toward the kitchen. No touch. No kiss on my head or hand down my arm like this morning. He moves like a predator pacing its cage.
"Did something happen?" I shift on the rug to watch him. "With the storm?"
"Snow’s drifting." He grabs a water bottle, downing half in one go. "Might take out a few trees if the wind picks up. Nothing for you to worry about, Avery."
He uses my name like a shield. Avery. Not Little Bird.
"I can worry if I want to." I try to keep the mood light. "It is my cabin down there getting buried, remember?"
He freezes, bottle halfway to his mouth. His eyes go distant, staring at the stainless steel refrigerator door. Seeing something else. Something violent.
"Your cabin is fine," he says, voice dropping an octave. "I made sure of it."
"You went all the way down there?"
He sets the bottle down. Thack. The sound echoes too loudly. "I said it’s fine."
He turns, stalking toward the hallway. "I need to radio Logan. Update him on road conditions. Stay by the fire. You’re trembling."
He disappears before I can argue.
The heavy oak door to his office clicks shut. The lock slides home.
I’m alone, but the silence feels heavy. Loaded. I look around the cabin that has become my entire world. Exposed beams, stone hearth, furniture built to withstand a siege. It feels safe. Permanent.
But the man who built it slips through my fingers.
I stand, testing my weight. My ankle throbs—a dull ache—but holds. I limp toward the kitchen, rinsing my mug. The window looks out onto a wall of white. Snow falls thick and fast, erasing the world.
I wonder what he’s telling Logan. Why he locked the door.
Restlessness itches under my skin. I can’t sit and wait for him to decide to be Oliver again. I need to be useful.
The wood stack next to the hearth is low. Oliver usually handles it, hauling massive armfuls like they weigh nothing, but I’m not helpless.
I limp to the heavy timber door. The mudroom is freezing, smelling of damp earth and pine resin. I grab three logs from the stack, rough bark digging into my forearms.
My hip bumps a narrow table in the corner. A stack of mail slides to the floor.
"Dammit," I whisper, balancing the wood against my chest as I squat to pick up the envelopes.
Mostly junk. Flyers, catalogs. But underneath lies a small, battered wooden box. It must have sat on the edge, hidden. It hit the floor hard, latch springing open.
I freeze.
Rough-hewn, dark stained oak. Contents spilled onto the slate.
I shouldn't look. This is his privacy. The part of him he locks away. But the glint of silver chain catches my eye. Curiosity wins.
I set the logs down. Reach out. Fingers brush cold metal.
Dog tags.
Old, scratched, dull with wear. I run my thumb over the raised lettering.
GUNNAR, OLIVER. O POS. NO PREF.
The chain is heavy in my palm. Cold, but it burns. I knew he was military—he moves with disciplined lethality, wears the scars—but the tags make it real. Put a history to the silence.
I pick up the other items.
A photograph, bent at the corner. Oliver, younger. Beard shorter. Grinning—a real, wide, carefree grin I’ve never seen. His arm around another man, a blonde guy with a hawk tattoo on his neck. Behind them, a Humvee and endless sand. They look invincible.
A patch. Unit insignia. Lightning bolt and dagger. Edges frayed, dark stains soaking the embroidery.
Dried blood.
My breath hitches. I drop the patch.
A folded piece of paper. Yellowed, crinkled from being clenched in a fist. I don't open it. Violation too far. But I see the handwriting.
For the Vanguard.
I sit back on my heels, cold seeping into my jeans, clutching the tags.
The Vanguard.
He told me that’s what they call him. The one who watches. I thought it was biker posturing. Looking at the photo, the blood-stained patch, I realize the truth.
It’s a penance.
He’s not up here for the view. He’s still on watch. Guarding a perimeter in his head, protecting himself from a war that ended years ago.
"What are you doing?"
A low rumble vibrates through the floorboards.
I jump, heart slamming against ribs. Twist around.
Oliver fills the doorway. Hands clenched into fists. His face is tight, pupils blown wide, swallowing the green.
"I—I dropped some wood." I scramble to gather the items. "The table—it just fell."
He crosses the distance in two strides. He drops to his knees, ignoring the logs. Snatches the photo. Jerky, desperate movements. He grabs the patch, the box, shoving them back inside with trembling hands.
"Oliver." I reach out.
He flinches. "Don't."
He grabs the dog tags from my hand. His skin brushes mine—ice against warmth. He clutches them tight, metal biting into his palm.
"You shouldn't be digging in here." Voice rough. Gravel. "This isn't for you."
"I wasn't digging." My voice holds steady despite the pounding in my ears. "It fell. Oliver, look at me."
He stares at the box in his hands. Chest heaving. "Go back to the fire, Avery."
"No."
He looks up. Eyes blazing. "No?"
"No." I shift, kneeling in front of him, ignoring the pain in my ankle. I cover his large, clenched fist with both hands. "You don't get to do that. You don't get to pull me into your bed and then shut me out the second things get real."
He laughs. A dark, bitter sound. "Real? You think this is real? A snowstorm and a rotting porch railing? That’s a vacation."
He gestures to the box. "This? This is real. The blood on that patch? That’s real."
"I know."
"You don't know shit." He pulls away. Stands up, towering over me. "You see a grumpy guy in a cabin. You think it’s a fairytale. Beauty and the fucking Beast."
He paces to the window, staring at the whiteout. "I didn't come up here to play house. I came up here because I’m no good down there. In the town. With the people."
I stand slowly, using the wall. "Why?"
Silence stretches. The wind batters the glass.
"Because it’s too loud," he whispers. "The noise. The chatter. Everyone talking about nothing. And I’m always listening for the snap. The click. The intake of breath before the trigger pull."
He turns. The raw vulnerability in his expression tears at me.
"I was a scout. Recon. My job was to see things before they happened. To clear the path. Keep them safe." He taps the box on the table. "I missed one. Just one. And my unit paid for it."
The man in the photo.
"That’s why you’re the Vanguard," I realize aloud. "You’re still trying to clear the path."
"I’m dangerous, Avery." His eyes plead with me to run. "I see threats where there aren't any. I wake up with my hands around a throat before I know I’m awake. I’m not... I’m not built for soft things."
He looks at me like I’m made of glass. Like breathing the same air might shatter me.
"You haven't hurt me." I walk toward him across the mudroom floor. "You caught me when I fell. You fixed my ankle. You kept me warm. You’re the safest place I’ve ever been."
"For now," he says darkly. "Until the snow melts."
The words hang. Heavy. Suffocating.
Until the snow melts.
The fear. For both of us.
For him, melting snow means the return of the world. Noise. Expectations. Intruders. For me... the end.
I stop a few feet away. A cold knot forms in my stomach. I’ve focused on the storm, on the heat between us. Ignored the inevitable thaw.
When roads clear, I go back to my rotting shack. He goes back to solitude.
He built this life to keep people out. Fortified walls. Barred doors. Silence. I’m just an anomaly. A glitch caused by a blizzard.
"Is that what I am?" I ask, voice trembling. "Just something to pass the time until the roads open?"
His jaw tightens. He grips the window sill until the wood groans.
"You’re not a pastime, Little Bird." The nickname slips out, rough and unwilling. "You’re the first thing that’s made sense in five years."
My heart leaps. He crushes it with his next breath.
"And that’s why you have to go when the plows come through."
He pushes off the sill. Walks past me. Grabs his jacket.
"Where are you going?" Panic flares in my chest.
"Out," he says, not looking back. "Need to chop more wood. Those three logs won't last the night."
The door slams.
I stand alone in the mudroom. Cold air swirls around my ankles. I look at the floor where the box fell.
He tries to protect me. He thinks his darkness is contagious. A weapon to be kept in a locked cabinet.
Wrong.
I walk into the living room and sink onto the couch, pulling the blanket tight. The fire burns bright. Defiant against the storm.
Last night, his touch held reverence. Desperation. A man starving, not a man broken.
He thinks he can push me away to save me. Thinks once the snow melts, he can return to being the ghost on the mountain.
I look at the heavy door he walked out of.
I’m not afraid of his ghosts.
Outside, the rhythmic thwack of an ax splits the wind. He fights his demons the only way he knows how. With work. With sweat. With brute force.
Let him chop wood. Let him brood.
I curl my legs under me. The radio in his office crackles to life, a muffled voice cutting through the quiet. Logan. A reminder that the world waits to crash back in.
I close my eyes and listen to the axe fall.
Until the snow melts.
I pull the blanket tighter. I’m not going anywhere.