Chapter 3
CHAPTER
THREE
ALMA
I don’t move. I just…lock up. It’s like my brain has gone momentarily offline and taken the rest of me with it.
“The what?” I ask, because apparently, my mouth is still operational even if my comprehension isn’t.
Crew doesn’t answer right away. He’s still standing there, calm as ever, as if he didn’t just suggest we take my dead husband somewhere that sounds like a supervillain’s lair.
“The sulfur pits,” he repeats.
I blink once. Twice. “The volcano sulfur pits? As in the ones that smell like Satan’s armpit and come with extremely clear warning signs about toxic gas and death?”
He tips his head. “Those are the ones.”
I laugh, actually laugh, because if I don’t I might scream, and screaming would attract the wrong kind of attention. “Okay, cool, just checking because for a second there I thought you meant something else, like an exclusive bar, or I don’t know, a metaphor?”
Crew doesn’t respond. He doesn’t even make a sound.
He just steps past me and crouches, hands firm and efficient as he grips Lance beneath the arms. One smooth motion with a grunt and he hauls him up, settling my husband across his shoulders like the dead weight is just another variable to account for.
Lance’s arm slips loose, dangling uselessly, his wedding ring catching the moonlight as it swings.
My stomach lurches at the sight of it.
I try not to look, but I fail.
Horribly.
My gaze snaps back despite myself, tracking the way Crew adjusts his grip, how solid and unhurried he looks doing something that should not look this easy.
It’s not reverent exactly, but it’s not careless either.
Then, as though this were the most natural next step in the world, he turns and starts walking.
I hesitate for half a second, long enough to realize there isn’t another option, before following behind him.
Save for the crunching of grass beneath our feet, it’s eerily silent.
Every hair on my body rises at attention, more still when I note the night somehow feels thicker here, heavier.
It almost feels like it’s watching us pass and filing the information away for later.
The further we tread, the more the forest closes in around us, and while I know better, I can’t shake the feeling there’s someone—or something—behind us.
With that thought in mind, I speed up slightly, falling into step beside Crew.
A slight breeze whips past me, and before I can stop myself, my brain latches onto the smell wafting up from the hoodie he gave me.
Clean. Pine and soap, and something darker underneath.
Metal maybe, or leather—or just him. It’s grounding in a way that feels unfair.
Unfair because my senses have no right reaching for comfort given the situation.
Absolutely not, I tell myself. Now is not the time to notice how good a man smells.
Still, I find myself pulling the hoodie tighter around my body anyway, the fabric warm and immensely oversized.
When he handed it to me earlier, I was confused, and while I know now it was just to cover up the brightness of my shirt, a part of me wants to believe it’s almost like he knew I’d need it.
The weight of that sentiment—whether factual or fantasy—makes my stomach flutter.
I also hate (with a fiery passion) that my next thought is how attractive he looks right now.
In the dark.
In the middle of the woods.
Carrying a dead body.
This is not a kink I asked to discover.
Focus, I scold myself. You just killed your husband. You do not get to be attracted to the man helping you hide the evidence.
But it’s so hard. Dirty blond hair peeks out from the brim of his beanie, sweeping over his forehead and tickling his neck. His blue eyes are absolutely hypnotizing. And don’t get me started on the hard lines of jaw. Even dusted with stubble, they’re not hard to see.
“I feel like I should say…” I blurt out, partly to fill the silence but mostly to keep my brain from spiraling into places it has no business going. “That this is exactly how people disappear.”
“Statistically?”
“Yes.”
Crew hums, the sound amused yet thoughtful. “You’re not wrong.”
“That’s not reassuring,” I mutter.
“I wasn’t trying to reassure you,” he counters.
“Wonderful,” I half chuckle, giving a little shake to my head. “Love that for me.”
Nothing follows. Not words anyway. From one moment to the next, though, the air around us changes. The familiar earthy smells of the forest morph into something sharper, some more aggressive to the senses. Acrid and bitter—like burnt eggs and regret.
“Oh.” I almost gag, slapping a hand over my mouth. “I smell it.”
“Yeah,” Crew grunts. “We’re close.”
My stomach churns sourly, threatening to upheave the two glasses of wine I had earlier in the evening. “You do know sulfur fumes can kill you, right?”
Crew nods. “I do.”
“And yet—”
“And yet,” he parrots, “it’s either this or…”
There is no or. Burying Lance or throwing his remains into the nearest body of water doesn’t provide a permanent solution. At least, not one free of consequences. No, this is the only way, and he knows it.
“So,” I say after several silent moments. The silence feels too dangerous. “Do you…do this a lot?”
Crew glances over at me, an eyebrow arched high in question. “Carry bodies through the woods?”
“Yes, but also no. I meant more helping park ranger’s daughters clean up their…messes?”
“No.” He shakes his head, earning him a snort on my part.
“Good, because that really would’ve raised some ethical questions.”
“Your dad didn’t give me details if that’s what you’re worried about,” he follows up, returning his attention to the nonexistent path in front of us.
“I didn’t expect him to. Then again, I didn’t really know what to expect. He didn’t tell me he was sending you, or anyone else for that matter.”
“He just said you were scared,” Crew continues. “And that you needed someone who wouldn’t panic.”
I swallow. “How am I doing on that front?”
“Well, you’re still walking, right?”
“I have strong legs.”
“And a sense of humor,” he chuckles. “That helps.”
The words hit harder than I expect. I open my mouth to deflect, to joke again, but nothing comes out except a tight bob of my head. “I don’t feel brave,” I admit quietly.
“I didn’t say you were… But you’re here,” he follows up quickly. “And that counts for something.”
We walk the rest of the way in silence, the smell growing stronger by the second. The ground underfoot turns rocky and uneven as the trees thin ahead, opening into a clearing where steam curls up from fissures in the earth, pale and ghostlike in the moonlight.
I don’t know what I was expecting, but the sulfur pits are infinitely worse up close. The smell burns the back of my throat, my eyes watering like a tsunami eating up the coast as the air around us grows infinitely heavier.
Suffocatingly so.
Crew stops at the edge of the clearing and readjusts Lance’s weight. “Alright, I need you to stay back.”
Nodding, I move back a few paces, gravel crunching under my sneakers as I lift the sleeve of the hoodie to cover my nose as best I can. “What happens now?”
He doesn’t answer immediately, watching the haze and vents intently—things I don’t understand but instinctively trust him to. “We make sure this doesn’t get worse.”
I bob my head again, because nodding is something I can do without falling apart. One half of me is utterly horrified, the other weirdly mesmerized by how controlled he is, how deliberate every movement feels.
Competence, my brain offers unhelpfully, is incredibly attractive.
Please shut up, I beg it. Now is not to the time to—
“Hey.” The deep baritone of Crew’s voice meets my ears, forcing me out of my head. “You’re doing great. I know it probably doesn’t feel like it, but you are.”
For a terrifying second I think I might cry, but thankfully, I don’t, managing to inhale a much needed breath and offer him a soft smile.
Crew’s mouth just barely twitches as moves past me, stepping closer to the edge of the pit.
Maybe it’s self-preservation, but something tells me to look away, and I listen to it.
I don’t need to look to know what’s about to happen.
There’s a controlled exhale that follows, undoubtedly from Crew adjusting his grip one last time, and then a sound I’ll never be able to unhear.
It’s not a thud or a splash, but something hollow and all too final as the body disappears into the pit.
What’s more unnerving is that then there’s nothing.
No echo, no cinematic aftermath—just steam hissing softly, the earth itself closing over what we’ve given it.
My knees wobble in a way they never have before. I press a hand to my stomach and breathe through the sudden pang of nausea until the world steadies again. When I finally muster the strength to look up, Crew’s expression is unreadable.
“Is it…is it done?” I question because my brain isn’t fully processing what just happened.
He focuses on the pit for a moment longer. “The heat and acidity will take care of skin and musculature fast. Hours, maybe less.”
My throat tightens. “And the rest?”
He looks back at me then, honest and unflinching. “Bone takes longer.”
The words settle heavy in my chest, panic unfurling like a vengeful beast from the recesses of my mind. Red flags wave about as a reel of all the worst case scenarios play out in perfect succession. “W-we can’t just leave then,” I say quietly.
“No, we shouldn’t. We need to get out of here for now, though, and grab a few things, then we’ll come back.
There’s an outpost cabin about a mile from here.
It’s one of the older few. There’s no cell service or foot traffic this time of year, which will make it easy to go to and from undetected for the next few days.
” He tips his chin behind me and starts back the way we came, moving like the decision has already been made.
“Days?” I almost choke on my own saliva, my eyes nearly bulging out of their sockets. “We need to stay out here for days?”
He bobs his head and glances at me from over his shoulder. “At the very least, two. These pits are fairly acidic and should get through the bone quickly.”
As if they were alive and in agreement, the pits hiss softly behind us. Ahead of us, the night stretches on, unfinished. I don’t know how many lines I crossed tonight, but something tells me I’m not done crossing them just yet.