Chapter 5
Wren
Slowly, I open my eyes, which shouldn’t be this sore and raw, and find myself utterly confused about where I am for a moment.
The fireplace is the first thing I see. Now, the flames are dancing weakly.
The fire’s dying. It isn’t too cold, though…
probably because of the massive radiator emitting heat behind me.
That’s right. I’m in Russell’s bed.
I turn around with bated breath, careful not to wake him.
This is actually happening. It wasn’t some weird dream.
The mountain of a man sleeps peacefully on his back, mouth half open, one arm resting over his head, and my goodness, his bicep is huge.
His shoulders are so damn wide, too, that I can’t believe he didn’t accidentally push me off the bed. Or squash me.
None of this feels real.
I can’t help staring at him. I study that short, thick ginger beard, and then glance up to his slightly darker hair, a bit curly and a little longer on top.
Sucking in my bottom lip, I look down to where his rounding pecs—which, honestly, some women might be jealous of—are, and follow the outline of his body until his belly, where his shirt is rolled up to reveal his treasure trail.
My cheeks heat at the sight of the blanket tenting up down there, barely covering his crotch. I gulp and avert my gaze, pushing down my own erection.
It’s just morning wood. Completely normal.
Desperate to escape these thoughts and his sweet scent—the one I’m covered in because the entire bed is soaked with those marzipan undertones of his pheromones—I quietly get up and put on my jeans. I awkwardly stuff myself into them, my cock uncomfortably squeezed by the denim.
Rus seems unaffected by my movements. He snores and rolls his head to the side, still deep asleep.
I look at my reflection in the phone screen, asking myself how the hell I got into this situation. The idiot staring back at me has no good answer.
After rubbing the sleep out of my eyes, I unlock my phone, hoping that maybe, miraculously, I might get some signal, but of course, I’m not that lucky.
Shit. I really should let Dex know that I’ll take longer than expected.
I don’t want her thinking that I broke down because of that cursed house and am now lying somewhere, drugged out of my mind.
In truth, I wasn’t too far from that, if it weren’t for this stupid storm…
I sneak off to look out the window. The weather doesn’t seem any better than yesterday. Maybe worse. I can barely see the color of my car poking through the white as it’s still stuck by the tree on the way down the hill, now completely covered.
I sigh and turn around. Rus is still sleeping, and I don’t want to wake him up. I have no idea what time it was when he woke up to tend to the fire, and I made him move to the bed, but I doubt he got much rest.
Neither did I.
Not only could I not fall asleep because he was right there, and it was so damn awkward, but this horrible feeling kept pulsing in my chest. The memories of the house constantly flashed behind my eyelids, relentless and terrifying and vivid. I probably got like four hours altogether.
And I sure as hell don’t run well on little sleep.
I study the dim room for a moment, still taking in how different it all is compared to how I’ve been living. And yet…the familiarity is uncanny. It’s in the air. Like the houses of the friends I would go to when I was a kid.
I haven’t missed this place and this way of life once since I left, but now, something in me purrs at the pleasant simplicity and coziness of it.
Even if everything is kind of messy and nothing matches.
The wood on the walls is uneven, clearly done by hand by someone who wasn’t a professional, and the shower is basically just two naked pipes.
Well, at least the toilet is inside. That’s a luxury around these parts.
Feeling the guilt rise within me, I decide to go downstairs to check if the landline is working so I can call Dex.
I grab my jacket and sneak out.
The steep stairs creak under my feet as I descend. I turn on the torch on my phone to see better, even though I should keep its use to a minimum without the charger. There’s only thirty percent battery life left, and it’s going to lose charge even faster in these low temps.
It feels a little wrong to be down here by myself, but the door into the store is unlocked, so I walk in. I bet the main door isn’t locked, either. That’s how things go around here. People trust each other.
It’s a stark contrast to the city, where I have to remember not to leave anything that looks worth stealing in the backseat of my car, so I don’t come back to a shattered window.
With no lights on and the snow so thick and high outside, the atmosphere down here is eerie.
When I glance out of the window, white is all I can see.
As beautiful as it might be, it also makes me feel like I’m trapped in some sort of limbo.
Like I’ll never be able to get back to the city because there’s nothing but endless white void out there that has consumed everything, and her ghostly face could peer at me from behind one of the trees in the distance at any moment…
I push my shoulders back as a shiver passes over me. Don’t think about her.
Picking up the receiver, I pray for a miracle, but only a long, disappointing beep hums in my ear.
“Fuck,” I mutter. I really hope Dex isn’t panicking about me.
When I rub my face again, pain radiates from my eyes to somewhere at the back of my skull, pooling at my temples. I lean against the wall with a frustrated groan, but that movement somehow makes it worse. It must be the lack of sleep. Or the stress of the past day.
I hate headaches, so I hang up the phone and walk behind the counter. There’s a large, sturdy-looking metal cabinet with grated doors. The holes are barely big enough to properly see what’s inside, so I bend down and squint to check.
My guess was correct. It seems to be where Russell stores the meds and other controlled wares. Like the few packs of different ammo types on the top shelf. Mostly, it looks like rifle rounds. People love hunting around here. It makes sense that there’s a lock on the cabinet.
My eyes scan the medicine packets on the shelves below. There are a few bottles of cough syrup and other standard cold remedies. First aid kit stuff like plasters, bandages, and some peroxide. Allergy medication. Next to it is exactly what I need—ibuprofen, thank goodness.
I shift my gaze to another shelf that has some basic prescription medications, only one pack of each kind. Ciprofloxacin and amoxicillin—antibiotics. Lisinopril for blood pressure. EpiPens. Two kinds of inhalers.
Vicodin. Oxycodone.
Oxycodone.
My entire being homes in on those black letters on the packet.
For a split second, serotonin floods my brain, and I am the happiest I’ve been in days.
Weeks. I can almost feel every vein and capillary in my body constrict at once.
So do my stomach and my throat and my heart as it hiccups before settling into an erratic tempo.
The next second, it all disappears. Reality collides with me again. Oh…oh, this is…bad. This shouldn’t be here.
I shouldn’t be here with it.
Wait, no. It’s good. It’s fucking wonderful.
What I need is right there, and—
I jerk at the sound of heavy steps. Before I can straighten my back and attempt to move away from the cabinet, Rus is already in the doorway, looking at me with heavy-lidded brown eyes. He rubs them and yawns, all drowsy like a toddler.
“I-I’m sorry,” I blurt out, thrown right into one of those horrible, guilt-filled memories where I got caught using, or trying to use, or stealing to be able to use. “I didn’t want to wake you up. My…my head was killing, so I-I was going to check for some meds.”
But Rus doesn’t know.
He has no idea what a fuckup I am. This poor, kind-hearted guy doesn’t have a damn clue.
Which is why he smiles faintly, like it’s no big deal, like I wasn’t just salivating and fantasizing about the bliss those little pills would bring me. He stretches his arms out, touching the ceiling above to briefly stretch, and heads toward me lazily.
“Should’ve woken me,” he mumbles.
My heart still races hard. Too hard. It hurts. I expect him to look at me the same way Dex had, Felix had, and other people I cared about had after I disappointed them.
Instead, he passes by me with a smile, his body radiating the kind of heat one does right after getting out of bed, coupled with that lovely scent of sweet almonds, and he reaches for a chain on his neck.
I hadn’t even noticed it, hidden underneath his shirt, but there’s a little key on it.
A key he sticks into the lock of the cabinet.
“I was going to pay for it,” I say, quickly digging in my pocket for money.
Rus glances at me over his shoulder, pauses, and smirks playfully. “Don’t worry about it. It’s just ibuprofen. Besides, you’re my guest. If you want any snacks from here or anythin’, feel free to grab it.”
He finally unlocks the cabinet, and the doors open with a high-pitched squeak that makes me wince. What’s worse, a horrible thought shoots into my mind in an instant—‘it won’t be easy to get in without him hearing that’.
I shake my head and ball my fists until my tendons hurt.
No. No, I won’t do that. I won’t.
I can’t.
I shouldn’t…
Rus hands me the pack.
“Thanks,” I say, forcing a faint smile.
“Hopefully you’re not getting sick from sleepin’ in your car,” he says under his breath, gently letting me know, again, how stupid he thinks that was. “Anyway, would you… What do you have for breakfast?”
I quirk my lips thoughtfully. Usually, I just down an energy drink or coffee. If I’m feeling fancy, I eat some pastry from the coffee shop at the end of the street. Nobody ever cooks breakfast for me. I can’t remember the last time that happened.
“Um, some oatmeal would be fine, I guess?”