Chapter 6 #2
I don’t know how long I walked. Maybe two minutes.
Maybe ten. My body stopped being a thing I controlled and became something I dragged, step after step, until sensation faded from my toes, then my feet, then everything below my knees.
I knew what that meant. Hypothermia. The quiet beginning of the end.
Biology class had warned us about the stages but lectures didn’t make you strong enough to stop them.
My legs buckled without warning and I slammed against something solid—a tree trunk half buried in snow.
I gripped the rough bark and tried to think.
Which way was I going? Was it the direction I meant to go?
Did direction even matter when there was no civilization out here, no houses, no roads, nothing but forest and storm and cold that wanted me dead?
Go back. The thought surfaced through the thickening fog in my head. Turn around. Find the cabin. Fire. Warmth. Shelter.
And Gabriel.
The man who murdered my family. The man who tied me to a chair for three days. The man whose small acts of mercy didn’t erase his brutality. The man I refused to need. I’d rather die on my feet in a storm than live another day under his control.
I pushed off the tree and kept walking.
The wind shifted and carried something with it. Not wind. Not snow. A human sound. A voice. Faint but unmistakable. My heart lurched, adrenaline burning away a layer of numbness. He’d found the open door. He’d seen the cut ropes. He was coming.
I tried to move faster but my body had reached the limit of what it could give.
My steps faltered, my legs refusing commands, every muscle locking and cramping from exhaustion and cold.
I stumbled again and again, barely catching myself, consciousness narrowing until the white around me became a tunnel and the storm became a roar with no source.
The footsteps behind me grew louder. Snow crunching with purpose and speed.
He was closing the distance easily, crossing yards in the time it took me to drag myself inches.
I tried to force my legs to run but they refused.
Three desperate half-running strides and something buried deep under the snow caught my numb foot.
I fell.
The snow cushioned the impact but it still slammed the breath from my lungs. I tried to stand but my arms shook violently and collapsed under me. I rolled onto my side, gasping against the cold, sucking in air that felt like razors. My body was done. It had nothing left to give.
A hand clamped around my upper arm—strong, sure, unyielding—and hauled me upright as if I weighed nothing. I tried to twist away but I had no strength left to resist. The world reeled around me as he spun me to face him.
Gabriel towered over me, snow clinging to his hair and coat, eyes gone black in the storm-dark. Fury radiated off him in waves.
“What the hell were you thinking?” His voice cut through the wind like a blade, fierce and raw. “You could have frozen to death out here!”
The words washed over me from a distance, my ears ringing, hearing fading in and out with the rhythm of my unsteady heartbeat.
My knees buckled and would have sent me back into the snow if he hadn’t tightened his grip.
His other hand anchored my shoulder, strong enough to hold me upright but careful in a way that didn’t make sense.
I tried to answer, to say something sharp or defiant or meaningful, but my jaw wouldn’t work. My lips barely moved. The cold had stolen articulation long before it stole strength.
His expression shifted. Not softer—Gabriel didn’t soften—but something underneath the fury cracked open enough to show fear.
Not fear of me. Fear for me. His hands locked around my arms, steadying me with precision that felt practiced, like saving me was instinct even if letting me go might have been easier.
The black spots at the edges of my vision merged.
I couldn’t see his face anymore, just the outline of him holding me up while everything else went dark.
He said my name—distant, panicked, not the tone of a man who didn’t care whether I lived or died.
I tried to hold on to the sound but the cold dragged me under.
I’d tried. I’d failed. And now I was collapsing into unconsciousness in the arms of the man who shattered my world, while a storm buried us both.
Gabe
She was dying. I saw it in the blue along her lips, in the way her eyes slid past my face instead of locking onto it, in the shivering that had gone from violent to uneven and weak.
Hypothermia had moved past warning signs into the place where bodies quit.
Ten minutes, maybe, before her core temperature dropped too far.
Less, if the storm kept tearing into her like this.
She had chosen this. Jeans, thin shirt, no boots.
Death over staying in that chair with me.
The choice landed harder than it should have.
I had seen people freeze before. I had left targets in alleys when the job required it, knowing the cold would finish what I started.
This felt different. Her weight sagged against my grip, every muscle done fighting, and something in my chest answered with sharp, unfamiliar panic.
I could not let her drop. The snow here would swallow her and I would waste time dragging her out.
Staying in the open was asking to die beside her.
Wind knifed through my jacket and drove ice into every gap.
I had layers, thermal gear, training. She had none of that.
For her, the storm was a weapon with a single purpose.
A tree stood ahead, broad trunk visible through the white. Old growth. Good enough. I half-dragged, half-carried her toward it. Her legs tried to work and failed. Her body had started shutting down nonessential functions to keep the core alive.
I got her to the trunk and turned her so her back hit solid wood. The move was tactical, automatic. Tree behind her, my body blocking most of the wind, both hands free to assess damage. It put us close, too close, her face turned up toward mine, breath coming in broken little clouds between us.
My palms planted on either side of her head, fingers digging into bark.
I caged her there without meaning to threaten, just keeping her upright, keeping her conscious, keeping her here.
The tree took some of the storm. Snow still swirled around us, but the howl dropped a notch.
The sudden relative quiet rang in my ears.
“What were you thinking?” My voice came out harsher than intended, ripped raw by a knot of anger and fear. “You would have frozen to death out here.”
Her eyelids fluttered. She tried to focus. Her pupils looked blown wide in a face gone too pale, cheeks reddened in that bright, dangerous way that meant her body was losing the fight. Her lips moved. No sound.
I leaned in, close enough to feel the cold radiating off her skin. “What?”
“Had to...” The words scraped out, broken and slurred. “Had to try.”
“Try what? Suicide?” The anger climbed higher, hot enough to burn through the cold. “You would not have lasted twenty minutes. Less. Is that what you wanted?”
A spark lit behind her eyes. Even half gone, she still found room for defiance. “Better than... staying with you.”
The hit landed center mass. I felt it more than I heard it. I knew she hated me. I had seen that in every glare, heard it in every word. Hearing her say she would rather let a blizzard carve her open than stay where I could see her drove something hollow and wide right through my chest.
I should not have cared. The calculus was simple.
I killed her family. She hated me. Her opinion did not change the job.
Vincent’s logic was clear and familiar: feelings were noise, obedience was survival.
But for three days that voice had been quieter and hers had been louder.
Now, staring at her half-frozen face, all I could think was that I had almost lost her.
Not an asset. Not a problem to solve. Her.
Violent shivers racked her body, full-body convulsions that shook her against the trunk. I felt every tremor through my hands. Her teeth chattered so hard the sound cut through the wind. The flush on her cheeks spread farther. Her core was dropping fast. I was out of time.
“I am not going to hurt you.” The words slipped out before I had decided to say them. Softer than the anger. Too close to truth. “Do you understand? I am not going to hurt you.”
Her eyes found mine and confusion mixed with the hate. “You already did,” she whispered. “You killed them. You killed everyone.”
My fingers dug deeper into the bark. No defense existed. I had shot her father. I had put holes in her brother and mother. I had emptied that house of life and then dragged the last surviving piece here because I did not know what else to do. Nothing I said would balance that ledger.
I could not give her justice. I could give her breath. Warmth. Time.
We were inches apart. Ice crusted her lashes, tiny white spikes catching the light.
Her lips were split and blue at the edges, shaking as she tried to speak and failed.
Her breath mingled with mine in small bursts of steam that vanished instantly into the storm.
Green eyes stared up at me, the same eyes that had burned through me in that closet, and something inside my chest shifted in a way I did not recognize.
She was not a job anymore. Not a file. Not a name on a list. She was Mia Grant, stubborn enough to starve herself, smart enough to cut ropes with glass, desperate enough to step into this storm rather than sit one more hour tied to that chair. I had not met that kind of will before.
My gaze dropped to her mouth before I could stop it. Objectively, there was nothing inviting there. Cracked, blue, trembling. Still, some irrational part of me wanted to close the distance. Cover her mouth with mine. Warm her. Take something I had no right to want.
The thought was wrong on every level. I snapped back like I had touched fire. Put space between us while keeping my hands planted on the trunk. The moment shattered and the checklist slammed back into place: shelter, heat, dry clothes, medical.
“Do not run from me again.” The order came out low, scraped raw, more plea than threat. “Do you understand?”
She stared up at me, shaking so hard the movement looked violent. No answer. I doubted she could form one. Her pupils drifted, focus slipping. The cold was pulling her under.
No more time.
I hooked an arm under her knees and another around her back and lifted.
Same position as that first night, but she felt lighter now, weight reduced by stress and not enough food.
That thought lodged in my throat and stayed there.
Her head fell against my shoulder. Her fingers curled weakly into my jacket, clutching fabric like an anchor.
I bent over her, trying to shield her with my body, and pushed through the snow.
Drifts climbed halfway up my thighs. The wind shoved at us from every side, tearing at balance.
I set my feet and kept going anyway. One step, then another.
Breathe. Ignore the burn in my lungs, ignore the ache in my legs, focus on reach, plant, push. Stopping was not an option.
The cabin took shape out of the white in pieces: the roofline, the corner of the wall, the dark rectangle of the door.
I followed the markers I had left when I went out—broken branches, disturbed snow that the storm had not completely erased.
The door gaped open, snow piled in the threshold, the fire inside reduced to a faint glow.
I carried her across the threshold and kicked the door shut with more force than needed. The wind cut off and silence rushed in. Only the faint hiss of dying coals and our harsh breathing filled the space. Mia stirred in my arms, eyes fluttering, then closing again when the light hit them.
I took her to the chair closest to the hearth and lowered her carefully.
Her body slumped toward the side, too weak to hold itself upright.
I grabbed the wool blanket from the floor, then another from the cot, wrapping both around her until only her face showed.
She needed out of those frozen clothes. I could not strip her down while she was barely conscious. First, heat.
I attacked the fireplace. Pulled the grate forward, raked the coals together, added dry kindling and small logs, breathing life back into the embers until flame flared.
Larger wood went on top. Flames climbed fast, greedy and bright.
Heat started to roll off the stone, pushing into the room, driving the worst of the cold away from her.
When the fire held steady and strong, I took the chair opposite and sat. My hands rested on my knees. They did not shake. That had stopped somewhere between finding the empty chair and seeing her collapse in the snow. Everything in me had gone very still.
She watched me over the edge of the blanket, eyes clearer now, color slowly returning to her skin in uneven patches. The shaking had eased into smaller, residual tremors. She was still with me. She would stay with me. Relief settled under my ribs, heavy and unfamiliar.
The silence that followed was not the same one we had shared before her escape.
Not a cold war of glares and withheld food and stubborn defiance.
This one carried new weight. She knew I had been scared for her, and not just because losing her would cause trouble with Vincent.
I knew she would rather die than belong to me.
Out there against the tree, something had shifted. Inside me, I suspected it had broken.
I let myself look at her fully. She met my gaze for a long moment, then pulled the blanket tighter and turned slightly away, building a barrier with wool and distance. I understood the impulse. I had spent years building my own.
The storm hammered the cabin, wind rattling shutters, snow packing higher against the walls. We were still trapped here. That part had not changed. Everything else had.
I had almost lost her to the snow. In that moment, with my hands on her shoulders and her breath frosting the air between us, I realized something that scared me more than anything Vincent had ever threatened.
I did not want to finish this job. I did not want to turn her into another body, another story I locked away and tried not to think about. I wanted her alive. Wanted her warm. Wanted her safe, even if she never forgave me. Even if she never looked at me with anything but hate.
And I had no idea how to live with that.