20 #3
Cooler just outside the back door with clean ice blocks. Melt them if you need water.
Sighing, I leave the note on the counter and hang my head as I push against it.
I miss England.
If I could call Anna, she’d probably start with some wisecrack remark about life giving me lemons – or, in this case, a handsome former prisoner with all his screws loose – and then tell me to make the best of it.
But Anna is also the kind of woman who enjoys her Sunday afternoons with spicy tea, wrapped in a blanket, and reading questionable reverse harem books.
Skipping breakfast, I shove myself into the ‘bullseye-snowsuit’, as Elias called it yesterday, and head outside.
After a short circle around the estate, I’m almost certain he is not outside. As the mysterious door keeps pulling my attention, I begin shovelling away a white drift close to the back entrance, wondering what he’s doing in there.
The sky is clear – no clouds, just the moon and a fading smear of green from the northern lights, while the reluctant sun threatens the horizon.
When my restless nature gets the better of me, I count my own breaths on the way to the henhouse.
Just like he told me, I straighten the straw. Turn the heater on. Straighten the straw again. Every few seconds, my eyes flit towards the cabin beyond the wall.
Make yourself useful. Be calm. Be good.
The words arrive with the movements, and my insides twist when I realise I’m already learning his tune.
I lose track of how long I’m in there, but once I finally step outside, a soft pink haze is brushing the edge of the horizon. The air has that brittle clarity of morning now.
Where the fuck is he?
Then—
A faint, rasping sound. Like…
An engine?
My head snaps northwards. I freeze. My heart stutters.
Traffic? Out here?
And as the first ray of sun kisses the white expanse, my eyes land on it—
A footprint in the snow.
Another. Then another. All leading away from the house.
My lungs collapse as hope rushes in with the cold.
I forgot: he’s gone to get the animals.
As though being set alight, I rush back into the cabin, tear open the picture frame and yank my phone.
Turning it on, I hope to the gods of electricity there’s some battery still left—
Yes!
Forty percent of pure bliss washes over me.
I could cry.
But then, the signal bars – or lack thereof – push me right back down into hell.
Not a single one. Not a single answer to my prayers.
I snap the flap back into place, power the phone down and pocket it.
My camera sits silently atop the desk.
Almost accusingly.
My chest clenches because I can’t take it with me, but beggars aren’t choosers. I’ll buy another one as soon as I’m back in civilisation.
On my way out of the room, I head for the sink, eyeing the tap, then glance at the clock.
It’s almost eight.
He said not to use the taps until an hour after the generator kicks in or risk a flood.
The generator only started itself half an hour ago.
But I need water. I don’t know where I am or how long it might take me to get to a place with people – and I surely don’t have time to melt the ice from the cooler.
Snatching an empty jar stacked atop the fridge, I stop in front of the sink.
‘Right…’
I’m not religious. But when held captive in Norway—
‘Nice and easy now.’ I draw a sign of the cross over the tap. ‘Work with me.’ And I turn it.
It groans. Sputters. Then, blessedly, flows; a harsh stream of crystal-clear, glacial-cold water.
I fill the jar, already fingering a length of kitchen twine that sits in a basket atop the fridge. I use it to knot it securely under the lip of the jar.
As I spin to dart out, my eyes catch on the hatchet. My legs take me slowly towards it and I palm it like it might bite me.
As I lift my chin, the bed comes into view.
The sheets are still twisted from where we slept. From where I lay beside him with my fingers in his hair until he drifted into sleep.
I should feel victory right now: unlocked door, dawn outside, the clean, hard survival pointing the way out.
But as my gaze follows the hollow his body left in the mattress, I hold my breath.
I wish I hadn’t seen his fingers twitch in sleep. Hadn’t heard him choke on words he couldn’t get out. Hadn’t felt the way he had wrapped himself around me only after consciousness let go of him.
I wish he’d stayed the thing I needed to escape.
My gaze flicks to the brass door handle leading out.
Then back to the bed.
The hatchet gains a strange kind of weight that drags at my hand.
The dent in the mattress doesn’t hold the shape of a monster. That somehow makes the door harder to reach.
This isn’t betrayal, I reason with myself. Because one doesn’t betray a man who stole you.
An awful, irrational ache blooms – the kind one might feel when leaving a wounded animal sleeping by the fire.
But I turn away.
I force my legs to move.
And as I step towards the door with water in one hand and the hatchet in the other, it feels as if I am carrying two weapons: one to survive the wilderness. One to survive him.
The worst part, though, is the hesitation in my hand when I imagine raising either to get away from him.