Chapter 5 Ava
FIVE
AVA
The steak tastes amazing, rich flavors dance around every melt-in-your-mouth bite, but it might as well be a bucket of popcorn for how fast I’m trying to shovel it down. Every rushed bite is a knock on death’s door, every swallow a silent prayer for the night to be one step closer to ending.
The silence between us is uncomfortable. The kind that makes you hyper-aware of every scrape of metal on ceramic, every tick from the clock clear across the kitchen. I wish the generator would run out and throw us back into darkness, so I didn’t have to take in the man across from me.
Scott isn’t helping. He stares at his plate like it’s the most interesting puzzle he’s ever been tasked with solving, only glancing up when I’m too busy chewing to catch it. The second I stop, fork hovering mid-air, he’s right back to looking anywhere but at me.
This is fucking weird, but maybe it’s my fault.
If I hadn’t let my inner thoughts slip out subconsciously, he wouldn’t be avoiding eye contact like it’s an Olympic sport.
But I couldn’t stop my appreciative gaze from cascading across his body.
It’s too built in all the right places, the epitome of power and rugged sex appeal.
I’ve known him nearly my whole life. Vacations to this very cabin.
Barbecues back home. Birthdays when my mom didn’t want him celebrating with whatever half-his-age gold digger he was seeing at the moment.
But I can’t remember a single time we’ve ever been alone like this, without someone looming behind us as the common thread.
Now here we are. Just the two of us. In a cabin miles away from anything or anyone. And a storm that won’t settle, sealing us in.
I finish the last bite, not even waiting to chew properly, before I’m out of the chair like my ass is on fire.
Grabbing my plate, I speed-walk to the sink.
But I move too fast, losing my grip. My fingers, slick from grease, lose traction, and the dish slips through them like silk.
I fumble, trying to catch it, but it hits the ceramic basin with a shattering crack.
“Fuck,” I whisper, lungs tightening at the silence permeating around us.
I bend forward, already reaching in to scoop up the jagged pieces before they find their way into the drain. Without a second thought, I move on autopilot, reacting to the situation that’s stolen my opportunity to flee.
“Just leave it,” Scott calls out behind me.
But the words are too late. My palm finds a cruel edge. Pain lances through the fleshy part below my thumb, biting deep through more than one layer of skin.
“Fucking son of a goddamn monkey’s uncle,” I hiss through clenched teeth, instinctively yanking my hand back. Blood wells instantly, red and flowing way too quickly. My stomach roils at the sight.
Strong hands close around my wrist, dragging my arm away from the sink and toward him.
“Damnit, Ava. I told you to wait,” he growls.
His fingers sear my clammy skin. Too hot compared to the instant cold flash that draws bile to the back of my throat at the sight before me.
His grip’s controlled, but there’s an undercurrent of something else there, too. Something wild burns between us. And I think he’s wrestling with it as hard as I am.
I try to pull back, just enough to catch my breath, but he’s already walking me backward, guiding me back to the sink like I’m a child who’s scraped her knee.
“You need to rinse it,” he says. “Don’t tense up, it’ll just bleed more.”
“Little late for that,” I bite back, teeth clenching as the cold water stings just as bad as the initial cut.
The cabin’s floorboards creak from the moaning wind. It’s as if the old dwelling shares my pain. The temperature inside somehow drops. Like every heat molecule has crystallized into ice. I feel it deep in my bones.
My cut pulses, heartbeat pounding in time with the storm, and my nerves from his capable hands on my body. I thought the pain had taken over my attention, but now I’m not so sure. Being alone might have been a better option than this crazed desire I can’t staunch.
The lights flicker once… twice, and I hold my breath. Expecting to be plunged back into the dark ages, but they settle instead.
Scott doesn’t seem to notice what’s going on around us.
He’s too focused, staring down at my hand like he can will the blood to stop with just his eyes.
I catch the way his jaw tightens, a muscle in his cheek twitching with the effort.
His other hand ghosts near my elbow like he’s afraid I’ll bolt.
Afraid I’ll leave the warmth of his touch.
I almost do, but my core tightens. I like the way his sure grip holds tight.
“I’ll get the first aid kit,” he says, releasing me reluctantly. “Don’t move from over the sink. The last thing we need is blood tracked across the cabin.”
I lean against the counter, my hand elevated under the cold stream. It’s numb now, the water straight from the snow-covered water tank outside. The cut still weeps, but with the water cascading over it, they dance together like an opaque watercolor. It’s kind of beautiful.
Something crashes to the floor. His rummaging through the cabinets must not be going well.
The first-aid kit is probably eluding his efforts, as the slam of another cabinet comes from the other room.
His heavy footsteps crash from one side of the small bathroom to the other.
I can picture his hulking frame taking up most of the space, whirling around in every direction trying to find the elusive item, and it brings a smile to my face, until…
Everything stops. There’s no sound, like the world’s become a silent movie, but I don’t have the comfort of the film whirring through the projector.
The wind that’s been a constant companion all evening suddenly doesn’t whine or whistle through the cracks of the cabin’s frame. The hum of electricity has been silenced. The tick of the clock is nowhere to be heard.
Is this a sign of a stroke?
I glance toward the window, past the thin veil of threadbare fabric. Beyond it, nothing but blackness, a mouth of ink gaping wide, hungry enough to swallow the dim reflections off the snow.
A low creak filters through behind me, making my stomach bottom out. I turn fast, oblivious to the blood running down my wrist. There’s nothing there—just an empty hallway.
It feels wrong, a mirage distorting reality, as if something was there a mere second ago. Yet, now it’s just an empty, narrow hallway.
“Ava?”
Scott’s voice startles me from my illusions. I jump, not sure how he got here without my notice. Clutching my hand to staunch the blood, it’s too late—small splotches of crimson paint the wooden floorboards.
He steps closer, a small white box in his hand, brow furrowed.
“You okay?”
“I…” I nod, but it doesn’t feel convincing. “Yeah. Yeah, I just—it got really quiet all of a sudden.”
He pauses, turning toward the windows like the answer to my asinine assessment is across the room.
But it’s not the same as before. The forest surrounding us groans as it has all night. The fridge hums as it cools the food inside. A distorted, static-filled Christmas carol struggles to play softly through the radio.
His gaze snaps back to mine. “Did the generator cut out?”
I shake my head slowly. “Lights are still on.”
He doesn’t say anything, but I see the confusion flicker in his expression.
I get it. I don’t know what the hell just happened either.
I couldn’t explain it if I tried. I was standing out here, listening to his racket in the other room, then bam, it was as if someone had come along and placed a pair of noise-cancelling headphones on me without my consent.
Scott opens the kit on the counter, pulling out the remaining pieces. He dabs the blood away silently with gauze, his movements calculated and careful. His fingers brush mine as he works, and even though the pain flares with every touch, I barely notice it.
I can’t tear my eyes away from the darkness beyond the fogged-up glass. Maybe it’s the blood loss, the alcohol, or this wildly unnerving evening, but the darkness shifts.
Something’s out there.
Something. Someone. I don’t know.
It’s not just the storm beating against the cabin walls, looking for a way in.
Scott works away, unaware of the allusive threat lying in wait beyond the locked doors.
He wraps my hand, tightening the bandage to keep the gauze in place.
The pull against my wound should bring me back to center, shake my mind from its runaway thoughts, but I can’t take my eyes off the shadows that shouldn’t exist without light.
They don’t move. Yet they’re not quite still, either.
Something’s waiting.