3. Nora
Nora
I'm buried in wool in the big chair by the fire, still shaking even though the heat's finally starting to reach the parts of me the crash froze solid.
Flames pop and settle in the hearth, throwing orange across the log walls.
Every breath pulls at my ribs, a low bruised throb that flares sharp if I move wrong.
My head keeps its own separate rhythm, dull and steady behind my eyes.
I probe the split in my lip with my tongue without meaning to, and wince. Slow. Sore. Alive.
Alive because of him.
Colt Rivers. The Marshal who lifted me out of a wrecked car like I weighed nothing and carried me a quarter mile through a blizzard because it was faster than waiting for anyone else to come.
He showed me a badge. Told me his name in a voice that seems to start somewhere below his ribs.
I should feel safe. I mostly do. But underneath that is the other thing — the fear sitting in my stomach like one of my own cartoon anvils, suspended, waiting for someone to let go of the rope.
Any second those men could find this cabin.
They saw my face. They know exactly what I can do to them in a courtroom, and men like that don't leave loose ends walking around.
I flinch at every sound that isn't him. Wind combing through the trees.
Snow needling the one window. Somewhere past the walls, a branch giving way under its own weight, and my brain turns it instantly into a boot in the snow.
I pull the blankets tighter, and under them, his flannel — draped over me for extra warmth — carries his smell into every breath.
Woodsmoke. Something underneath that I don't have a better word for than him.
It shouldn't do anything to me except keep me warm. It does more than that anyway.
He moves through the small space, unhurried, adding a log here, running a hand along the traps hanging by the door like he's checking they're still asleep.
Broad through the shoulders even out of the coat, a beard that catches every flicker off the hearth.
He looks like something I'd draw and then never quite believe I'd drawn right.
Except right now he's the only thing standing between me and whatever's still out there hunting.
I can't sit on it anymore. If I'm going to die in this cabin tonight, he should at least know why he's dying with me.
“I saw them kill a man.”
He goes still. Turns slow, and his eyes find mine across the room and just wait there, patient, giving me room instead of pushing. Something in my chest lets go half an inch.
The rest comes out faster than I mean it to.
“I was hiking. Looking for something dumb enough to turn into a cartoon strip.
I heard voices and got too close instead of walking away, which — I'm realizing now — might be a character flaw. Three men. Dark coats. One had a gun, one was on his knees in the snow, and then there was a flash and a sound and he just — folded. Blood everywhere. They saw me watching. One of them pointed. I ran to my car and drove until the ice found me.”
My ribs punish me for talking that fast. I press a hand to my side through the blankets. Colt's jaw has gone tight, but he crosses the room in two strides and crouches in front of the chair the way he did earlier, close enough that I can see gold catching in his eyes from the fire.
“You got away,” he says. “You're here. Alive. That's what matters right now.”
“They'll come for me. I'm the only witness. They won't stop until I can't talk.”
He reaches out and tucks a strand of hair behind my ear, his fingers rough from the cold and the work and gentle anyway. “Nobody's getting to you. Not while I'm breathing.”
I want to believe him completely. I almost manage it.
He pulls a satellite phone from his coat and dials without looking away from me first, holding my eyes one beat longer than the call requires before he turns half away to make it.
“Dispatch, this is Marshal Colt Rivers. Off duty, fishing cabin on Steel Mountain. Civilian here witnessed a murder — two suspects, dark coats, armed. She's hurt but stable. Need a status on reports in the area, and backup if they're still active.”
His voice drops into something clipped and professional on the call, all business, but there's a low growl running under even the procedural parts of it — the kind of voice that sounds like it's already decided how a fight is going to end before it starts.
I pull the blankets higher and listen. He's not just some man who happened to be nearby with a badge.
He's got backup. Resources. Something behind him bigger than one cabin on one mountain.
My eyes sting with relief I didn't know I was holding back.
He wraps the call with a few short lines about coordinates and keeping the civilian secure, then pockets the phone and turns back to me, something easing at the corners of his eyes.
“Nothing active yet on the murder. These mountains eat sound — that doesn't mean much either way. I told them you're under my protection till we sort this.”
Under his protection. The words do something to my stomach that has nothing to do with fear anymore. I'm hurt and scared and wrapped in a stranger's shirt in a stranger's cabin, and somehow I feel better than I have in hours. Not safe exactly. Not yet. Better.
The fire cracks loud and I jump half out of my skin. He notices — of course he does, he seems to notice everything — and crosses to the chair across from mine, elbows on his knees, close without crowding.
“You're jumping at shadows.” Not unkind. “What do you need. Water. More blankets. Something for the pain.”
I shake my head, throat too tight for a real answer. “Just — don't let them in.”
The corner of his mouth moves, not quite a smile, and doesn't reach his eyes at all. “Nobody's coming through that door. You have my word.”
I believe him, or I let myself, which might be the same thing tonight. The fire's finally winning the argument with the cold still living in my bones. My eyelids go heavy. The ache in my ribs settles into something duller, something I can sleep through.
He stays where he is, watching the fire and the door in slow rotation, solid in a way that should probably scare me more than it does.
Outside the wind keeps at the logs and the snow keeps falling, and in here I'm wrapped in wool and woodsmoke with a Marshal who already feels like the only safe thing left standing between me and the rest of my life.
I let my eyes close, just for a second, and let myself believe I might actually make it to morning.