3. Sanctuary in the Woods
Sanctuary in the Woods
Naomi
C onsciousness returns slowly, like swimming to the surface through murky water.
My eyelids flutter open to an unfamiliar wooden ceiling.
Sunlight filters through curtained windows, casting dappled patterns across rough-hewn beams. For one blissful moment, confusion shields me from memory.
Then reality crashes back with merciless clarity.
Lucas. The knife. Blood spreading across Micah’s apartment floor.
A small sound escapes my throat, drawing Powder’s attention. The white ragdoll cat lies curled against my side, her warmth and gentle purring oddly comforting. My fingers tangle in her soft fur—now clean from the blood.
I lie in a large king-sized bed in the middle of a cabin, a patchwork quilt pulled up to my chest. The cabin is one open room—rustic but meticulously maintained.
A small kitchen occupies one wall, copper pots hanging above a cast-iron stove that has to be an antique.
On another wall stands a large jacuzzi tub and bathroom sink, with a door beside them presumably leading to a toilet or a closet.
Opposite the bed is a floor-to-ceiling stone fireplace where faint embers still glow from last night’s fire.
The space feels both cozy and exposed. There’s nowhere to hide, but somehow, I still feel safe. Perhaps it’s the isolation, the sense that we’re far from civilization. Or perhaps it’s the man sleeping in the leather armchair near the bed.
Micah’s large frame is awkwardly contained by the chair’s dimensions, his head resting at what must be an uncomfortable angle. One hand still curls around a book that has slipped to his lap. Even in sleep, tension lines his handsome face, his beard not quite concealing the tightness in his jaw.
I study him—this man who is both familiar and a stranger.
My father-in-law, though that term feels hollow given the circumstances.
For months, I’d been living in his apartment, fleeing Lucas’s escalating violence, yet our interactions had been limited to brief, polite exchanges.
Micah had given me space, respecting invisible boundaries we’d both created.
Now those boundaries have collapsed entirely. He has seen me at my most vulnerable, has washed his own son’s blood from my skin.
The memory makes me feel physically ill. My hands shake as images flash through my mind.
Lucas’s face contorted with rage as he broke down the door.
His hands around my throat, squeezing until spots danced before my eyes.
The look of shock in his icy blue eyes as the knife slid home.
My chest tightens as panic claws its way up my throat. I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to focus on my breathing the way my therapist taught me. In for four counts. Hold for seven. Out for eight.
But the memories won’t stop coming.
The weight of Lucas’s body as he collapsed on top of me.
The sticky warmth of his blood soaking through my dress.
The vacant stare of his dead eyes.
I killed my husband. The relief this knowledge brings is immediately followed by crushing guilt. What kind of monster feels relief at taking a life?
But he was going to kill you . You had no choice.
Did I, though? Maybe if I’d been stronger, smarter, better at defusing his anger. Maybe if I hadn’t provoked him by leaving. Maybe if I’d just stayed and endured his abuse like a good wife should.
The old patterns of self-blame are familiar, almost comforting in their toxicity. But a new voice cuts through them—my therapist’s calm, steady tone from our last session.
“Abuse is never the victim’s fault, Naomi. The only person responsible for violence is the one choosing to be violent.”
I try to hold onto that truth as guilt and relief war in my chest.
Lucas is dead.
I killed him.
Both statements feel impossible, disconnected from reality. Like something that happened to someone else.
My throat hurts where his fingers squeezed. New bruises throb across my ribs where his knee drove the air from my lungs. The physical pain anchors me to the present, reminds me this is real. This happened. I did this.
A soft meow draws my attention back to Powder. She butts her head against my hand. The simple request helps ground me. I focus on the texture of her fur beneath my fingers, the steady vibration of her purring against my side.
My gaze drifts back to Micah. In sleep he looks younger, though silver threads his dark hair at the temples and peppers his beard. His hands—large and calloused from manual labor—twitch occasionally as he dreams.
What must he think of me? Even if it was self-defense, even if Lucas had become a stranger to him, the truth of what I did can’t be erased. Yet Micah had protected me without hesitation. He brought me to this cabin to keep me safe.
Why? Guilt over failing to stop Lucas sooner? Obligation to family, twisted as our connection may be? Or something else—something found in the way his touch lingers sometimes, or the way his dark eyes follow my movements when he thinks I’m not looking?
I push that dangerous thought away. I’m still his daughter-in-law, even if Lucas’s death has severed that tie in the most permanent way possible.
Besides, I’m in no state to be thinking about that .
About the warmth that sometimes spreads through me under Micah’s steady gaze.
About how safe I feel in his presence despite everything.
Focus on breathing . I tell myself. Just breathe.
The panic recedes, leaving exhaustion in its wake. My eyes grow heavy as the gentle rhythm of Powder’s purring lulls me back toward sleep. I should stay awake, should try to process what’s happened, should figure out what comes next.
But sleep offers escape from the horror of reality. Just for a little while, I can forget what I’ve done. Forget the blood on my hands. Forget everything except the sound of Powder purring and Micah’s steady breathing nearby.
As I sink into darkness, I imagine the ghost of Micah’s lips pressing a kiss to my forehead, hear the whispered words “I’ve got you.”
But that must be a dream. Must be my mind conjuring comfort from the one person who has shown me true kindness in years.
Sleep strengthens its hold before I can examine that thought too closely.
In my dreams, I hear Lucas’s voice. “You’re mine. You’ll always be mine.”
But for once, those words hold no power. I am free of him now, in the most terrible way possible.
The darkness swallows me whole, and I let it come.
My head feels heavy as I force myself to sit up in the unfamiliar bed. Every muscle aches and protests against the movement. I press my fingers gently to my throat, wincing at the tender flesh. I’m still not ready to acknowledge this pain or what I did to stop it.
Instead, I focus on examining my surroundings more carefully, desperate for distraction from the spiraling darkness of my thoughts.
The cabin reveals pieces of Micah everywhere.
There are stacks of well-worn books on the bedside table, their spines cracked from frequent reading.
A collection of woodworking tools arranged with military precision on a workbench near the window, sawdust still dusting its surface.
Half-finished projects wait patiently for his return and what looks like the beginnings of a jewelry box, its dovetail joints precisely cut.
The tools littering the bench are only enough for the finishing touches—carving and sanding. I wonder if he has a workshop outside with larger power tools to help create the rest.
Powder stretches beside me, her white fur glowing in the pale morning light. She pads across the quilt to bump her head against my hand. I smile at how she’s always demanding attention.
I scratch behind her ears absently, taking in more details.
Fishing gear stands organized in one corner, poles lined up like soldiers.
Everything has its place here, and that speaks to the man who owns this space.
His retreat from the world I assume. Yet he brought me here, into this private sanctuary.
Through the windows, dense forest stretches in every direction, leafless branches stark against the winter sky.
A glimpse of water catches my eye. Maybe some kind of lake or pond, its surface slate-gray and still.
In summer, I imagine it would be beautiful, full of life and color.
But now everything looks as dead as I feel inside.
We must be miles from Columbus, hidden away where no one would think to look for us. The thought brings equal measures of comfort and anxiety. Here, I’m safe from discovery, from questions I can’t answer. But I’m also completely dependent on Micah, cut off from everything and everyone I know.
My gaze finds Micah again where he still sleeps awkwardly in the leather armchair.
Lucas spoke of his father often, but never kindly.
He always said Micah was cold, unfeeling.
A failure as both husband and father. The bitter words of a son determined to paint his father as the villain in their story.
Yet, this same man opened his home to me without hesitation when I appeared on his doorstep a few months ago, fleeing another of Lucas’s rages. This same man brought me here after what I did to his son.
Morning light strengthens, painting golden stripes across the cabin’s wooden floor.
Micah shifts in his chair, and I find myself studying him with new eyes.
He’s a large man, tall and broad-shouldered, but there’s nothing threatening in his presence.
At least not with me. Instead, he radiates a quiet strength, a steadiness I’ve come to rely on more than I should.
What happens now?
The life I had been slowly rebuilding—my dreams of opening a bakery, of finally standing on my own two feet—seems impossibly distant.
In its place is this new reality. I am a killer in hiding, dependent on the father of the man I killed.
There is no clear path forward from this moment, no way to undo what has been done.