3. Basement Life & Another Life #3
She peeked up at him, her cheeks warming at the endearment. “I know. But I want to help. Chickens are food and eggs and… well, life now. So I’ll learn. Under protest, but I’ll learn.”
Jay raised his mug in a solemn toast. “To Addy. Future chicken assassin.”
Addy groaned louder. “No. Absolutely not. Veto.”
Seth grinned—a real one, for once. “Too late. It’s canon.”
Even Watch barked from under the table, his tail thumping against the floorboards as if casting his vote.
Laughter filled the cabin, warm and fighting against the frozen world outside.
For a little while, even the looming shadow of the spring run seemed smaller.
Later, the cabin went quiet. Tonight belonged to Seth; every fourth night on watch did.
He tossed two more logs on the fire, the familiar thud a small comfort. He checked the doors, then the windows. He picked up a book from Jay’s shelf, hoping the words might hold him steady until dawn. Routine. Predictable. It was supposed to feel safe.
But tonight, the quiet carried different edges.
Outside, the wind pressed drifts of snow against the cabin walls. Inside, the fire popped now and then, throwing warm orange light across the room. Everyone else slept. Even Watch snored under the kitchen table, paws twitching as he chased some dream rabbit through fields.
It should have been peaceful.
Instead, the silence pressed in, picking at the memories he’d tried to keep at bay.
He tried to read, but the words blurred and slid off the page. He stoked the fire. He field-stripped the rifle for the third time this week. Paced a slow path around the room. None of it helped.
Molly.
The name surfaced without permission.
He dropped into the rocking chair by the hearth and let out a long breath.
His mind drifted backward, to the day Molly told him she was pregnant.
He could see it as clearly as the fire in front of him.
She’d been standing in their tiny kitchen, her hair pulled up in a messy bun, wearing one of his old shirts that hung halfway down her thighs. Late winter sun poured through the window behind her, lighting her up like something the universe had made on purpose and wanted him to notice.
She’d been nervous—God, he remembered that part vividly. Rocking on her heels, twisting her fingers together the way she only did when something big was bothering her.
“Seth?” she’d said, her voice catching.
He’d assumed she’d burned something on the stove.
“Yeah, baby?” he’d said, stepping closer.
She pushed a small white stick into his hands.
Two pink lines. Clear as day.
He’d stared down at it, his brain taking far too long to catch up with what his eyes already knew.
“I’m pregnant,” she whispered.
And the whole world shifted under his feet.
He hadn’t said anything. He’d looked from the stick to her face, then back to the stick, then out the window at the street below where a neighbor was salting his driveway. He’d watched the man work for a long moment, the small, white container swinging in a perfectly ordinary arc.
So instead, he’d pulled her against him, lifting her clean off the ground and spinning her until she squealed, swatted his shoulder, and told him to put her down before she puked on him.
He remembered the shampoo—something cheap and floral from the drugstore that she bought in bulk and that he had once teased her about. The small, helpless fists she made in the back of his shirt before she could bring herself to hold on.
He remembered whispering into her hair:
“I’m gonna be a dad.”
God, he’d stood ten feet tall that day.
Molly laughed, the sound bright and beautiful. “Yeah, Seth. You are.”
His throat tightened now in the cabin’s stillness. He blinked hard and stared into the fire.
They should’ve had more time.
More nights whispering into the dark about the future. More too-early mornings making coffee side by side. More lazy Sundays with AJ gurgling on his chest while Molly stole his toast.
He rubbed at his chest, kneading the ache there, trying to work it loose like a knot in muscle.
The fire cracked loudly, snapping him back to the present.
He drew a shaky breath and leaned forward, elbows braced on his knees.
No tears came.
But the weight of missing them?
That he carried. Every damn day. Every damn second.
He squeezed his hands together until his knuckles hurt.
He missed being whole.
Out the window, snow drifted down softly under the moonlight, indifferent. Inside, the fire warmed everything except the one cold place buried deep inside him.
Seth straightened, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes until lights appeared behind them, and forced his breathing back into something steady.
He had a job to do.
They were the only ones he had left, and he’d burn what was left of his own life as fuel to keep them safe.
And Molly… Molly would’ve wanted him to keep going. He knew that to his core. She’d have been furious at him for even considering otherwise.
The rocking chair creaked softly as he settled back into it, rifle within reach, eyes on the door.
He kept watch through the long hours, and he tried—just for a moment—to forgive himself for surviving.