9. The After
Nine
The After
She drifted again, this time in dreams that had color and heat, dreams that seemed alive. She wasn’t running or hiding. She was simply there, warm, seen, wanted.
When she woke, light was filtering through the window. The fire had burned down to ashes. Her mind was slow to catch up, floating in that fog between dream and memory. But awareness hit her all at once.
Her clothes. Gone.
Addy’s breath caught, and she sat up too quickly, clutching the blanket to her chest. Her body felt heavy and sore in a way that made the truth undeniable, even if the details blurred. A wave of confusion and embarrassment crashed over her.
She looked toward Sawyer. He was already awake, sitting at the edge of the bed, his back to her. His shoulders were tense, broad, solid against the pale morning light.
When he spoke, his voice was steady — calm in the way that he always seemed to be, even when the world wasn’t.
“Hey,” he said quietly, without turning. “Don’t do that.”
She swallowed. “Do what?”
“Regret it.”
He glanced back over his shoulder, his eyes finding hers, soft but certain. “It’s a natural thing, Addy. Two people. Alone. Scared. Still human. You don’t have to make it more or less than that.”
His words were gentle, but they cut straight through her confusion. He was right; it didn’t need to be anything more. But it wasn’t nothing, either.
Addy looked down at her hands, clutching the blanket tighter. “I wasn’t planning to regret it,” she said finally, her voice small. “Just trying to figure out what it means.”
Sawyer turned fully toward her, sitting on the edge of the bed, resting his elbows on his knees. “It means we’re alive,” he said simply. “That’s all it has to mean right now.”
She studied him: the quiet confidence, the faint exhaustion behind his eyes. For all his control, she noticed it had shaken him too, but in a quieter way.
After a long moment, she nodded. “Alive,” she echoed softly.
He gave a faint smile, stood and reached for his shirt. “We should eat,” he said, breaking the moment with the kind of easy practicality that had come to define him. “Now we get back to packing.”
Addy watched him move, the light catching his face, the faint edge of a smile that was almost kind. She pulled the blanket a little tighter, breathing deeply, grounding herself in the scent of wood smoke and warmth still lingering on the sheets.
Whatever last night had been — mistake, instinct, or something more — she couldn’t bring herself to call it wrong.
It served as a reminder that despite a flawed existence, she retained the capacity to feel.
* * *
Addy moved quietly through the small cabin, her body still vibrating with a strange, restless energy. The air seemed different that morning, charged somehow, sharper.
Sawyer was already dressed and gone outside, the door left slightly ajar to let in the crisp air. She could hear the faint clink of metal, the sound of him checking the truck or chopping wood, something practical, grounding. She was grateful for it. She needed a few minutes alone.
She filled a bowl with water from the hand pump and splashed it over her face, the chill biting against her skin.
The shock helped, though not as much as she’d hoped.
Her pulse still thrummed unevenly. She reached for the rag and wiped herself down slowly, deliberately, trying to anchor herself in the routine, in something ordinary.
Her skin was still warm beneath the cool water. Alive. That’s what it was like, too alive. As she washed, her fingers brushed tender spots that made flashes of memory rise unbidden: the heat of his hands, the steady weight of him, the sound of her own breath catching in the dark.
It wasn’t regret she was experiencing. But awareness. Of her body. Of him. Of the way everything had changed without either of them saying a word.
She caught her reflection in the cracked mirror above the sink, hair tousled, eyes soft and uncertain. For a long moment, she studied her face, searching for guilt or shame, but what she saw instead was something quieter. Acceptance.
Addy sighed, wringing the rag out and hanging it on the peg by the door. Outside, she saw movement — Sawyer crossing the clearing toward the woodpile, his shoulders broad against the morning light. He hadn’t looked back at the cabin once.
She wasn’t sure if that made her relieved or disappointed.
She ran a hand through her hair, took one more steadying breath, and whispered to her reflection, “Get it together, Addy.”
She straightened her shoulders and stepped outside, ready to face whatever this new version of them was going to be.
* * *
The cold air hit her like a wall the moment she stepped outside. It smelled of pine and smoke and the faint trace of wood dust from the fresh-cut pile beside the cabin. Her breath puffed in small clouds that vanished almost instantly.
Sawyer was there, kneeling by the woodpile, splitting logs with smooth, practiced movements. Each swing of the axe came down clean and steady, the rhythm almost hypnotic. His jacket was unzipped, sleeves rolled up, and the muscles in his forearms flexed with each strike.
He glanced up as she approached, the faintest trace of something unreadable passing through his eyes before he nodded toward the stacked wood.
“Morning,” he said simply.
“Morning.” Her voice sounded smaller than she meant it to, but she didn’t correct it.
For a few seconds, neither of them said anything. The steady thunk of the axe filled the silence. Addy wrapped her arms around herself, unsure if the chill came from the air or from how close she’d let herself get to him last night, in every sense.
“Sleep okay?” he asked finally, setting another log on the block.
“Yeah,” she lied. “You?”
He gave a short nod, eyes fixed on the wood. “Didn’t sleep much. Too many things running through my head.”
She hesitated, asked softly, “About us? Or about leaving? Which if we are leaving why are you chopping wood?”
Sawyer stopped mid-swing, the axe balanced loosely in his hands. He didn’t look at her right away, exhaled through his nose and let the axe drop into the snow with a dull thud. When he finally met her eyes, his expression was calm, but there was something fragile behind it.
“Both,” he admitted. Ignoring the wood chopping question. “I don’t regret anything, Addy. Not a second. But I also know what happens when people start needing things from each other. It makes choices harder.”
She stepped closer, close enough to see the faint stubble on his jaw catching the morning light. “Is that your assessment of last night’s events?” Needing something?”
He looked down, silent for a moment, and said quietly, “I think it was two people trying to remember they’re not dying.”
Addy nodded, her throat tight. “And if it’s more than that?”
He gave a small, humorless smile. “Addy, we’ll figure it out. One problem at a time.”
The wind shifted, carrying the crisp scent of the lake across the clearing.
Addy looked out at it, the ice catching pale sunlight, the world so breathtakingly still.
“I don’t want to lose focus,” she said finally.
“I know what you mean about needing things. But… I also don’t want to pretend we didn’t experience something real. ”
He stepped closer, his presence filling the cold space between them. “You don’t have to pretend,” he said, voice low. “You have to keep your head clear. I’ll do the same.”
Addy gave a small nod, more to herself than to him. “Okay.”
For a few heartbeats, they stood there, breath misting in the cold. After a while Sawyer bent to gather the cut wood, tossing a few logs into her arms. “If you really want to help,” he said, his tone softer but teasing now, “you can stack those inside before I freeze my hands off.”
She smiled, the first real one of the morning. “Bossy,” she said.
“Efficient,” he corrected.
As she turned toward the cabin, she sensed his eyes on her for just a second longer than necessary. And even though the world outside was still falling apart, Addy felt something real.
Steady. Seen.
* * *
“I’ve been thinking,” Sawyer said, setting the last log into the growing stack by the hearth. He straightened slowly, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck as his breath came out in faint white clouds. “We should hold off on moving for a bit.”
Addy looked up from where she was arranging the smaller pieces of kindling, one brow lifting. “Hold off? I thought you wanted to move before the snow hit.”
“Yeah,” he said, nodding. “That was before I realized how fast the weather’s changing. If it gets colder, it might slow the spread, keep the sick more contained inside, and possibly even stop them from wandering. Cold has a way of freezing things in place.”
Addy leaned back on her heels, thinking. Outside, the wind howled faintly through the trees, and a light dusting of frost clung to the corners of the windowpanes. “So we stay here. How long?”
“Couple of weeks, possibly less,” he said, picking up his jacket from the chair. “Long enough to be fully rested. Then we move. Hit a few of the other towns west of here; check those cabins we passed on the way up. If we’re lucky, we’ll find supplies that haven’t been touched yet.”
She frowned. “And if we’re not?”
“We’ll come back here,” he said simply. “We’ve got cover, a lake, firewood, and food we can ration. This place buys us time, and right now, that’s worth more than anything else.”
Addy nodded slowly, her fingers absently tracing the rough edge of the table. “Makes sense.” She paused, then added, “Do you really think the cold will help?”
Sawyer shrugged, his eyes on the fire. “I don’t know. But it can’t hurt. I’ve seen what cold does to people. It slows things down, even fear. Makes the world quieter.”
She tilted her head, studying him. “You sound almost peaceful about that.”
He gave a faint smirk. “Peaceful isn’t the word. Just practical.”