12. The Climb
Twelve
The Climb
Addy’s boots slipped on frost-covered stones as she clawed her way upward.
Each inhale stabbed her chest with cold fire.
Her legs shook. Sweat froze on her temples.
Three steps behind Sawyer, slipped to four steps, soon it was five.
She fixed her eyes on his back, the steady rhythm of his shoulders as he climbed without hesitation.
When he finally stopped, Addy collapsed against an outcropping, gasping clouds into the thin air.
The ridge stretched before them like a cracked spine, and below, miles of skeletal trees swayed in silence.
Sawyer’s breath came in controlled puffs as he pointed north. “Ranger station.” His voice rasped. A muscle in his jaw twitched. “A shack with a radio tower. If we’re lucky.”
Addy was hardly able to nod. Her legs trembled as she followed him along the ridge, the ground uneven beneath their boots. Below them, she could see faint movement: the men, still searching, their voices distant but clear enough to remind her how close danger lingered.
Sawyer stopped suddenly and pointed ahead. Through the tangle of bare trees, the roofline of a small wooden structure peeked out, old but still standing.
“Come on,” he said, his voice low. “We’ll rest there. Briefly.”
By the time they reached the building, Addy’s hands were shaking. The old ranger station was weather-beaten and cold, but it offered shelter. A rusted sign hung crookedly by the door; the words “National Forest Service “ were barely legible.
Inside, the air smelled of dust and old wood. Broken furniture lay scattered across the floor, and a map peeled off the wall behind a cracked desk. Sawyer checked the corners, the windows, before giving a short nod.
Addy sank onto a bench, her heart still racing. “Do you think they followed us?”
Sawyer moved to the window, scanning the forest below. “Not yet. But they will.”
She watched him: the tension in his shoulders, the way his jaw stayed tight even when he spoke softly. He was trying to keep calm for her; she could see it.
“Are you okay?” she asked quietly.
He didn’t answer at first. He kept watching the treeline, his rifle gripped loosely in his hands. He exhaled, the sound somewhere between a sigh and a growl.
“I should’ve seen it coming,” he said. “We stayed too long. I got comfortable.”
Addy frowned. “You kept us alive. That’s not comfort.”
He shook his head, his expression unreadable. “Doesn’t matter. Mistakes like that get people killed.”
She stood slowly, crossing to him. “You’re not a machine, Sawyer. You can’t plan for everything.”
He turned, and for the first time since she’d met him, she saw it: the flicker of something vulnerable in his eyes. Not fear exactly, but the weight of carrying it for too long.
“I’ve lost people before,” he said quietly. “Good people. I thought I was done with that.”
Addy’s throat tightened. “You haven’t lost me.”
He looked down at her, something shifting behind his calm exterior, something fragile, human. Then he nodded once, almost to himself, and turned back toward the window.
“Get some rest,” he said softly. “I’ll keep watch for a while.”
Addy wanted to argue, but exhaustion won. She found a blanket in the corner on a shelve, curled up near the wall, and listened to the wind outside.
Even with her eyes partly shut, Sawyer remained visible to her at the window, the outline of a man forged for resilience yet diminished by its toll.
She realized exactly how much of himself he’d been holding back and wasn’t sure how much longer he would keep it up before something inside him finally broke.
* * *
By late afternoon, Addy noticed the shadows on the floor stretching faster than they should.
The light through the cracked window pulsed, dimming then brightening as if someone outside flicked a switch.
Sawyer’s head snapped up. Through the glass, dark masses tumbled over the western ridge, swallowing the mountaintops.
The pine branches outside bent, their needles trembling before falling still, then bent again, deeper this time.
A loose shutter somewhere slapped once, twice, then settled into a rhythm against the cabin wall.
Sawyer pressed his palm flat against the window, frost forming around his fingertips. “That’s it,” he murmured. “Winter’s coming in hard.”
Addy followed his gaze. The snow started as faint flurries, scattered white flecks swirling past the glass. Within an hour, it had become a curtain, heavy and unbroken, erasing the forest and the tracks below.
“It’ll cover everything,” she said quietly.
“Yeah,” Sawyer replied. “Including our trail.”
For the first time in days, he looked… lighter. Not relaxed, exactly, but less coiled. The storm meant protection. It meant their hunters would have to stop — for now.
They secured the door, moved what little furniture they could to reinforce it, and built a small fire from what remained of the old desk legs and broken shelves. The warmth was thin, but it was enough.
As night fell, the wind howled against the walls, snow tapping against the windows in frantic bursts. Addy sat close to the fire, legs tucked beneath her, watching Sawyer as he cleaned his rifle by the dim light.
“You’re still awake,” she said softly.
He gave a half-smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Someone needs to keep watch”.
She studied him for a long moment. The lines in his face looked deeper tonight, exhaustion carving its way through control. “You should rest,” she said.
“I will,” he said automatically, but they both knew he wouldn’t.
Addy hesitated, then asked, “Are you scared?”
That made him pause. The faint scrape of metal against cloth stopped, and he looked up at her. “Scared?” He almost smiled. “Yeah. Every minute.”
She didn’t expect him to admit it. “You don’t look it.”
He shrugged. “You learn to wear it differently. Fear’s not the problem. It’s what it does to you if you let it take over.”
Addy looked down at her hands. “I used to think I wasn’t afraid of anything,” she said. “But all this happened, and I realized how wrong I was. I’m scared of everything now: the dark, the quiet, waking up alone.”
Sawyer leaned back against the wall, the faint light outlining the edge of his profile. “You’re still here,” he said quietly. “That’s what matters. Fear doesn’t mean weakness. It means you still have something left to lose.”
She met his eyes across the flickering fire. “What about you? What did you lose?”
He was silent for a long time. The storm outside filled the space where an answer should have been.
Finally, he said, “Too much. People. A version of myself that I believed I would be content with. I used to think control was the only thing that kept me alive. But I’m starting to think it only kept me empty. ”
Addy’s chest tightened, a fist of emotion clenching beneath her sternum. “You’re not empty, Sawyer.”
He looked at her—really looked—his storm-gray eyes catching the firelight, revealing flecks of amber she’d never noticed before. Something shifted in his expression, like ice breaking on a frozen river.
“No,” he said softly, the word barely audible above the hiss and pop of burning wood. “Not anymore.”
The fire crackled between them, casting waves of amber light that painted Sawyer’s weathered face in a patchwork of gold and deep shadow, softening the hard lines around his mouth.
His scar—the thin white one that cut through his right eyebrow — seemed to disappear in the warm glow.
Outside, the storm raged, a relentless wall of wind and snow hammering against the wooden walls, making the old timbers groan in protest. But inside this fragile shelter, everything was still, suspended in the narrow space between their words.
Addy shifted closer, drawn by warmth and something quieter, something that had nothing to do with the cold. Their shoulders brushed, and when Sawyer didn’t move away, she leaned in a little more. He hesitated for only a moment before slipping an arm around her, pulling her to his side.
It wasn’t possessive or desperate. It was careful, a silent promise that they weren’t alone.
Addy closed her eyes, the steady rhythm of his heartbeat beneath her cheek, the slow rise and fall of his chest. His hand rested against her arm, fingers tracing idle circles against the fabric of her sleeve, grounding her in a way she hadn’t realized she needed.
This wasn’t about survival. Not entirely. There was something else here, something fragile and human.
For so long, she’d believed love was something she’d missed her chance at. Something for a world that had ended. But sitting here, wrapped in his quiet strength, she understood it: that ache, that warmth, that certainty. She hesitated to name it, afraid it might vanish if she did. But she knew.
It was love, real and terrifying in its simplicity.
Sawyer didn’t speak, but his hand stayed on her shoulder, solid and sure.
She wondered if he knew what she was thinking, or if his thoughts mirrored hers.
It’s possible he did. Perhaps that was why he held her a little tighter as the wind howled outside, his thumb brushing small, absent circles against her skin.
They sat like that for a long while, the storm lashing at the cabin, the fire slowly collapsing into glowing coals.
A feeling akin to security washed over Addy; it wasn’t the storm’s protection from the outside world, but the fact that in this fleeting, sacred time, both were free from the need to act tough.
* * *
When Addy woke, the world was muffled.
The first thing she noticed was the silence — deep, complete, the kind that seemed to have weight. The wind was gone, replaced by the soft creak of wood under snow. She sat up slowly, blinking in the dim gray light that filtered through the window.
Everything outside was buried.
The forest, the ridge, even the path they’d taken up here had vanished beneath a smooth white sheet that stretched in every direction. The cabin’s windows were frosted over, the cold seeping through every crack.