Chapter 11 Imani
IMANI
My eyes are swollen shut.
That’s the first thing I notice. I have to pry them open with my fingers, the lids sticky and crusted from crying myself to sleep. The second thing I notice is the ache in my throat, raw from screaming at him, from sobbing into the mattress until I couldn’t anymore.
The third thing I notice is the smell of bacon.
I sit up slowly, head pounding, and try to orient myself. The cabin is still. No footsteps, no movement, no sign of the man who carried me in here against my will.
My stomach growls, loud and demanding, and I press a hand against it. Traitor. I’m not leaving this room. I’m not going out there where he might be waiting. I’ll starve before I give him the satisfaction of—
My stomach growls again, even louder.
Fine. I have to pee anyway.
I slide out of bed, still in yesterday’s clothes. My sweater is wrinkled, my pants twisted around my hips. I didn’t even take off my shoes before I passed out. I must look like a disaster.
Not that it matters. Not that I care what he thinks of me.
I press my ear against the door and listen. Nothing. Slowly, carefully, I turn the lock and crack it open.
The hallway is empty.
I slip out and make my way toward the bathroom as quietly as I can. The floorboards creak under my feet, and I wince at each sound, expecting him to appear at any moment.
He doesn’t.
I use the bathroom quickly, splashing water on my face, avoiding my reflection in the mirror. I don’t want to see what I look like right now. I don’t want to see the evidence of last night written across my features.
When I step back into the hallway, the bacon smell is stronger. Mixed with eggs and something sweet. French toast, maybe.
My stomach clenches with hunger so intense it borders on pain.
I follow the smell to the kitchen, bracing myself for confrontation.
But the kitchen is empty.
A plate sits on the table, covered with a clean dish towel. I lift the corner and find a full breakfast underneath. Scrambled eggs, perfectly fluffy. Bacon, crisp but not burned. Two slices of french toast dusted with powdered sugar. A glass of orange juice beside it, still cold.
He made me breakfast.
I stand there staring at it, trying to reconcile this with the man who crushed my phone in his fist and ripped the door off my car.
The cabin is spotless. Even cleaner than I left it yesterday. The floors are clean, the counters wiped down, there’s not a dish in the sink. He’s been up for hours, it looks like. Cleaning. Cooking. Preparing.
For me?
I don’t understand.
I sit down at the table, still listening for footsteps, still waiting for him to appear. But the cabin stays quiet. Wherever he is, it’s not here.
The first bite of eggs melts on my tongue. They’re good. Really good. Seasoned just right, cooked just right. Hard to reconcile with a man who eats his steak bloody and his potatoes plain.
He made this for a human palate. For my palate.
I eat everything on the plate because I’m starving and because I don’t know when I’ll get another chance. Then I wash my dishes and put them away, habit taking over even though I’m technically not working here anymore.
I quit. I remember that. Right before he went full caveman and trapped me here.
The flames have burned down to embers. I add a log without thinking, watching them lick up around the dry wood. Then I wander to the window and look outside.
My car is gone.
I blink, pressing closer to the glass, scanning the driveway. The snow has piled up even higher overnight, drifts reaching almost to the windowsills. But where my little sedan should be, there’s nothing. Just an empty space and a trail of tracks leading away from the cabin.
What the fuck did he do with my car?
The question burns through me. He already broke the window. Already ripped off the door. What more could he possibly do to it? Did he push it off a cliff? Roll it into a ditch? Bury it in the woods somewhere so I can never leave?
I pace the living room, anger building with each step. The audacity of this man. The absolute nerve. He destroys my property, kidnaps me, and then makes me breakfast like that’s supposed to fix everything?
I want to scream. I want to break something. I want to find him and demand answers.
But I don’t know where he is. And part of me, a small traitorous part, wonders if I should be afraid of what will happen when he comes back.
So I wait.
I sit on the couch, as far from his precious chair as possible, and I wait. Wood crackles and pops in the hearth. The wind howls outside. Snow continues to fall, thick and relentless, burying us deeper and deeper.
Hours pass.
I don’t have my phone, so I can’t check the time. I can only watch the light change outside the windows, the gray morning brightening slightly before beginning to fade again.
Where is he?
I hate that I’m wondering. I hate that some small part of me is worried about him out there in the storm. He’s a bear shifter. He’s fine. He’s probably more comfortable in the cold than he is in this cabin.
But still.
The afternoon stretches into evening. My stomach growls again and I find leftovers in the refrigerator, his mother’s food, enough to make myself a small dinner. I eat standing at the counter, watching the window, waiting.
The sun sets. The cabin grows dark except for the fire’s glow.
And then I hear it.
The front door opening. Heavy footsteps stomping snow off boots. The rush of cold air that means someone’s come in from outside.
He’s back.
I freeze on the couch, heart pounding. Should I run to my room? Lock the door? Pretend I’m asleep?
But my body won’t move. I’m rooted to this spot, watching the entryway, waiting to see what version of him walks through.
He appears in the doorway, and the sight of him takes me off guard.
He’s covered in snow. It clings to his beard, his hair, the shoulders of his heavy coat. His eyes are dark and tired. He looks like he’s been out there for hours. Like he’s been working himself to exhaustion.
He sees me on the couch and stops.
We stare at each other across the room. Neither of us speaks.
I should be afraid. After last night, I should be terrified of him. And part of me is. Part of me remembers the gold bleeding into his eyes, the sound of metal screaming as he ripped my car apart, the helplessness of being thrown over his shoulder like I weighed nothing.
But there’s another feeling too. One I refuse to name.
A pull.
Like there’s an invisible thread connecting us, tugging me toward him even as my brain screams to run away.
I felt it yesterday when he looked at me in the kitchen.
I felt it last night when he set me down in his chair.
And I feel it now, stronger than ever, this gravity drawing me to a man I should hate.
I want to turn it off. I want to cut the thread and be free of whatever this is.
But I don’t know how.
“Where’s my car?” The words come out harder than I intend.
He doesn’t flinch. “Somewhere it can be fixed.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one I’ve got.” He shrugs off his coat and hangs it by the door, not meeting my eyes. “It’ll be ready when the storm clears.”
I stare at him, waiting for more. He doesn’t offer it.
“You can’t just take my car and not tell me where it is.”
“I didn’t take it.” He finally looks at me, and the look on his face stops me cold. “I’m fixing what I broke.”
The words catch me off guard. Not an apology exactly, but an acknowledgment. He broke it. He’s fixing it.
I don’t know what to say to that.
He moves past me toward the hallway, and I catch his scent. Pine and woodsmoke and that deeper, earthier note I noticed before. It settles over me, warm and familiar, and I hate how much I want to lean into it.
“That’s it?” I call after him. “You destroy my property, trap me here, and now you’re just going to walk away?”
He stops. His back is to me, shoulders tense beneath his flannel shirt.
“What do you want me to say?”
“I don’t know!” I’m on my feet now, though I don’t remember standing. “An explanation? An apology? Something that makes any of this make sense?”
He turns slowly. He looks exhausted. Worn down. Like the past day has aged him years.
“I’m sorry.” His voice is rough, low. “What I said to you. What I did. There’s no excuse for it. I was cruel, and you didn’t deserve any of it.”
The apology surprises me more than it should.
“That’s not an explanation.”
“No.” He holds my gaze. “It’s not.”
“Then explain. Make me understand why you—“ My voice cracks, and I hate myself for it. “Why you said those things. Why you broke my phone. Why you won’t let me leave.”
His expression shifts. Pain, maybe. Or fear.
“I can’t.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
“Both.” He looks away, not meeting my eyes. “Not yet. Not tonight. I just...” He trails off, and when he speaks again, his voice is so quiet I have to strain to hear it. “I need you to stay. Please. Just until the storm clears. I’ll keep my distance. I won’t bother you. But I need you to stay.”
“Why?”
He doesn’t answer. Just stands there, watching me with an expression I can’t decipher.
“Please,” he says again. And the word sounds like it costs him everything.
I should say no. I should demand answers, demand my freedom, demand he tell me what the hell is going on.
But that pull is still there. That thread tugging me toward him, whispering things I don’t want to hear.
“I don’t have much choice, do I?” I sink back onto the couch, suddenly exhausted. “My car is gone. My phone is destroyed. I can’t exactly walk down the mountain in a blizzard.”
“No.” He shakes his head. “You can’t.”
“I’m going to bed,” he finally says. “I put extra blankets in your room. It gets cold at night.”
Then he’s gone, disappearing down the hallway, his bedroom door clicking shut behind him.
I sit on the couch for a long time, watching the flames dance, trying to make sense of any of this.
He apologized. He’s fixing my car. He made me breakfast and gave me extra blankets and cleaned the entire cabin while I slept.
But he also crushed my phone. Ripped off my car door. Carried me into this cabin against my will and told me I can’t leave.
None of it adds up. None of it makes sense.
And underneath all the confusion and anger and fear, that pull is still there. Still tugging. Still whispering.
I press my hand against my chest, like I can physically push it away.
I don’t want this. Whatever this is.
I don’t want him.
I say it again in my head, trying to make it true.
I don’t want him.
But even as I think it, I know I’m lying.