44 #2
‘Mine?’ My voice climbs into a register no self-respecting woman should use around guard wolves. Dogs. Guard wolf-dogs… things.
‘Elias, you can’t just buy me a truck—’
My face drains of colour as recognition washes over me cold.
‘Why did you buy me a truck?’
‘To move around. You might need to go into town for something.’
‘You would get it for me,’ I supply.
His face falls slightly, though I can see he’s holding on to the mask.
‘You should be able to reach town… an airport… anywhere else… without asking me anything.’
He doesn’t look at me when he says it. His eyes are lowered, trained on his boots. His hands remain loose at his sides instead of reaching for me. Every word sounds as though he has wrenched it out of a place that didn’t want it released.
This is more than handing over my passport. More than permission disguised as practicality.
The truck sits like proof of the fight he is having with his own nature, and – for once – he is choosing the door over the cage.
A sharp pain ricochets in my chest. I had spent so long waiting for him to stop deciding where I could go that I never imagined freedom arriving like this – in the shape of tyres, keys and him refusing to look at me.
He sobers then.
‘That’s not all, either…’ He reaches for the cage lock with one hand and loops two leads around his other, clipping them on the animals’ collars. ‘I’ll be a minute.’
When he unlatches the tailgate, my spine snaps upright. The dogs jump out of the truck bed and thud onto the ground, immediately pulling their noses towards the yard.
I watch Elias walk them once around the place, the henhouse and the edge of the clearing before he reaches for the collars again.
The moment he unlatches them, I pull the truck door shut.
The dogs scatter in rapid movements, eyes sharp and noses sharper.
Suddenly, Elias knocks on the window, startling me. He jerks his head towards the house in soundless invitation and leaves.
My heart climbs to my throat.
‘You’re not leaving me alone with the dogs!’ I call. Brute snaps his head towards me at the raised voice. And my spine remembers to hold straight.
‘Right…’ I mutter to myself, ‘it’s just a puppy. A big… dark-eyed, wild-looking beast that belongs in mythology books. Nothing to worry about.’
I click the door handle. The dogs freeze where they stand, their heads turning towards me. Menace angles his a fraction, nose twitching.
I slither out of the truck as if trying to make myself appear as fluid as possible. Slow movements, no panic.
‘Hey love,’ I murmur to Brute, who hasn’t blinked at all. ‘You look too cute for a wolf,’ I coo.
His pointy ears twitch, but that’s about all he gives me.
I begin walking slowly towards the door, and the dogs move, following me with the grim devotion of executioners escorting a condemned woman to her final appointment.
Every step across the yard takes approximately six years and several heart attacks.
Soil swallows my boots, my dignity abandons me somewhere near the closest woodpile, and Elias stands by the cabin entrance looking far too entertained for a man who has just released two feral border patrol officers with teeth into my immediate vicinity.
Brute pads closer to my left hip, the other to my right.
Lovely. Formation.
Like livestock.
By the time I reach the porch, I am fairly certain I have aged, bonded with nature and developed a mild allergy to Elias’ surprises.
‘They like you,’ he states with a smirk.
I huff out the breath I’ve been holding as he lets us in.
‘Are you going to leave them outside?’ I ask when the door closes behind us and my heart remembers it’s supposed to pump blood.
‘Brute and Menace will be fine. They can go in and out,’ he says, nodding towards the door. A formidable flap shakes in punctuation – one the dogs can use.
I narrow my eyes at it.
I was wondering why he was demolishing a perfectly good door the other day.
‘I have another surprise.’
My breath jams halfway as I look at him in horror.
He’s laughing from the bottom of his lungs now, walking backwards. ‘Don’t look at me like that.’
‘Please tell me there’s nothing furry involved in this one.’ I’m shaking my head, but as he beckons me with a crook of his finger and a mischievous grin, a strange kind of heat lights up at the base of my spine, somewhat dampening the anxiety.
I begin to follow until we stop in front of the chain-door.
‘Open it,’ he says.
I hesitate for only an intake of breath as my eyes find the key stuck in the lock.
Once. Twice. Three times, the key turns. The wood gives and opens a crack. The scent of plastic and chemicals pours out.
We walk into pitch-black darkness.
He takes my hand, guiding it to a power switch on the right that didn’t exist before.
‘It has a battery bank charged by the solar panels, with its own generator as backup,’ he says and pushes the switch.
Click.
A low red glow blooms to life overhead. Soft and eerie, it turns his profile into something unholy. It takes my eyes a moment to adjust.
An extraction fan whirrs somewhere in the wall. Beneath it, the trays are set in a neat row, the chemical bottles lined up beside them.
On the left, he’s built a narrow workbench from rough planks and trestles; an old enlarger sits there like a mechanical insect, its column bolted to the table, lens gleaming faintly in the red light.
Beside it is a compact pigment printer and a pack of transparency film.
A darkroom.
My heart nearly breaks out of my chest.
‘Oh God, Elias…’ I murmur, turning to him. ‘How did you know to get all this?’
‘Anna and Conall took inventory of what you had at home. I ordered whatever I could, so I might have forgotten something. We can buy it.’
My fingertips settle on the edge of the enlarger. The cold metal steadies my frantic breath to an extent.
For months, every image has ended after the lens cap came on. Now, there is a way to turn the files into paper. Trays wait for chemistry. Blank walls wait for prints.
He has not merely remembered that this is a part of me. He understood why finishing the photos matters.
I turn slowly, taking in the surroundings and the careful order of things. And as I turn a full circle, the joy catches on a sharp thought – the truck outside. The dogs. The generator, the darkroom equipment.
My gaze creeps over him as the numbers begin lining themselves up in my head.
‘Elias… how did you pay for all this?’
His gaze drops from mine to the wooden floor.
‘Conall has been doing more than keeping Cromwell occupied,’ he says carefully.
‘His barrister got the court to release the part everyone agrees belongs to me. The rest is still tied up. Most importantly, this money did not come from Arthur. It was taken from me many years ago.’ His mouth tightens as if that victory tastes wrong. ‘Conall secured a small win, Leah.’
A small win.
For the truck. All this equipment… The damn dogs?
The meaning sinks into me colder than the truth I first woke to in this cabin.
‘Every payment has a record, Elias,’ I say. ‘The truck has a registration; the equipment had to be delivered. The dogs… won’t they know where we are now?’
His attention slips past me towards the other end of the room. One second passes. Then another.
‘There is a trail,’ he admits. ‘But it does not lead here.’
Every time he pulls us a little closer to trust, another secret knocks us backwards.
‘I was careful. And you’re not done looking around,’ he says meaningfully as he pulls me closer and buries his mouth into my neck.
‘No,’ I say, ‘Elias, tell me how—’
His mouth closes around mine. His kiss is soft, warm enough to begin thawing the shock and the rage inside me. After months of learning him the hard way – of fighting him and fearing him, then somehow building something in the spaces between – I choose the kiss instead of the argument.
My hands settle against him without my permission.
Then sense catches up with need, and I push him away. Reluctantly.
He allows it.
‘You do not get to kiss me through the part where you explain your magical shopping spree.’
‘You’re safe here,’ he says quickly. ‘I was careful. I had help.’
I had help.
The unanswered question since the airport.
Anders comes to mind first. Markus, Henrik, Olle… This family has learnt to live life the hard way.
Then I remember that he’d mentioned – after the Hunt fiasco – that his family didn’t know about our… arrangement.
And, when his eyes stop blinking and settle on my mouth like they do now, when his arms tighten around me and his lips press into a stubborn line, I know I won’t be getting anything out of him.