The cabin in the woods had become a prison.
Adam realized it on a Tuesday, three months after Geneva. He was chopping wood, the axe biting into the frozen logs, his breath clouding in the cold air. The same trees. The same sky. The same silence.
He'd spent the winter recovering. Healing. Hiding. Sandra had stayed with him, patient and steady. Nina had come and gone, bringing supplies, news, warnings. Leo had called every week, his voice a lifeline to the world Adam had left behind.
But the world had moved on. Blackhaven had changed. And Adam was still here, standing in the snow, chopped wood, waiting for something he couldn't name.
“You're thinking about going back,” Sandra said from the porch.
“I'm thinking about going anywhere.”
“Blackhaven is still there. Still dangerous.”
“Every
