Stay or Run?
1260 Words
Neviah
What in the world am I doing?
This guy is gorgeous, and he hasn’t killed me yet, but that doesn’t mean he won’t as soon as we get to whatever this ‘not exactly’ a house is.
Did I read somewhere that lots of serial killers are attractive? And what about that trance he put me in? Maybe he’s some kind of magician or something.
Red flags, all of it, just waving right in my face.
Still, I follow him. Wherever we’re going, it has to be better than freezing to death.
I think.
He leaps down the snowdrift onto the road completely effortlessly, and I do the same, extremely clumsily.
I guess he’s right about one thing. I would never have been able to light a fire. I knew from the moment I started working with the sticks that they were too wet. But I’d tried anyway, hoping I’d get lucky.
I’m not sure if I’m lucky or in deep trouble right now.
Almost to the street now, the last step I take is less than graceful, to put it mildly. I plant my foot on what seems like solid ground, but something snaps, and all I can see is the icy pavement coming up fast.
But a muscular arm stops me, steadies me, and the next second, I’m staring into this man’s heaving chest.
Something shimmers inside me at his touch, like a bolt of lightning that shoots through my veins but doesn’t hurt.
No. This feels... pleasurable.
What the—oh, my gosh. I need to get a grip.
“Um... t-thanks.”
He raises a brow, and goodness... it’s sexy.
I need to remember that I’m freezing to death in the forest. This is a survival moment, not a date.
Right.
It’s only now that I remember to pull away, standing on my own two feet. A shiver runs through me at the loss of his warm touch. I kind of want to dive into him again.
Yeah, I won’t do that.
He turns on his heels and starts walking. I follow, taking two steps plus for each one of his, getting about four steps when I realize he’s just crossing the street.
“Wait!”
He stops and turns in an instant.
“Where are you going?” I demand. “Shouldn’t we stay on the road?”
“I said follow me,” he grunts, turning around and heading up the snowbank on the other side of the road.
What a jerk... my mouth hangs open in the frigid air, and I just stand here watching him leap up the snowbank like it’s a normal step.
I lift my hands to my hips and park myself here. I’m sure he’ll stop when he notices I’m not following him.
He doesn’t.
Instead, he disappears into the thick forest until all I can see of him is a faint sense of movement from the branches he brushes past.
I’m alone again on the icy road, in silence. A gentle breeze blows by, so cold it makes my face feel numb. I take another glance down the road past the little bridge over the creek.
I can take my chances walking again. I’ve come this far. It can’t be more than a few miles before I run into someone’s cabin, or maybe someone will come driving down the road and rescue me.
Then, through the silence, I hear it: a deep, menacing growl coming from behind me.
My body reacts instantly, and I shimmy up the snowbank almost as efficiently as that guy did.
Anything is better than being alone out here.
I try to catch up with him, hopping into his footsteps the way I had followed the footprints back to the road, but he’s still ahead of me somewhere, still walking... and not slowing down at all.
Branches sway where he has passed through already, emptied of their snowpack since he’d pushed them aside. It gets thicker as I go, and darker, even though it’s morning. It becomes harder to follow the footsteps even though they’re deep.
Is this guy running now?
Jeez.
I just keep pressing forward. He’s bound to stop when he gets to his house. Right?
And then I spot him, standing there facing me, his arms folded impatiently against that incredibly muscular chest.
When I get closer, I almost expect to see a smirk on his face. But his gaze is steady and unreadable... calm, patient.
It gives me that lightning feeling in my veins again.
What in the world?
I finally catch up with him, and he nods toward the space behind him. “We’re here.”
All I see is trees. “What? Where? You said you had a house.”
“I did not,” he says, his tone steady. He turns around and keeps walking.
He’s slower this time, so it’s not as hard to keep up, though I still have to leap between his footsteps. My feet are getting colder now with all this activity in the snow. Instead of numb, my toes are starting to feel like something is biting them.
Ugh, I’m getting hypothermia. Great.
Just when I think he’s never going to stop walking, he halts by a rock and nods again before leaning down and stepping into an opening.
What is it with this guy and caves? He lives here?
Having the icy breeze off my face is an instant relief as I follow him into the cave, where I’m surprised to find a lit torch attached to the wall. There’s a stack of some sort of bags underneath it, and not much else.
There’s no way he lives here. So why did he bring me here instead of to his house?
The answer is clear in my mind. He’s definitely going to kill me. I mean, who wants to leave any evidence at the place where they actually live?
I stand by the cave entrance for a moment, trying to decide whether to bolt right out of here and face whatever is growling out there or take my chances here. Maybe this is my last chance to save myself. I should take it.
Right?
But instead, I just stand here as if my feet are frozen to the floor, staring at this guy while he goes to those sacks and pulls out... something, dumping it on the ground near a pile of rocks and bringing the torch over to light it.
A fire!
Any thought of running away melts at the sight of it and the feeling of warmth that’s already hitting my face and hands. I’ll die if I don’t dry my clothes and keep traipsing through the snowy woods, so it looks like once again, I have no choice.
I step over to the fire and squat beside it, rubbing my hands together and feeling the heat defrosting me slowly. It’s like being in heaven.
After a few minutes, I realize that my eyes are closed while I bask in the warmth. I open them to see that he had settled across from me, cross-legged, on the other side of the fire.
I notice that his clothes aren’t quite right, more put together than sewn. They’re definitely nothing someone could buy in a*****e, even secondhand. I wonder if he’s living out here by himself.
His deep green eyes meet mine again, and a different kind of warmth spreads through me.
I have so many questions. Where to begin?
“Um... what’s your name?” I ask.
- Writer
