Chapter 2: Eyes in the Dark
666 Words
The storm arrived like a threat whispered through the trees.
Aria stood by the frosted window, her fingers curled around a lukewarm mug of untouched tea. The sky was a low gray curtain, pressing in on the cabin like it wanted to suffocate everything beneath it. Snowflakes twirled in slow spirals, innocent at first glance. But even she could tell; They were just the beginning.
Rowan hadn’t spoken much since last night. After she let him stay, they'd slipped into a quiet rhythm: separate corners, stolen glances, and conversations that never reached past polite. He hadn’t made another move to explain himself, not that she wanted him to. She wasn’t sure she could hear anything from his mouth without tasting bile.
He was in James’s chair again. Aria hated that chair now, even though it used to be her favorite. Rowan sat in it like he belonged, head bent, sketching in a worn journal he never seemed to part with.
She turned away from the window. “Storm’s getting worse.”
Rowan looked up, just briefly. “I noticed.”
Of course he did. He noticed everything.
She moved to the kitchen and opened the cupboards out of habit. The shelves were modestly stocked, probably enough for two weeks if rationed. James had always made sure the cabin was prepared, one of the million little ways he took care of her. She missed that kind of softness, the way he loved without ever asking her to change. The way he touched her with such care, as if she might break, and not the flame she’d always known she was underneath.
She should have told him. She should’ve shown him.
The ache cracked open again, raw and pulsing in her chest.
Rowan’s voice startled her. “You planning to stay through the storm?”
She didn’t turn around. “I didn’t come here to run back when it got inconvenient.”
A pause. Then, “You might be stuck with me.”
“I’ve been stuck with worse.”
That earned a quiet chuckle from him, and something about the sound grated her nerves. He sounded too comfortable for a man supposedly mourning his stepbrother. Too at ease for someone who had been the last to see James alive.
Aria turned slowly, her eyes landing on him like a blade. “What exactly were you doing here before I arrived?”
Rowan’s pencil paused mid-stroke. “James told me I could stay here. I needed space and he knew that.”
She narrowed her eyes. “He didn’t tell me anything about you. Ever.”
“I guess he had his reasons.”
He didn’t elaborate. And she didn’t ask. Because the more she heard from him, the louder the whisper inside her head became.
He knows something.
The wind howled outside, loud enough to rattle the windowpanes. The air shifted, colder, heavier. She looked toward the front door, her pulse flickering.
“How bad is it supposed to get?” she asked.
Rowan stood and walked past her to the fireplace, tossing in another log. “Bad enough that we won’t be going anywhere. Radio said whiteout conditions for days.”
Days. Trapped in here. With him.
Aria took a deep breath, trying to slow the rising panic. “There has to be a way out.”
“There isn’t.” He looked at her, and his voice was calm, level. “You should make peace with that.”
But how could she make peace with any of this? Her fiancé was gone. His stepbrother—an artist with secrets and eyes too haunted to trust—was here. And outside, the snow was falling faster, like the earth itself was trying to bury the truth.
Aria turned and walked back to the bedroom, closing the door behind her with a soft click. She leaned her back against it, heart pounding harder than the wind outside.
Something wasn’t right.
And now, there was no escaping it.
- Writer
