A Thousand Snowflakes

Companion

She was pretty.

August stared at the sleeping form in front of him, nausea curling in his stomach.

He didn’t remember how he got here. He remembered walking to his car after his fight, and that was all he could remember until he woke up with a throbbing headache and a pair of pale green eyes staring at him.

Sloan Sutton. He remembered when she went missing. Her home had been broken into— both of her parents shot dead at the scene, and she was no where to be found. No DNA evidence. Not a trace left behind. It had been two months, and they’d found not a single trace of the girl in front of him. Most people had written her off as dead.

But she wasn’t dead. She was very much so alive in front of him. Too skinny, malnourished, her high cheekbones way too prominent in her small face. Her long, strawberry blonde hair was tangled and lackluster. Her skin was pale, and she had dark circles so prominent under her eyes they looked as if they’d been tattooed there. But she was still beautiful.

She shivered slightly, her eyelashes fluttering. August hadn’t slept, and the sun was beginning to rise. He’d listened for every footstep upstairs, trying to pick up any clue as to how the man moved around the house. He heard nothing. He was sure the man wasn’t home. Years of military training had kicked in, and he knew he had to be tactical if he was going to get out of here— and get Sloan out of here.

He wasn’t afraid. His time serving in the military made that impossible— the nightmares that plagued him nightly reminded him that he wasn’t scared of some f*****g pervert in the woods.

Sloan stirred, sitting up on her cot as she pulled her skinny knees into her chest. She looked around cautiously, her mouth twisting in caution as her pale green eyes— the color of sage— met his.

She didn’t speak. August didn’t either. He didn’t know what to say to her. He wasn’t an emotional man. In fact, he avoided emotion at all costs. People called him cold— distant, particularly his ex fiancé. She’d said he was incapable of feeling, and she was probably right. You didn’t watch children get murdered and come out with the warm and fuzzies. It f****d with you.

He watched as she stood, rushing to pull her short dress down to cover herself. He averted his eyes as she did. When he looked back up, and had made her way over to the wall, looking up at the tiny window much too far away and much too small to do them any good.

She let out a delicate breath. “There’s water in the jug over there,” she brushed her hand in the direction of the sink. “He only brings one of those a week, so make it last.”

August shook his head. “I’m alright. You need it more than I do.”

He watched her stare with squinted eyes at the window, her tiny frame stiff. The sun was rising, and you could tell by the light it was casting.

Two months. August didn’t know how she wasn’t mad.

She didn’t seem interested in speaking anymore, enraptured by the sunrise. He took note of the room around him.

Drafty and musty. Concrete floors. There was a sink with no faucet and a toilet in the far right of the room, and the water jug she referenced was next to the sink. There was one light dangling in the center of the room. The red blinking light from above the door told August they were being watched.

Sloan spoke so quietly, her lips barely moved. “The camera can see everything, except the corner on the left of the room. That’s the blind spot.”

“I don’t know why he took you,” she whispered, her face angled away from the view of the camera. “I wish I did.”