Chapter Eighteen
Alexa
When I woke up, Daniel was already up and moving. I couldn’t find him so I decided to get breakfast started. Eggs, bacon, French toast. It would be the perfect breakfast. When I walked into the kitchen Daniel was already there, a pile of snow melting off him, onto the floor at his feet. I frowned at the wet mess he was making in the kitchen. I smelled the coffee what was already brewed and smiled. One less thing for me to do.
I walked out of the room and into the kitchen to see Daniel there, making a face as he took a sip of his coffee. I raised an eyebrow and smirked. I knew that face. It was the same face I made when my coffee was cold.
“Put it in the microwave. That’ll help.” I told him, yawning.
“It’s snowing like mad out there. It’s crazy.” He put his cup in the microwave to heat the coffee back up.
“How much has fallen since last night?” I tried to make small talk as I pulled out the makings for breakfast.
I shooed Daniel to the other side of the island, not liking people hovering over me while I cooked. The sound of the bacon sizzling though seemed to draw him back around to watch me, a couple of pans warming for other food. Daniel reached over to the plate where I was starting to place the bacon, to steal a piece and I swatted his hand with the freshly greased spatula.
“Don’t touch that! Unless you want to starve and watch me eat this.” I told him, turning back to the stove.
Daniel huffed and growled at me, “meanie”, before slapping my ass as he walked by me. I turned to glare at him. This was my kitchen. His house, but my kitchen, and no one got away with anything in my kitchen.
He was staring at me like I had lost my mind. I smiled sweetly at him, adding a confused look on my face for good measure.
“Yes?”
“You slapped my hand. No one slaps my hand.” Daniel had a predatory look in his eye, and I felt the heat rush to my core. It was breakfast time and I was hungry, but at the moment, I was sure that he only wanted me for breakfast.
“Oh. I don’t like people getting in my way. John has a habit of filching food when I’m cooking.” I turned back to the stove, taking the bacon out of the pan and flipping the French toast before adding more bacon to the pan. I hadn’t cooked in silence in so long that I didn’t know what to do. So, I asked Daniel to turn on some music.
“Fuck! I can’t get online, and the satellite isn’t working.” Daniel swore as he looked for his cell phone. I watched as he wandered around the house, holding his phone up. “Damn! It looks like the storm is blocking the signal for everything. I can’t get a signal on my phone. I hope this doesn’t last long.” He sat down heavily on the stool he had just vacated. “Well, looks like we are on our own for right now, sweetheart.” Throwing his phone on the counter, he slammed his fist down angrily. I just smiled and pulled out my iPod, and asked him to put it on the base. It wasn’t long before the sounds of Metallica’s Enter Sandman were filling the downstairs and I was singing along.
I finished the bacon and scrambled the eggs, using some of the bacon grease. Checking the toast, I knew it was ready for the oven. I grabbed some berries, sugar, and dumped it all into the pan. In no time the berries were bubbling, ready to be squashed into pulp. I loved my syrup all natural and seedy. I squashed them before turning the pan to simmer. I dished up our plates, grabbed the pan of syrup, and poured it into a bowl. I liked free access to syrup. I had learned a long time ago, not everyone liked the same amount of syrup.
“How much toast would you like?” I hovered over the freshly cooked toast. Daniel held up two fingers as he studied his phone and tried to make it receive a signal. I dished up his toast, sprinkled some powdered sugar over it, and loaded him up with bacon and eggs. I placed his plate in front of him and all he did was grunt at me. I shook my head at took his phone from him.
“You can throw a fit about the phone later. Right now, you need to eat.” I brought my plate over and sat beside him, as he stuffed his food in his mouth, pouring half the bowl of syrup over his toast, eggs, and bacon.
“This is really good.” He said around a mouthful of food. “Why did you agree to do this for your brother? You could've told him no.” He looked at me as I ate.
“John has been there for me through so much, I owed him one. Even if he wasn’t paying me I would have done him this favor. He took me in after Sean fucked me over. He didn’t have to. He has always been there for me. I want to get out on my own. This job will help me move out of his house.” I shrugged as I thought about it. There was so much more than that, but I couldn’t tell anyone those reasons. Yet. Or ever.
I could never tell John I felt like a third wheel. He would feel so guilty for keeping me there for so long and I could never do that to him. He had helped me out so much, I would be eternally grateful to him. “And well, once I saw you, I figured it was an even better deal, because, well, you’re hot.” I could feel the heat filling my face as I turned back to my food.
Well, that cat was out of the bag. I had told him what I thought about how he looked. So hopefully he wouldn’t run screaming now. I looked around the room as it seemed to grow smaller. Daniel got up and closed the space between us, he was speaking but the blood pounding in my ears wouldn’t let me hear him.
I needed to get out, needed to breathe. I pushed away from Daniel, leaving the cleaning up to him and went to get dressed. I pulled on my boots and my jacket and headed to the front door. I was almost there when Daniel blocked me. I looked at him and he just shook his head at me.
“You don’t want to go out there. You could get lost or hurt. It’s nasty, Alexa.” he tried to keep me from pushing past him. I opened the door and looked out. It was white everything. Driveway, path, trees, front yard. There was nothing untouched by the snow. And the flakes were huge. Giant fluffy flakes that meant business, not the little flakes that would take forever to stick to something.
Didn’t Daniel have a landline? Well, no he wouldn’t have one out here. I had already looked for cords or wires coming to the house from the road. I had to go look for someone with a radio. He wasn’t as prepared as he should have been for this weather. I would have to talk to John about how little he had told Daniel about living out here in the woods.
“I hadn’t thought about that yet. I told you, I came back here on the spur of the moment. Given time I would have installed a house phone, but for now, it’s just our cell phones.” He sounded almost apologetic. “Alexa, wait, please? It’s not safe out here alone. Please, stay near the house.” He begged as I stormed off into the swirling white blindness.
“Why should I? I grew up here in this state. I know it better than you do. Why should I listen to you when you weren’t even prepared enough to have a house phone? I’m going to see if I can find a neighbor somewhere to call John.” I yelled over my shoulder and turned back down the driveway. The determination to find a phone somewhere that wasn’t one of our cells filled me. I didn’t know what the likelihood was of there being any neighbors this far out, but I had to try. Come hell or high water. I steeled my nerves, turned back to the door, yelled at Daniel and took off down the road, to where I hoped there was another house.
I couldn’t believe how easily he’d let me walk away. It was too easy. Or, maybe he knew what I said was true. I knew my way around in this weather because I had grown up in it. Honestly, I hoped he wasn’t just leaving me to die. It was already starting to get dusky; it didn’t stay light this far north very long in winter. Only about three hours and she was pushing into hour two right now. It was only about 11:30 in the morning, I was pretty sure of it. But this was a lot further north than Anchorage, and I knew there were differences in the amount of daylight between the two areas.
I had started to despair at the thought I may not find another house with life in it when I barely saw the smoke through the snow. Someone had a made a fire up ahead of me. I pushed forward, to their front door. When I knocked on their door, I hoped they had a phone. No one answered though, so I looked through the window to see if they were coming to the door; or even home. I knocked again, louder this time and kept watching.
When no one came to the door, I tried the knob, not many people locked their doors out in the woods. Just my luck though, it was locked. Find the only house with signs of life and they weren’t even home. The owners were probably out enjoying the fresh powder. I groaned as I looked up the road, my footsteps already being filled in by the quickly falling snow. I tried my best to follow my trail, but that wasn’t good enough. I never saw the ice patch until I stepped on it, my feet flying out from beneath me, my head hitting the hard ground as the world went black.