“You’re going to freeze if you keep going out there.”  Seri raises an eyebrow at me and smiles, but I know she’s worried.

“I’m just going to give it one more look while there’s still daylight,” I tell her.

“Don’t be long,” she says.  “It’s still Christmas, after all.”

“I won’t be.”

As I bundle up to go outside, I forgo the snowshoes, preferring to be a little more mobile.  The path from the cabin to the barn is well established at this point, and there isn’t much risk of sinking.  Something in my gut tells me that Kyle is still close by, and I want to be able to get back to the cabin quickly.  He’s been looking for Iris for months, and now that he knows where she is, he won’t stay away very long.  The problem is, I don’t know when he’ll come back or with whom.

I look out across the horizon and listen closely for the sound of a snowmobile or any other kind of engine, but I see and hear nothing.  I may be a criminal, but I never saw myself as someone with the same kind of mindset my prison peers had.  If I were better at thinking like a criminal, maybe I would know what Kyle is going to do next.  If I could predict his movements, I could better protect Iris.

One thing is for sure.  Now that he knows I’m armed, he’s not going to come back alone.  He has at least one friend with him.  If I had to guess, I would say the driver of the car I saw at the clinic was Max, the business partner Iris told me about.  If Kyle comes back tonight, he’ll have Max with him.

I head inside the barn and look all around, finding nothing unusual.  I walk over to the stone section and decide to pull out some bear meat.  Seri might like having something a little different for Christmas dinner.  I find a good piece under the fish and caribou, but it’s quite stuck.  I pull my gloves off so I can grip my knife a little better and use the knife to chip away at some of the ice before I can pull out the meat.

As I come out of the barn, I see a slight movement to my left.  I glance that way just before a rush of motion heads straight for me.  A second later, I’m knocked off my feet, and the bear meat goes flying into a snow bank.  I land on my ass next to the woodpile with a giant of a man heading straight for me.

“Hello again!”  Kyle sneers as he walks around the edge of the barn.

They must have come from the southwest, around the far edge of the marsh, and followed the rock wall.  All this time, I’ve been watching for them to come from the east, the direction of the road, but they took the long way around.

Fuck!

I jump to my feet as the big guy—Max, I assume—heads toward me again.  Now that he’s not sitting inside of a car, I can appreciate the sheer size of the man.  He has at least four inches and maybe sixty pounds on me.

He rushes at me, and I try to hold my knife out with one hand while simultaneously grabbing the Sig from the pocket of my parka.  It doesn’t work.  I’m not fast enough.  Max is on top of me, grabbing my wrist and slamming my hand against the hard, icy ground until the knife drops.  He leans his forearm across my neck and sneers down at me.

“Get him up,” Kyle says.

Max holds my arms, and Kyle punches me square in the jaw.  My head reels and lights flash in my eyes from the blow.  He hits me again just as Max releases my arms, and I go flying toward the woodpile.

I land in the snow and roll, hoping to regain my footing, but my leg lands hard against a splintered piece of wood sticking up from the ground.  It penetrates my thigh, and I cry out.  It feels like all the skin on my leg has been torn away, and when I try to put weight on that leg, I start to fall.

Max grabs my arm before I hit the ground.  I swing at him, but the angle is wrong, and I don’t deliver enough force.  Kyle is right there in front of me, and he kicks me in the side as Max grabs my other arm and wrenches both behind me.  Kyle’s blow is insignificant through my parka.

As Max holds my arms, Kyle stalks up in front of me and spits in my face.  He punches me in the chest, but the parka takes much of the blow.

“Just a bit too much padding here.”  Kyle grins maliciously as he reaches forward and yanks my parka open.  He pulls it back over my shoulders and then down my arms.  I try to kick at him, but Max’s grip on me is too strong to do any damage.  I continue to twist and turn, trying to get an advantage, but there’s nothing I can do.  Once my thick coat is out of the way, Kyle slams his fist into my gut as the biting cold stings my body.

“Merry-fucking-Christmas, Mr. Bishop!”  Kyle laughs as he hits me in the stomach and chest several times, then punches me in the face as well.  “I gotta tell you, I couldn’t have asked for a better present.”

My vision is going a little blurry, but I try to hold my head up when he’s not actually hitting me.  The sun is setting, and the temperature is dropping rapidly.  Without the parka, my limbs are beginning to go numb as my body conserves its heat at my core.

“You have to understand,” Kyle says, “that I can’t just have some hick fucking my wife.  You do understand that, don’t you, Mr. Bishop?  Yeah…sure you do.”

He hits me again and again.  Max continues to wrench my arms behind my back to the point where my shoulder is about to be dislocated, and Kyle just keeps pummeling me.

“You have no idea what kind of woman you’re dealing with here.”  Kyle shakes his head before he punches me in the gut again.  “I’m doing you a favor.  You don’t know the truth about Iris.”

I force cold air into my lungs, shuddering when I let it out again.  I look up into his eyes.

“Honestly,” I tell him, “I’d rather know the truth about Seri.”

“Seri?”  He narrows his eyes and tilts his head as he looks at me.  “Seri, as in Serenity?  Iris’s kid sister?  What does Seri have to do with this?”

I suddenly realize that Kyle has no idea.  Seri came after he tried to kill Iris, so he would have no knowledge of her, but Netti was around before then.  Is it possible?  Could this guy not know about Netti at all?  Could Iris have been married to him, and he never understood that she was more than one person?

He wants me to know the truth about Iris when, in fact, he knows nothing.

I laugh out loud, and he rewards me with another punch to the head.  This time, Max lets go of my arms, and I drop to the ground with the side of my face in the snow.  I cough hard, and blood spatters the snow in front of me.  My ears are ringing, and though I know Kyle and Max are talking, I can’t hear what they’re saying.  I do see Kyle kneel down and grab my hunting knife.

I squeeze my eyes shut for a moment, and my mind tries to go dark.  I bite down on my tongue—I can’t let myself lose consciousness.  When I open my eyes again, Max is standing just a few feet away with his back toward me, and Kyle is walking toward the cabin with my knife in his hand.

I know exactly what he’s going to do, and a rush of adrenaline follows the panic.  I have to move.  I have to move now.

My Sig is just a few feet away, inside the pocket of my parka, which is lying next to the barn door.  As Max watches Kyle approach the cabin, I claw at the ground and drag myself to it.  Max turns toward me just as I reach into the pocket and pull out the weapon.  When he rushes me, there is no time to think.

I roll to my back and fire with no time to aim.  The blasts deafen me.  I pull the trigger over and over, and Max falls at my feet.  A pool of blood begins to form around his lifeless body, but I keep pulling the trigger.

My heart is pounding in my chest, and I’m panting.  The gun is making a loud clicking sound each time I move my index finger, and it takes me a moment to realize it’s out of bullets and I’m still trying to fire it.

I drop the weapon and roll to my stomach.  Blood drips from my nose onto the snow as I try to push myself to my feet and fail.  I cry out as the agony from my leg drowns out the pain from my stomach and head.  For a moment, I concentrate on calming my breathing.

From the direction of the cabin, I hear screaming.

I try to stand again, but I fall.  Looking toward the cabin, I see no sign of Kyle, and I know he must be inside.  He’s inside with Seri and Iris and Netti, and he’s already tried to kill them once.

Focus.

My hands are shaking.  I’m not sure if it’s from the cold or the pain.  I dare to look down at my right leg, but I can’t see anything except blood through the tear in my thick, insulated pants.  I’m certain a chunk of wood is embedded in the muscle.  I shift my leg slightly as pain shoots from my ankle to my hip.

That doesn’t matter.

Bile invades the back of my throat as images of my mother flash through my throbbing head.  I can’t pay any attention to the pain—not now.  I have to focus.  I have to get up.  I can’t let him get to her.

She’s going to die.

I grit my teeth and push again.

Slowly, I get myself to my hands and knees and then to my feet.  The gun is useless unless I retrieve more ammo from inside the cabin, but I shove it into my jeans anyway and limp over to the barn.  I struggle to reach around the door and grab the axe from its hook.  When I can feel the handle, I seize it.

A dozen images invade my head.  I remember how it felt to pull the axe from the wall of the shed at my parents’ house and how my hands got sweaty when I gripped it, waiting for him.  I remember how it started to slip from my grasp, slick with my father’s blood.

I swallow past the lump in my throat.  I’m breathing too fast, and the cold in my lungs is nearly unbearable, but I can’t let myself be distracted by that.  I grip the axe a little tighter.

I know what to do with this.

I gasp as pain races up my leg again, then steel myself against the feeling as I move as quickly as I can for the cabin.  The cold penetrates my body, numbing the pain in my leg but also making it harder to move.  I should have grabbed my parka, but all I can think about is getting to Iris as quickly as possible.  As I approach, I hear another scream—this time from Kyle.  A second later, Iris runs out the door, barefoot in the snow, with Kyle on her heels.

I’m still a hundred yards away, moving as fast as I possibly can, but I can’t get to her before he does.  He jumps, grabbing Iris’s ankles and tackling her to the ground.  Iris rolls to her back as he comes at her, bracing herself with one hand on the icy ground as she raises the other in front of her.  I can see something in her hand, but I can’t tell what it is.  As Kyle lands on top of her, I hear his scream.

My moment of elation is short-lived, and my heart stops as I watch Kyle raise my hunting knife in the air before bringing it down in an arc.  Iris’s choking scream is drowned out by my own cry as I race to both of them and swing the axe at Kyle’s head.

Kyle glances up at me and rolls, avoiding my first swing, but he can’t roll away fast enough.  He’s on his back and holding his hands up as if to surrender, but in my peripheral vision, I can see blood all over Iris’s face and neck, and the rage inside me isn’t something I can control—or want to.

I bring the axe down.

Kyle screams.

I bring the axe down again.

In my head, I’m not standing in the snow, slowly freezing in the Canadian, subarctic winter wind.  I’m standing in my childhood living room with blood spattering the walls and television set.

I swing the axe, connecting with the side of his head, and there is no more screaming.

My head is spinning.  I’m breathing too fast, and though I know I’m starting to hyperventilate, I can’t stop myself.  I can’t focus enough to see, but I feel warm trickles of blood on my hands and face.  I remember the feeling well, and when I close my eyes for a second, I am again standing in my parents’ living room, straddling my father’s body.

Breathe.  In through your nose, out through your mouth.

My hands are still shaking, but I can breathe a little easier.  When I open my eyes, I look at the crimson mess that was once Kyle McGuire.  I also see the small knife I had included in Seri’s Christmas survival kit sticking out of his abdomen.

Breathless, I look away from his body and see Iris lying in the snow, covered in blood.

I can barely move my arms and legs, and I’m shivering so badly, I can hardly get a grip on Iris.  The sun has set, and the wind is penetrating.  I squeeze my eyes shut, ignoring the pain in my leg as I drag Iris by the shoulders toward the cabin door.  I have to lift her up to get her over the stoop, and I nearly collapse in the doorway.  With one final burst of energy, I drag us both inside the cabin.  I kick the door shut with my left leg and then collapse next to her.

I turn my head until I can see her face.  I reach over to try to figure out where the wound is, but my head swims, and everything goes black.