Dylan
Her eyes betray what she thinks of my handiwork. The glint in them confirms she likes it.
She can’t deny how good it looks.
A new plaid dress, fashioned from one of my many flannel shirts. It’s as if it was tailored to fit her curves perfectly—not that it takes much to outline her curves.
But then she says, “Oh, wow, I have something to wear now.”
Really, it’s a backhanded compliment, and, to add insult to injury, she just stalks off to...wherever it is she goes to sulk.
The air crackles with electricity. It’s getting fucking impossible. My hands shake, and I feel like killing something.
That’s why I’m gearing up to go out and hunt some food before the blizzard really picks up.
I can tell by the size of the snowflakes and the color of the sky that things are going to get even worse. Honestly, we have more than enough food, but I need to get out of here while I still can—at least for a little while.
Going out on a hunt is the only fucking way I’m going to be able to channel any of this shit for real.
Naked Emma, Emma with the sexy new dress, and steamy Emma.
These images are going to be in my mind for a while as I trudge through the blinding snow. That plaid fabric clinging to her beautiful shape, and her perfect ass...
Fuck, I need to get going.
I have to get out there before the storm starts to get really bad. I check the digital temperature display, which is hooked up to the thermometers inside and outside the cabin.
Inside is still a relatively toasty twenty-two degrees centigrade, which is just a little over seventy Fahrenheit.
The temperature outside is beyond brisk at negative fourteen centigrade or about seven degrees Fahrenheit—if that helps make it sound a little warmer. I have on my thermal socks and underwear, as well as my thermal shirt and several flannel layers.
Even my coat is plaid, but it’s a bright one for hunting, a reddish orange color that the flannel supplier refers to as Labrador Sunrise.
It’s named after one of the Canadian Northern Territories—sort of. I’m sticking mostly with the Labrador Sunrise color scheme because I want to be easy to spot in the increasingly heavy blanket of pure white precipitation.
Shit, what am I saying? No fucker is going to come looking for me if something were to happen.
I know for a fact there are will be no other hunters—no other human beings—within miles of where I’ll be, but sticking with some basic principles is one of those things that has kept me sane through all these years of solitude.
One other thing that has kept me sane, though, is, well...the solitude itself. The closest things to human contact that I had were the images on my monitors.
Images of extraordinary beauty.
Images of Emma Clayton.
Seeing Emma in those electronically transmitted two-dimensional images was like seeing Emma in the flesh...before all this shit went down at the real estate firm. The Emma I knew then and the one I’ve been keeping track of all these years remain the same angelic beauty.
She exists in another dimension. I can look but not touch.
This other iteration of Emma Clayton has penetrated my solitude by necessity. The motherfuckers looking for her just couldn’t keep their word.
I’m going to hunt in this storm, because I honestly don’t know what the fuck else to do right now. I’m about to jump out of my goddamn skin.
Emma Clayton is here for real, and that’s what really throws everything off balance.
I have on my rubbers—otherwise known as galoshes—as well as my emergency supplies, my ammunition, a hunting rifle, my tactical gloves, and my thermal fleece face mask.
I’ve got all of this shit with me on the way out the door, like so much bullshit extra baggage I carry everywhere. I spin around, taking one last look inside the cabin.
I’m leaving the lights on. It just something I’m going to have to get used to.
Besides that, it looks the same as it always does. Not a soul in sight.
Maybe I can convince myself that I’m still all alone up here—at least, until I return from my hunt.
I just need a little bit of time, before the blizzard makes it impossible to leave the cabin.
Here I go, alone, as always, out to...
“Dylan!”
So much for that. I hear her approaching, coming down the stairs.
“Dylan!” she repeats, although now I can see her, and she’s close enough to stop yelling.
“I’m going out hunting before the storm kicks in,” I snarl, trying to sound clear yet sparse with my words, not communicating any more than I need to.
I need to get out of here. I can’t spend any more energy talking to her.
“I need to leave now,” I continue, “so please forgive me for not sticking around to chat.”
I bristle a bit, internally, from the way my sarcasm sounds. I’m already saying too much.
“Good,” Emma says, “I can go with you.”
“Absolutely not,” I snap.
It’s long past time for me to turn around and leave...but I’m utterly unable to take my eyes off the way she looks in that dress.
Who else could look so incredible in something fashioned crudely from a flannel shirt?
Why the fuck does she have to be so fucking perfect? It makes all of this so much more difficult than it should be.
“I’m going with you,” she spouts insistently, already on her way to get the spare set of thermal gear hanging by the front door.
“Why is this so difficult? You’re not coming with me.” I try to maintain my snarly delivery, communicating a grizzled toughness, along with the implication that this is too dangerous for her.
It doesn’t seem to give Emma the tiniest moment of hesitation. She’s already got the thermal gear off the hook.
“I’m going with you.” She slips the thermal shirt over her newly fashioned dress with grace. “We’re supposed to do these things together.”
“What things?” I ask, because really, what the fuck is she talking about?
“Everything.”
The word both hangs in the air and strikes at my chest like a hammer, even though I don’t know what it signifies exactly.
I sigh. “I have no choice but to ask what you mean.”
“I mean you tried to leave. It seemed so arbitrary, so meaningless, and almost like you didn’t want it to happen...and now you’re trying to do it again.”
Emma takes the grey knit watch cap down from the hook by the top of the doorframe.
“I’ll come clean,” I confess.
This doesn’t stop Emma from pulling the cap over her blonde hair, but she looks at me, a disbelieving look on her face.
“We have provisions here,” I tell her. “We don’t...I don’t really need to go hunting.”
She’s not going to settle for less than the truth. I can delay it or just get it out now.
“Don’t think it’s my choice.” My voice rises with each word, the intensity running away from me.
“What?”
“It’s not my choice!” I yell. “Stop thinking that I’m so in control here. I needed to do it...”
“You needed to abandon me?”
“For you, Emma. I had to leave to protect you. I had no choice—I had to remove myself. That’s why I left, that’s why I’ve been here for years, and that’s why I’m essentially a ghost now. To protect you!”
My voice reverberates through the entire cabin. Emma’s face changes, her eyes reddening. She lifts her head up slightly, and it looks like she’s readying to throw some angry words in my face, but she stays silent.
Instant regret takes hold of me, and its grip becomes so tight I don’t even register she’s walked out the front door until after she’s gone.
At first, it felt like she was just sulking, just storming out of the room, but now it dawns on me, a few precious seconds too late, that there’s a blizzard out there.
Regret fades to fear, and fear freezes me for a moment. Opening the door should be the simplest act imaginable, but it feels like I’m moving through thick, resistant air.
Once I’m outside, I see the precipitation rapidly intensifying. The temperature is already well below freezing. With the wind howling, things are even worse.
The visibility is fucking terrible. I don’t see Emma through the hazy static of the evening snowstorm. I feel my body physically going into full panic as I start moving forward as fast as I can, keeping my eyes peeled for any sign of her in the blizzard.
I will find her soon, I tell myself, mantra-like, to keep a cool head. If I don’t...Emma won’t last in this storm.