He grabs me back. He finds my wrist again like before, but unlike before, he squeezes harder. More forcefully. He doesn’t just hold me back, he pins my wrist to the seat, and he leans in toward me.

His face gets just inches from mine, and he unleashes the full fury of his gaze onto me.

“Listen,” he says. “I told you I might be dangerous. I am dangerous. But you don’t seem to believe me.”

I try to break free, but he squeezes harder, completely pinning my arm to the back of my seat. My heart pounds a mile a minute, and the pure sensation of fear completely swallows me whole. It feels like I’m drowning in it. Like it’s working its way down my throat and up my nostrils. But it’s not just fear. It’s like the fear you feel going up the first drop of a rollercoaster. It’s exhilaration, fear and excitement all wrapped into one.

“Let go,” I breathe, even though I have the strangest sense that I don’t want him to.

He tilts his head at me, chiding me for daring to request anything of him.

“Listen, Angel,” he says. “I’m going to get out of your car. I’m going to disappear into the woods. And you are going to forget you ever saw me. Do you understand?”

I nod, my chest heaving and heart pounding.

“If I weren’t dangerous,” he says. “Then I’d go to the damn hospital. I can’t go there, okay? And you can’t help me.”

His grip softens, and so do his eyes. There’s something behind them. Something other than rage. He says he’s dangerous, and he believes it, but there’s more to it than that. I can feel it. He needs help, but he won’t accept it. He’s trying to scare me away right now. That look in his eyes is guilt and anguish. He realizes he’s hurting me, but he doesn’t want to.

He lets go of my wrist, looks down for a moment, and then he meets my eyes once again. “You will not call the police. You will not go looking for me,” he says. “Do you understand?”

I nod, and he puts his good foot out of the car and down onto the road. He’s going to leave. I should want him to leave after he manhandled me. After he talked to me like that. But my heart is still pounding, and my blood still feels like it’s on fire. He’s the source of that feeling, and like a fire in the dead of winter, I don’t want to leave its warmth.

He stumbles up out of my car and onto his bad leg.

I reach down to shift the car into drive. To do what he says. To drive away and pretend I never saw him. But I hesitate as he begins to walk away. I could still go get him, I could–

Alex collapses down into the snow. He doesn’t get back up.

Without thinking, I’m outside. I’m running up to find him. I’m ignoring what he ordered me to do. I can’t leave a man for dead. Even if that hint of humanity I saw behind those eyes was imagined, I still can’t leave him to freeze. I have to help him. Even if he’s more wild animal than man.

I find him face-down in the snow, and I reach down and pull on his shoulder with both hands. I put the strength of my legs and back into it, and I manage to flip him over onto his back. His eyes are closed.

“Alex,” I shout, holding him by the shoulder and trying to shake him awake.

HIs eyes crack open.

“Can you stand?” I ask, looking back at the car.

There’s no way I can lift a man this size. Not a chance in hell. But if he can move even a little, I can get him back into the car.

“Leave me,” he says. All the menace and rage is gone from his voice. “Just go.”

I rush back to the car, and I drive up as close to him as I can. I get back out and open the back door. I can just lay him out onto the back seat, but he has to help me just a little bit. Just enough that I can get him into the car.

I pull on his arm. “Come on, just a little bit of help.”

He uses what little strength he has to break free of my grasp.

“Damnit, Alex,” I hiss, “You really want to freeze here?”

“Go,” he says.

“I’ll call an ambulance then,” I say, pulling out my phone. “They can lift you and take you to the hospital.”

He reaches and grabs my hand. He pulls on me until I look down at him.

“No hospital,” he says.

“Then get up,” I say. “Get up, and I’ll treat you as best I can.”

“Promise me,” he says. “No hospital.”

“I promise,” I say. “A real promise this time. I won’t break it. Now get up.”

I pull on him, and he uses his good leg to push himself up, he slides himself into the backseat. He’s too tall to sprawl out or fit comfortably, and he rests his bad leg on the top of the passenger seat.

“Good,” I say. “Keep it elevated.”

I close the doors and get in the driver’s seat, and I drive before he can change his mind and jump out of the damn car again.