We didn't speak at first. I kept my eyes forward, my ears straining for any sound from behind us. The snow crunched softly under our boots, the steady rhythm of it the only thing breaking the silence. If Mark was still at the cabin — or watching from the tree line — I didn't want to give him a reason to follow.
After about ten minutes, Amelia's steps began to falter. Her breath was coming harder, her ankle dragging just slightly in the snow.
"You're hurting," I said quietly.
"I'm fine," she muttered, but the grimace that crossed her face told me otherwise.
Without thinking, I slipped my arm around her waist, taking some of her weight. She didn't pull away. The wind bit at us, and the snow was deeper here, but we moved as one, our strides falling into sync.
By the time we reached a bend in the trail, she was trembling — not from the cold, but from the strain. I steered her toward a fallen log half-buried in snow. "We rest for five minutes."
She didn't argue. Her hands shook as she dug in her coat pocket for the painkillers Kelly had left, dry-swallowing two before pulling her gloves back on.
Then she straightened, jaw set, and pushed herself to her feet. "Let's keep going."
I'd never seen anyone move like that — on grit alone, forcing one foot in front of the other, refusing to stop. She didn't complain once.
We reached the trailhead just as the light began to fade. Relief washed over me when I saw my car sitting where I'd left it, snow piled along the sides but otherwise untouched — until I got closer.
Both rear tyres were flat. Not just flat — slashed clean through.
Amelia stopped beside me, her breath catching in her throat. She didn't look surprised.
"It's him, isn't it?" I said.
She swallowed, her voice low but steady. "Mark. He's not just some stranger. He's my ex." She turned her face toward me, her eyes shining with something between fear and fury. "The man I've been hiding from."
The cold seemed to sink deeper into my bones. Out here, with the road empty and the light dying, we were a long way from safe.
My stomach dropped, but I forced my mind to work past the panic. "Okay," I said, scanning the empty road. "We still have options."
Amelia hugged her arms around herself, her breath visible in the freezing air. "Like what? There's no signal here, Brandon."
I looked toward the tree line, listening. The forest was still. No sign of Mark. That didn't mean he wasn't out there.
"The climbing lodge is about three miles down the road," I said. "If we move quickly, we can make it before it gets completely dark. They'll have phones. People." Safety.
She hesitated, her gaze darting toward the shadowy edges of the trail. "Three miles in this snow?"
"It's better than staying here with him somewhere behind us." I took her hand, gripping it tight. "I'll carry your pack. We stick to the road — no shortcuts through the trees. And if you see or hear anything, you tell me."
Her fingers tightened around mine, and she gave a short nod. "Let's go."
I slung the pack over my shoulder, kept my free hand close to her waist to steady her, and set a fast pace. The snow was shallower on the road, but every step felt like we were moving through molasses. My ears strained for the sound of an engine or footsteps, but there was only the wind.
We didn't speak. I kept checking over my shoulder, certain at any second we'd see him — Mark — stepping into the open. But the road stayed empty.
By the time the faint outline of the lodge appeared through the trees, the last of the light was fading. The warm glow spilling from the windows was the most welcome sight I'd ever seen.
"We made it," I murmured, more to myself than her.
But even as relief loosened the knot in my chest, a cold truth settled in. Reaching the lodge didn't mean this was over. Not by a long shot.
The woman at the front desk barely raised an eyebrow when we came in, covered in snow and breathing hard. She slid a key across the counter without fuss, directing us to a small room on the second floor.
The heat in the lodge was a shock after the biting cold outside. My fingers tingled as blood returned to them, and Amelia's cheeks were flushed, her hair damp from melted snow. We climbed the stairs in silence, both of us listening for something — footsteps behind us, the creak of a door — but all we heard was the low murmur of voices from the lounge downstairs.
Our room was small but warm. Two narrow beds, a dresser, and a single window overlooking the snow-covered road. I locked the door and checked it twice before taking off my coat.
We sat on the edge of one bed, neither of us speaking at first. My pulse was still racing from the walk, but the unease hadn't faded. It clung to the air like smoke.
Amelia's hands were clasped tightly in her lap. She stared at them for a long moment before saying, "I suppose you deserve to know the truth."
I stayed quiet, letting her decide where to begin.
"When I met Mark," she said slowly, "he was charming. The kind of man who made you feel like you were the only person in the room. We moved in together after six months." She swallowed, her voice tightening. "And then he changed. Or maybe… he'd always been like that, and I just didn't see it."
Her gaze lifted to the window, as if she could see something far beyond the snow. "It started small. Little comments to make me doubt myself. Telling me what to wear. Who I could talk to. Then it became… other things. Bruises I had to hide. Nights I'd lock myself in the bathroom and pray he'd just fall asleep."
I felt my jaw tighten, but I didn't interrupt.
"I left him once," she continued, her voice breaking just slightly. "But he found me. Said he'd change. And for a while, he did. Until the night I ended up in the ER." Her hands trembled in her lap. "That's when I decided to run for good. Changed my name. Disappeared. I thought… I thought I'd done enough to make sure he'd never find me."
Her eyes met mine then, dark with fear but also something else — defiance. "Now you know what I was hiding. Why I can't go back to my old life."
The radiator hissed in the corner, but all I could hear was the sound of my own heartbeat and the unspoken question hanging between us: What now?