5. Winter

FIVE

WINTER

T he sun sets and rises twice.

I track the path of the shadows across the wood plank floors—the short tree in front of the porch gives a friendly wave as the snow comes in sideways.

On the first day, he raped me four times. After the first time, he left to take care of the body in the back of the car. He chained me to the exposed pipes in the filthy bathroom. A blizzard started while he was away, and it felt like the heavens and I were having a private moment, releasing torrents of unending grief. The wind whipped against the weathered siding as if the elements wanted to rage alongside me.

That night, he cried on my shoulder. He loves me, he said. He loves me so much, and it's been torture not having me these last years.

You're probably hungry, he said, so he hand-fed me cold beans from a can.

On the second day, he cut me. Methodically, he carved a tattoo into my thigh: a crude apple. We'll be Adam and Eve, he said, starting our civilization in this fucking shack. He saw my c-section scar and drew lines across it. I threw up when he licked my blood.

Three more times, he took my body when he wanted. Then he made me sleep over the covers on the end of the bed. I was a bad girl and needed to be treated like one, he said as he handcuffed my wrist to his ankle.

When the sun crested today, a common refrain became a chant within the ruins of my soul as he unleashed his evil upon my body: No one is coming to save me. I have to save myself. Otherwise, I'll die at the hands of Adam Collins.

My eyes snap open when Adam gets up suddenly from the end of the bed and bangs the front door open. He's in clean clothes.

He walks onto the porch, and I hope—not for the first time—that he'll fall through the splintered boards.

Each day, his paranoia grows. I can see it itching beneath his skin. I know as well as he does that the countdown is on for the end of this.

What the end of this will look like is the question.

"We need to move," he says once he's back inside the cabin.

"Move where, Adam? And why?" I rub my wrists, which are raw from the cuffs he keeps me in more hours of the day than not. The frigid air coming through the open door immediately freezes my toes and fingers.

"Don't ask any fucking questions, Winter." He moves from the door to the window to the kitchenette in wide, jerky steps.

"Is someone?—"

"I said, don't ask any fucking questions, Winter!" He launches himself at me, pulling me up by the arm. Ripping the blanket from the bed, he wraps it around me. It's the only covering he's let me have in the last two days.

I keep my lips pressed shut.

"Let's go," he says .

"I, uh," I stall for a minute, not wanting to leave. I know the chances of me being found drop drastically if we move from one place to another.

No one will ever find you, Winter.

"I have to pee," I say, and he sighs with a groan.

"Hurry up," he says, shoving me toward the open door. He moves to the kitchen, grabbing the sealed cans.

I don't have to pee. I want a moment to think.

No one is going to save you. You have to save yourself.

After flushing the toilet, I run my hands under the tap. The overwhelming smell of sulfur hits me, along with an irrational level of upset that there's no soap.

"Hurry the fuck up, Winter!" Adam yells.

I jump and drop the blanket bundled around my waist.

There's an edge of hysteria to his words.

I get down on my hands and knees to grab it. When my hands touch the cool linoleum, I'm suddenly scared to move. To breathe. To exist any longer in this world.

I know that leaving this cabin accelerates the timeline to my death.

And for the first time in what feels like forever, I don't want to die.

I guess it's true: When facing the Grim Reaper, everyone begs for a moment longer.

No one is coming to save you. No one is coming to save you. No one is coming to save you.

I swallow my panic, placing a hand on my chest as if I could press the emotion into my sternum.

Hunter is looking for you. Hunter will find you.

The joints in my fingers ache as I clench my fists open and closed.

Sunlight peeks through the small port window above the bathtub. It streaks across my fingers. The hairs on the back of my hand stand in gossamer-like strands, and I bring my palm up further into the track of light, reveling in this simple moment.

" Winter !" he bellows, his voice moving away from me. I put my hand back down on the floor near the bathtub, and I'm distracted by the sliver of paper sticking out beneath one of the claw feet.

The shaft of light illuminates it.

I pull at the paper and restrain my gasp when I reveal what it is.

A razor blade. It's rusted and looks like it would have been part of a shaving kit. I touch the blade's edge. It's sharp.

"Winter, if you don't fucking get a move, I will tear you a new asshole!" His feet stomp toward the bathroom, and I meet him at the doorway, the blanket clutched around my shoulders in tight fists.

"I'm sorry, Adam," I say. I look down at his feet in submission.

"Whatever. Let's go," he says. He puts his hand on the back of my neck, leading me toward the door.

It's now or never.

One.

One-two-one.

I whirl around, the edge of the blade firmly in my hand, cutting me. But enough of the sharp razor sticks out of my grip so that when I aim for his throat, the pump, pump, pump of blood through his severed artery sprays across my face.

He moves back from me on instinct, bending over and clutching his neck.

"Fuck!" he yells, stumbling wildly.

I keep the blade in my hand, shedding the blanket and rushing toward the idling SUV.

I lurch out onto the porch, rusty nails stabbing the bottoms of my feet when I trip.

I feel a pop in my left ankle, and fire licks up my calf .

He's behind me, barreling through the door and wheezing as he draws closer to me.

"Winter, stop!" He takes three steps— clomp , clomp , clomp —and then my indecision proves near-fatal when he's on me again, pinning me to his chest with an arm around my neck. His fingers are sticky, and a copper tang fills my nose.

"I say when this is done. Not you," he hisses. Breaths bellow in and out of his chest. The edge of darkness creeps into the sides of my vision. I pitch us forward through the dilapidated railing, using the inertia of my body mass to tumble us off the porch.

We fall into a tangle of broken boards and dowels. The sharp shock of cold covers my body as we land on the snowy slush. His grip loosens, but I don't have enough time to get away before he grabs me again. We're face to face, and his rage sends icy fingers of fear down my spine.

"No, no, no, no !" he screams, slapping the ground near my head with each word. The feeling of him on top of my body morphs time.

Him then. Him now.

Me then. Me now.

When I feel his weight impaling the gravel into my skin, I scream with primal rage. Blinding rage.

No one is going to save you, Winter.

Time slows. My breath seizes in my chest. I spread my arms out straight from my side, seeking, seeking, seeking....

"I love you, Winter. I forgive you. I forgive you," he pants, grabbing at all the parts of my body he can reach.

"Burn in hell, you sick fuck!"

The makeshift weapon—a nail affixed to a splintered dowel—in my bloody palm pierces the flesh at the base of his skull with the furious force of my stab.

He jerks, his body movements uncontrolled. I push him off me, pulling the nail out at the same time and rolling to straddle his chest. Adrenaline makes me strong; I don't feel pain. I don't feel anything but rage, rage, rage at the audacity of his fucked-up parody of love—at his obsessive, possessive sickness that's metastasized through every part of me.

Using the board the nail is attached to as a handle, I plunge it into his right eye.

Animalistic screams come from him, piercing the air. So I aim the board at his mouth, stabbing him through his upper jaw.

His head jerks to the side when I rip the nail from his face, and I use the opportunity to stab him in the neck. Blood sprays from the artery there, and I wrench the nail out of his bloodied flesh, aiming for his temple.

His body spasms, his arms and legs flailing.

I slam the nail in his cheek. In his ear.

I ram it into his forehead one final time. Eight round stab marks pockmark his face.

Eight! Eight, seven, eight!

He stills, and his one good eye stares at nothing. Lifeless.

I roll over. Filth and ice-caked mud and blood cover me. Lying next to his dead body, I stare up at the sky.

I blink to bring moisture back to my dry eyes.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Calm.

System by system, my tense muscles unclench. I feel myself beginning to drift away, so I latch on to a single thought: No one was going to save me.

So I saved myself.

I roll my head to look at Adam's still body. Assessing each stab wound—one for each recent violation.

Yes, I saved myself. From Adam, at least.