Chapter 16

Chapter 16

I glance out the bunk window. Judging by the low position of the sun, it's only six o'clock in the morning.

I quickly climb down, turn on the generator, and put on the coffee. Then, I go back to Lou. She's still curled up like she was the night before, her handcuffed arm stretched out toward the tie-up.

Reluctantly, I knock on the wall three times to wake her up. She is used to this now and is no longer frightened.

"Good morning." I reach for the cuff hanging from the iron chain and unlock it.

Her swollen eyes blink at me, but she doesn't reply. Perhaps she cried in her sleep; if so, I didn't hear it.

"After breakfast, I'll show you how to build a rabbit trap," I say cheerfully.

"I don't eat rabbits." Lou peels off the covers, pulls her top down by the hem, and immediately disappears into the bathroom.

"You might have to one day," I call after her, extra loud. "When the supply of food runs out, for example."

Bang —the door flies shut behind her.

For a moment, I don't know whether to laugh or get angry.

"Oh, right, I nearly forgot you're on a hunger strike," is all I say as I go back to the front.

Thinking about what to make her to eat, I decide on Eggo thick and fluffy waffles, which she often toasted with Emma.

Love them so much , Lou once wrote in a post about it.

When she emerges from the bathroom, she has her hair tied back with gauze bandaging.

"You looked in the cabinet," I say, surprised.

"Is that a problem?" There's a look of rebellion in her eyes.

"No." I smile disarmingly. She won't find any tools in the cupboard, I have all of them in the storage space below and in my lockable cupboard above the door. I stocked up a bit, but only with harmless things like aspirin, cough syrup, bandages, and tape. She can't kill herself, or me, with those.

Lou disappears into her area and pulls the folding door shut behind her. Shortly thereafter, the motorhome rocks because she is probably standing on the bed rummaging around in the middle closet, and then I hear a door slam.

Then, nothing happens for a few minutes.

"Are you coming or what?" I call out as I pop the last two waffles into the toaster.

She doesn't reply, but shortly after my question, the folding door opens. Lou comes forward with stiff steps and sits down on the bench.

Without comment, I click the loose handcuff from her wrist onto the chain I attached to the anchor under the table earlier.

Lou's gaze follows the links to under the tabletop. Her expression remains impassive as if it weren't she who was chained. Or as if she had accepted this condition.

The scar tissue beneath my braided leather bracelet stings. I shake off a cold shudder and pour her coffee, add two sugars, and place the cup on the table in front of her.

With thin lips, she glances at the plate on which I have stacked the waffles.

"Want some blueberry pancakes?" I ask as I retrieve the powdered sugar and a sieve from the cupboard.

"No."

"Okay." The last two waffles pop out of the toaster. Using two fingers, I pull them out and place them on the serving plate, dusting the waffle mountain with powdered sugar.

I squeeze myself onto the bench across from Lou and place the plate between us. Lou sits there like a statue as if none of this concerns her. I study her for a while. There are still bags under her eyes and her skin is creamy white, which is accentuated by her coral blouse. My gaze falls on the two strands of hair that fall across her cheeks like a light frame on the left and right. They soften her oval face even more. I remember last night, the strange feeling while I watched her sleep. I want to say something nice to her, cheer her up. "You look cute with your hair up."

Her hands clench and coffee sloshes out of the cup.

Well done, Brendan! Very sensitive! "Sorry." I'm annoyed with myself. "Shouldn't have said that." I quickly wipe up the coffee with a kitchen towel and grab a waffle from the plate.

"You need to eat," I say a few minutes later with my mouth full to Lou, who once again doesn't touch anything.

"I'm not hungry." She stares at the waffle in my hand, and for a moment, it seems as if her face is turning green.

"I believe it." I nod. "But you still have to eat."

"Are you going to force me?" Almost imperceptibly, she slides back a little. The faux leather of the seat creaks.

"I'd find a way to get you to eat, trust me."

Lou hunches her shoulders, which makes her appear small again. "I really do feel sick." She looks at me, this time openly and a little pleadingly.

I glance from her to the waffles and back to her face. I can't suppress a sigh. "You'll eat tonight, promise?" I say sternly.

Lou's stiffened posture relaxes. "Okay," she says, visibly relieved. "But no rabbit."

I want to imitate a laugh, squeeze the dark sound out of my chest, but it comes out of its own accord. Still, it sounds awkward like a badly spoken foreign language.

I let Lou watch Hero of the Week while I wash the dishes, but the reception is poor. Probably due to the weather. The picture is grainy, but Lou seems to be elsewhere. A few times, I catch her watching me, and each time, she quickly looks back at the TV.

Something is different. This morning, she doesn't look at me as if I might strangle her at any moment, but more like someone she's trying to size up.

Maybe there is also a Who are you really? in her eyes. But maybe it's none of that and her gaze is merely the mirror of my wishes.

Later, I connect her to me with the iron chain and pull Lou across the gravel to the RV storage space. The sky is a bright blue and the smell of old spruce wood, young needles, and fresh earth fills the air. The penetrating hammering of a golden woodpecker resounds from the forest.

"Going to be a warm one today," I say to Lou. A typical early summer day in the Yukon, great for setting traps in the cool morning hours and bathing in the green lake by the waterfall in the hot midday. I hope Lou is having at least a little fun.

I gesture for her to step back a little and open the wide hatch. "Put on some hiking boots so you can walk in the forest more easily." I pull out the shoes I ordered online weeks ago—checkered, ankle-high, lace-up boots. "I hope you like them, I made sure to get yellow and pink."

Lou doesn't say anything, but pulls the sunny yellow socks out of the shoes without resistance and puts them on before slipping on the boots.

As I toss her star flip-flops into the compartment, she makes a strange noise. Almost like a startled gasp.

"What's in there?" she wants to know, nodding at the RV storage space.

Surprised at her interest, I hook the hatch flap up so I have both hands free to look at Lou in peace.

"Supplies. Tons of extra food," I tell her.

Lou stares, her mouth hanging open.

I point to some tin cans. "Peaches, pineapple, potatoes, peas, beans, corn, sausage, tuna, Mexican food—sorry… I've always loved that stuff…" Lou is so quiet that I turn mid-sentence. She looks at me like two horns have grown out of my forehead. Maybe she doesn't enjoy Mexican food. For me, burritos, enchiladas, green and red salsa, and poblano mole evoke a sense of well-being that dates back to when I was sixteen. I was celebrating my first successful fights and, for the first time in my life, had my own money. Ramon, me, and a bunch of Bones toured the best Mexican restaurants in Los Angeles for weeks. Lou can't imagine what it feels like to have your fill for the first time.

Stunned, she turns back to the storage area and stares in like I'm marinating corpses in brine. "Don't worry, I bought a bunch of dried pasta too since I know you like spaghetti," I say hastily. "Plus red and white sauces and a jar of chopped garlic. The fresh basil may be tricky, but I've got pine nuts…there in the back on the left." I point vaguely to the corner where I think they are, then turn back to Lou.

I don't know if she realizes that she's shaking her head. She shifts from one foot to the other, the gravel crunching under the sturdy soles of her boots. Her gaze flies over the labeled boxes and lingers on the two gas bottles.

"Propane. We cook with it." I use the back of my hand to shoo away an annoying group of black flies buzzing around the front boxes. "And the fridge runs on propane. The two canisters should last us through the winter."

Lou opens her mouth, closes it, and opens it again. "You want to spend the entire winter here?"

Here or somewhere else—I don't know what her problem is. She's trapped anyway. "Sure," I answer casually. "I plan to stay forever."

"Won't it be too cold?" she asks in a thin voice, giving me that odd look again.

I smile now. "I've thought of everything, Lou. Don't worry." She's simply afraid we'll freeze to death in winter. But the way she's staring at the supplies, I'd better not tell her about the cabin yet. She should get used to this place first. "Nothing bad is going to happen to you out here. And besides," I add, "civilization is far away but not completely unreachable."

"So why do you want to catch rabbits if you've got this whole thing packed with food?"

I shrug in a vague gesture. "Fresh meat is important. Plus, we can save food this way."

She swallows like she's struggling to hold something indigestible in her stomach. "But I don't want to eat rabbit." She says it softly and her eyes are filled with unshed tears.

I sigh and unhook the hatch. "I could catch squirrels instead. Or chipmunks," I say jokingly, locking the closet. Okay, wrong again . "Oh, don't give me that look, Lou," I say, giving a fake laugh. "I might even bag a deer here and there. Anyway, you don't have to eat it. I brought plenty of multivitamins and iron supplements."

She turns away, wipes her eyes unobtrusively, and I make a mental note to stop joking about cute rodents in the future. I spontaneously decide not to set the traps right away. "C'mon," I say cheerfully and playfully tug on the chain that connects us. "I'll show you around."

I direct Lou to the lake with the waterfall hidden behind the black fir and spruce tree line. Framed by the dark trees and rocks, the body of water looks like the bright heart of the forest. Its surface reflects the sky, firs, and birches.

Lou turns her head to the right, her gaze shooting up the gray, cascading rock face from which the water falls in a narrow path.

"Like a weathered staircase for giants," I say aloud.

Ignoring me, Lou balances on some moss-covered rocks before clambering over the trunk of a fallen spruce tree. She looks around again and finally stops with her feet in the water.

"It's a quiet place," I say, stepping over the trunk of the tree. A forest lizard disappears between two stones, allowing only the sun to shine on its tail. "Can't hear anything here but the bubbling of the water and a couple of cheeky birds. If you spend a little time here, it's like your spirit dissolves into the ether. You become one with the air and the water."

Lou glances from right to left as if trying to take in the panorama as a whole.

I don't know if she perceives the atmosphere of this place as much as I do. "This lake has always felt like my safe place, like I was protected here," I explain. Perhaps that sums it up best: Refuge. Protection. Solace.

Barely audible, Lou snorts, but maybe I imagined it and it was a sound from the woods. "What could you possibly need protection from?" She turns left and walks along the edge of the bank. The water splashes around her feet and the small waves she stirs up rock the reflection of sky and forest.

She slows at a group of boulders, slips between them, and takes a closer look.

"You can swim here if you want," I suggest, simply to say something. I even have a bikini for her—a pink one, of course, and with little ruffles.

"I can't swim."

"You can't swim?" I repeat, stunned. Somehow that shocks me.

Lou looks at the gray rock and goes a little deeper into the water. The waves slosh into her lace-up boots and goose bumps cover her calves. "Don't tell me you didn't know that already?" she asks cynically.

I shake my head but she doesn't see it. Lou can't swim. Unbelievable. Even I can swim. I taught myself three years ago in a lake near Faro. And there are hot springs near Ash Springs. They're the first thing you see when you google the place.

"The water isn't deep. Three feet, maybe. You'll be fine, plus I'll be here." I wade around a smaller boulder that juts out of the water like a turtle shell. "Or I could teach you." Not being able to swim is not good in the land of two million lakes.

She stays silent, doesn't even look at me. Her refusal to speak suddenly angers me again. "Look at me, Louisa!" My voice is laced with impatience and the usual hardness.

When she looks up, her teeth are clenched. Disgust flickers in her eyes, but so does fear. More fear than disgust.

Stop treating me like crap! I want to snap at her, but I choke back the words that are stuck in my throat. They belong to another time. Lou can't help my past and she can feel whatever she wants—I promised her that. Again, I have to remember that she must have been talking to me the night I had the blackout. Words of comfort for many hours. She is a strange creature.

What am I supposed to do with her?

I put my hand in front of my eyes and absentmindedly notice Lou staggering back. Maybe she thought I was going to hit her.

I wanted to cheer her up today, distract her from her homesickness, but apparently, she's not ready yet.

"You don't have to fight me all the time," I say anyway, wiping my mouth and nose and letting my arm drop. "You're only making it harder on yourself. Your situation is not going to change, so you might as well try to get along with me."

She turns away again like she can't bear to look at me. Instead, she studies the rock face as if imagining herself climbing it to escape me. I follow her gaze. The stone wall must be sixty feet high. The summer before last, I climbed the first cascades for fun, but even I had to give up halfway through. The trees on the right and left offer no possible support at that height. It would be impossible for Lou to get up there. Totally impossible!

I glance at her and catch her looking from the rock face to her wrist and then straight into my eyes. A mixture of excitement and being caught is reflected in her features. I bet she saw herself climbing up there!

"Forget it!" I snap at her angrily. "The water makes the rock smooth and slippery. You'll fall and break your neck."

"I can think of worse fates," she murmurs more to herself.

"Then I guess I'd better not tempt you!" With a grim face, I hold my wrist with the steel ring right in front of her. "But if you ever want to come here without me, I can always chain you to a tree." I pull her along harder than necessary, not knowing which upsets me more: Lou's rejection or my inability to take it in stride.

"By the way," I add after a while when we come to the rocky creek through which the lake water drains. "If you get lost here, you probably won't last two days."

Lou stops abruptly, the jolt digging the ring on my wrist deep into the injured area. The skin underneath starts to burn. "Why?"

This time I don't turn to her, but tug on the chain to prompt her to keep walking. She's probably thinking about the grizzly bears, wood bison, and moose I told her about this morning. For a moment, I consider letting her think that, but it doesn't seem fair. "You'd freeze to death," I say curtly. "The weather has already taken the lives of a number of tourists."

"Freeze to death? It's summer!" Lou catches up with me in a few quick steps, nearly tripping over a particularly large root.

I pull her cross-country, right through the thicket of conifers, deadwood, blueberry bushes, and ferns. It's an arduous journey and the spruce branches keep slapping me in the face with their sharp needles, and I'm sure Lou fares the same.

"It is summer. How can you freeze to death in summer?" she asks again a few minutes later. She doesn't let go of the subject. If her interest in it didn't annoy me so much, I'd probably be happy she's talking to me.

"When you fall asleep and don't realize your campfire is going out and the temperatures fall below zero—for example."

She says nothing more.

I gently stroke the dead rabbit's abdomen to empty the bladder before I tie a string around the hind legs and hang the animal upside down from a spruce branch. Lou is sitting in her camp chair by the fire. When we returned from trapping late in the morning, I attached the two chains together and connected one end to a steel ring on the underbody so she can move in a larger radius or even sit by the campfire when I'm in the forest. And today I had to go into the forest more often, not only to check the traps, but also to dispose of our garbage. I can't burn everything in the campfire. I wash the cans in the lake and store them in the storage compartment until I return to civilization. The cardboard from frozen goods I fold and store away as well, but I also have to bury some things.

After hanging the rabbit, I turn to Lou and find her narrowed eyes on me. Maybe she imagines I could hang her from a branch that way too—no idea what's going on in her pretty head.

I turn my back on her and remove my sharpest knife from my belt, a killer knife with a curved blade and a finely serrated edge that would require a permit in other countries.

"What's that bowl for?" I hear Lou suddenly ask.

I tap my foot lightly on the tin container that I placed under the branch earlier. "To catch the blood." I make a clean cut down the rabbit's throat and step back as the animal bleeds out. "We can make soup out of it, it's incredibly nutritious." I turn to Lou with a grin and laugh when I see her upper lip curl up and her nose wrinkle. Obviously, I have no intention of doing it, but it is true.

Without explaining it to her, I walk a few steps through the spruce tree line with the full bowl, pour the blood into the water, and rinse the bowl.

When I return, Lou looks at me questioningly. "The bowl is empty," she states.

"Did you seriously think I'd make you blood soup?" I tap my forehead. "I collected the blood because of the animals it might attract like wolves and bears."

I go back to the dangling rabbit and make two incisions on the inside of the thighs. I grab the first cut with one hand, separating the fur from the meat while continuing to cut with the other. I turn to Lou for a moment, but she looks away. Naturally. Most people can't butcher or gut the animals they eat. It's satisfying to me, not because of the killing, but because it makes me independent of everything else. As a child, I depended on the monster's favor, receiving only his leftovers or nothing at all, and in the slums, I lived on the garbage of others for years. Hunting gives me a sense of security that no canned food can match.

After loosening the fur, I pull it upward like an upside-down sock, separate it, and cut open the abdomen to gut the animal. I hear the chain jingle and suspect that Lou is disappearing into the RV.

I cut up the rabbit with a small hatchet, put the legs on a skewer and hang them over the fire. I place the rest in a freezer bag and stuff it in a tiny gap between lemon ice cream and frozen donuts. Lou is sitting at the front of the table since her chain doesn't reach all the way to the back. My gaze lingers on her wrists. She hasn't needed the bandages for a few days, but I now notice how red the skin has become.

I grab two black cloths from the hanging cupboard next to the bunk and sit down on the bench opposite her with a, "Unfortunately, there was no princess pink!" She eyes the cloths suspiciously and then me.

"Don't worry!" I hold up the fabrics. "I merely want to tie them around your wrists so the skin doesn't get infected again."

"I can do it myself."

"Sure, but not as well as I can."

She bites her lip, looks out the window, and holds out her hands to me.

"Lou, I'm not doing this to annoy you, it's just difficult to do with one hand." I carefully push the steel ring up a little and wrap the soft cloth around her wrist. Glowing sparks leap through my veins as I wrap the fabric around it a few times. Glowing sparks, affection, and desire, all together. Not as wild and blazing as before, not as stormy, but gentler.

I tie the cloth with a double knot and repeat the whole thing with her other wrist. "It's easier if we do it on both so…" I stop.

"So you don't have to consider which wrist you use." Lou turns her head and narrows her eyes at me. "I get it."

Nodding, I slide the cuff back into place and stand. "I'll fix you something to eat and then we'll go outside. The shanks are almost ready. Which one you want?"

Lou puts her hand on her stomach and makes a face like she's disgusted.

"You must eat. You promised! So, tell me?"

"Toast," Lou chokes out like it's hard to even say the word.

I stare at her for a long time. I can only hope that she will actually eat something.

The shanks are tender without that typical gamey flavor so many people don't care for. Still, I chew on them like they're tough as leather. The reason for this is Lou. She sits lethargically next to me in the camping chair with a plate with cheese toast and lemon cookies on her lap, but doesn't touch anything. Every second that goes by, I have to pull myself together not to yell at her.

Fucking hell, Lou! I slathered on an extra teaspoon of butter and used the Gouda that you like!

Her refusal to eat leaves me feeling powerless. I have now realized that I would not force her to eat. A few days ago, I would have done it, but not now and I can't say exactly why.

I pull the meat off the leg with my teeth and frantically try to figure out how to get Lou to eat her food. To eat at all.

Gloomily, I study her. She's undone her ponytail again, and because of the high humidity tonight, the strands of her chin-length hair are frizzing. Our eyes meet for a moment and she looks at me with a guilty expression.

She looked at me—guiltily !

I'm the reason for her lack of appetite.

Maybe she'll respond to a deal. So, I'll finally tell her exactly where we are, after all, she keeps asking me. But, for that, she has to eat.

But what am I going to do tomorrow? And the day after tomorrow? I look at her again. She is only the shadow of the girl who fascinated me so much last winter. The image of the newspaper article flashes in front of me—the one in which she is wearing the coral-colored blouse, like today, and is standing under an apple tree, laughing. And suddenly I know what deal I can offer her.

Very fair, Brendan, really now?

Angry at myself, I throw the gnawed bone into the fire, get up, and take the file with the newspaper articles about Lou's disappearance from the closet. After that, I go back to the campfire and sit in the chair with feigned composure with the folder on my thighs.

"These are the newspaper articles I told you about. The ones on your disappearance," I explain calmly.

Lou's lower jaw drops as if she is catching flies.

"You didn't believe I had them." When I look at her, I suppress a smile and something like triumph creeps into my self-contempt. I find that even more despicable.

Lou sits there, frozen. "No." All kinds of emotions flash through her eyes. In the light of the fire, they look like a raging sea that repeatedly crashes against the same cliff in vain, unable to overcome it.

I lean toward her a bit, feeling the heat of the flames on my face. "There are pictures of your brothers in the paper," I say. "One of them looks a lot like you. Avery, I think." It must pierce her heart, but I'll be damned if I can't get her to eat like this.

Lou swallows noisily and I feel like the biggest piece of shit in the world. The monster might have been right.

"Eat today and I'll let you read the first article. You'll get the next one tomorrow…if you eat three meals."

The corners of Lou's mouth drop. For a moment, I think she's about to cry, but then a tremor runs through her body. She inhales and shudders. "Blackmailing me with those articles isn't fair," she says calmly, staring at the folder on my lap. "You know how important they are to me."

Suddenly, there is a lump in my throat, and somehow, everything feels wrong. "I'm not expecting a whole lot in return." My voice is rough. "Not even a smile."

Lou juts her chin out defiantly. "It's still blackmail."

"I'm not a good person. I told you. Hell, I kidnapped you. Blackmail is nothing in comparison."

Without taking her eyes off me, Lou grabs the cheese toast and bites off a huge piece of it. She just gnaws on it for a few seconds, swallows, then pops the other half in her mouth almost all at once. She's still looking at me, unruly and provocative.

"If you puke everything up again, it doesn't count," I say firmly, but I can't completely hide my concern in the tone of my voice.

Lou pushes the entire lemon cookie in and swallows without chewing, only to start coughing violently.

I curse, jump up, and slap her hard on the back. It takes at least two minutes for her to calm down.

"Choking doesn't count either." The softness of my voice is disconcerting and I rest my hand between her shoulder blades a little too long before pulling away.

I go back to my chair, open the file, and examine the contents. "Do you want the first article I have?"

She nods. Her eyes are still glassy from coughing.

I search for the article. I know it almost by heart, I've read it so many times during the first few days.

MISSING LOUISA STILL UNACCOUNTED FOR

I hand Lou the piece of paper. She immediately stretches out her hand, but I'm not yet letting go.

"I don't have the very first article. I was too busy with you, keeping you unconscious. This is the second one."

"Doesn't matter," she whispers, looking at me with impatience in her eyes. Give it to me! she screams with every fiber of her body.

I withdraw my fingers and give her a warning look. "Don't forget, you have to earn the others too!" I say and leave her alone. Back in the motorhome, I turn on the outside lights so she can read the small print better. For a moment, I'm tempted to watch her, but after a moment's hesitation, I decide against it. This moment is hers alone.