Holden

HOLDEN

"You moved right between my guys." Angel plucked 's piece from the board.

"No." held his hand out for the piece. "I can move between yours and it's fine, but if you surround me, then you get my piece."

Angel wrapped her fingers around his piece and frowned. "That sounds like a made-up rule."

They sat at the small card table in the cabin by Glass Lake, autumn light filtering through the dirty window and creating a crescent across Angel's shoulder.

It was getting late, which meant they'd need to pack up and leave in an hour, and they definitely would not finish this game with Angel being as stubborn as she was.

"It isn't a made-up rule. Think of it as a stealth assassin sneaking past two guards."

She rolled her eyes. "Oh, please. You? A stealth assassin?"

"Trust me. I remember Zaid saying you could do this."

Angel sighed and replaced his peanut on the board, between her two cheddar Goldfish. "I'll ask Zaid when we get back, and if I'm right, then I get a free turn at the start of tomorrow's round. "

"Deal." scratched the scruff on his chin and glanced around Tiffany's cabin.

He'd been hiking to and from this cabin almost every day for the past two months. To his utter shock, Angel had faced her fear of the woods and started joining him in his daily trek three weeks ago. He knew a lot of it had to do with boredom; Clevenger had disappeared shortly after her arrival at the Fort, Maidei and Tiffany had gone home, and Frank was busy preparing the area for the first snow. Even after almost a month, Angel still complained about blisters and being out of shape, but didn't care. His days had been getting lonely, and it was nice to pass the time with someone else.

On top of it, Glass Lake Trail bustled with couples and families alike, the eeriness that had once pervaded the woods masked by a return to normalcy. The fire was out, and instead of shutting down the entire wilderness area because of the disappearances and dry weather danger, additional rangers had been assigned to the lower trails.

The cabin was homier than two months ago, the cabinets fully stocked with a variety of canned food, extra gas tanks lined up near the stove on the narrow counter. A laptop and amplifier sat at the end of the counter, settings calibrated to pick up the frequency Dr. Clevenger claimed was a sign of the rift opening. So far, the amp remained silent, and a part of him wondered if a return to normalcy meant Deadswitch's metaphysical underbelly had gone to sleep.

Two months. It was a fool's errand, but he hadn't yet carved out the next chapter of his life, so what did he have to lose?

Time. He couldn't just sit here and play make-believe until a rift to another dimension magically opened. But he was too stubborn to give up. Both of them were.

Angel pushed her king off the board. "Your assassin may have been sneaky, but I still won." She gathered all the Goldfish and peanuts from the table and popped a few into her mouth. "I'm getting bored with this game. "

groaned. "We literally just learned it." They'd gone through every game at the Fort, which was more games than had thought possible for one house to contain, even one with three floors and an attic. Checkers, chess, Uno, Chutes and Ladders, Risk (which lasted twenty-five minutes), Battleship, and Life. And Scrabble, too, but that one was a dud because most of the pieces were missing and all they could create were the eighteen words arranged from the letters in "Assign."

Angel had grown bored with all the games, so had asked Zaid to teach them Tablut, the game he'd been playing with Maidei. Of course, he wouldn't let them take his precious board anywhere it could accidentally slip into a dimensional rift, so they made their own with a marker on the back of a Deadswitch map and used snacks for pieces.

"Don't know what to tell you," Angel said. "Predictability bores me, and the outcome to these things is always the same: either you win or I win."

"You're right." leaned back in his chair. "That's usually how games work, which explains why you're bored with all of them."

Angel peered out the window and squinted. "What do you think we've got... an hour?"

"Give or take."

Her head whipped back to him. "Truth or dare?"

He raised his eyebrows. "Seriously? What is this, high school?"

"It's a creepy cabin in the middle of the woods where we've chosen to waste our lives until a dimensional rift pops open. So yes, basically high school. You gonna answer or what?"

Hell, if it entertained Angel, then what did he have to lose other than a bit of dignity? "Fine. Truth."

"Why don't you ever ask me about my divorce?"

He pressed his lips together to hide that she'd caught him off guard, immediately regretting agreeing to this.

"It's October," she continued. "We've been up here since the start of August. And you're not self-centered enough to not care."

"I do care," he said. "I just... From what I know of you, if you felt comfortable telling me, you would."

Mirroring his posture, Angel leaned back in her seat. "I guess I blab about a lot of things."

She did blab about a lot of things, and to be honest, was surprised she hadn't shared more details about her divorce, but also didn't want to pry. Their friendship was strange, after all. They'd only started to like each other over the past few months, but that time had been intense, his revelations dreamlike, as if he would wake up any moment from a coma to discover he'd been hit by a bus and was still in Corvallis.

"Truth or dare?" he asked.

"I think I'm supposed to answer truth," Angel said.

"Why did you really get divorced?"

Despite her initial prompt and all this buildup, she hesitated, tracing greasy circles on their makeshift board with her finger.

"I didn't want to have sex."

sensed she wasn't finished, so he waited.

"With anyone," she added.

"You're ace," he said.

"Sure, whatever you kids call it these days." She avoided his eyes and stared out the window. "Didn't want to get divorced, either. That's why I told nobody. And then when my ex finally confronted me about why I kept—you know—making excuses, his reaction was a lot worse than I imagined. He didn't even want to work something out."

She'd seemed so blasé about the whole thing that had assumed they'd split over something petty.

"But I get it," she said. "I get why he was so angry."

"Are you serious?" hadn't thought someone like Angel would so easily accept the behavior of a douchebag. "No. No way. He doesn't get to be understood."

"I wasn't honest with him. "

"You were figuring out how to be honest."

"," she chuckled sadly, and looked at him. "It's okay if I feel sympathy for him and think he's a shitbag at the same time. He was my husband."

blew out a breath. He didn't have a right to tell her how to feel, but he was still angry on her behalf. Your significant other wasn't supposed to abandon you when you were dealing with something confusing.

Angel dragged her teeth across her bottom lip like she was nervous. "What are you thinking about?"

He was thinking about how he should have cared enough to ask her. "Thank you for telling me."

She narrowed her eyes at him, her lips perking up in a smirk. "Truth or dare?"

rubbed his eyes. "Truth."

"Tell me why you and Becca broke up, but only if it's just as sad, because if it isn't, I'll feel like a loser."

After Angel's truth bomb, it was only fair. "Not as sad, but more pathetic." He drew a deep breath. He wasn't beholden to this dumb game, and yet he was tired of keeping such a large part of his past so close to his chest. "We kept getting into arguments about these dates and weekend getaways and conversations we had in the past."

"Okay," she said dubiously.

"The dates and weekend getaways and conversations never happened. My brain made up memories that never existed, and Becca thought I was seeing someone else."

Angel scowled as she listened and continued to scowl long after stopped. "So you're fucked in the head?"

He shrugged. "I guess."

"Kind of weird to be dumped for something you can't control, huh?" She spoke more pensively than sarcastically.

"Yeah, weird," he said, slowly folding up their Tablut board. He was sitting here, right now, because of what had happened with him and Becca. Those false memories felt like divine intervention to get him to Deadswitch Wilderness, and yet, despite trying his goddamn best, he still couldn't reach Siena Dupont.

stood, walked toward the counter, and shut the laptop lid, unplugging it from the amp. "Let's get out of here."

The first time hiked to Glass Lake after learning about the rift had tested his resolve. He spent the whole time in a cold sweat, wondering whether he would fall prey to Tiffany's and Dr. Clevenger's experience. Wondering if he deserved it for his sheer stupidity.

Then he reached the cabin, set up the laptop and amp, and waited.

Sometimes he brought Francis when the loneliness was too much, and he even stayed overnight twice to test if sleep was a factor in getting the rift to open. After a few weeks, Angel joined him, claiming she felt sorry for his pathetic ass .

It had taken Dr. Clevenger and Dr. Feyrer four weeks to pass through the rift the second time, and return to the unfamiliar forest. For , four weeks would have been four weeks ago. And yet he still attempted, because Zaid hadn't kicked him and Angel out of the Fort yet.

They reached the trailhead at sunset, and drove them to the ranger station. They walked the rest of the way to the Fort. Dead silence and stale air greeted them as they entered, until Francis's collar jangled and he ran down the stairs. After distributing ear scratches, set his bag near the door, walked into the kitchen, and washed his hands.

He opened the fridge and took stock of the groceries. Zaid promised to keep the fridge full if cooked most nights.

He chopped vegetables for pasta with chicken, focusing on the knife and the bell peppers instead of the whole clusterfuck of his life choices .

He'd tried to save Dr. Dupont. He'd done his best long after the fire swept across the sister peaks, and the mission to find the research team switched from rescue to recovery. And he kept trying, long after the bodiless memorial put together by the Yarrows, which he hadn't attended. But now, the first snow was right around the corner, and after that, Glass Lake would no longer be a quick hike away.

It was over. He felt it in his bones, though he didn't let himself grieve. He didn't deserve to, because Siena Dupont was nothing to him. Just another person who'd gone missing in the woods, one of hundreds every year.

He'd started looking for jobs, applying to a new one every time the satellite internet worked for over five minutes. His meager savings could get him to Portland and cover a few months' rent before he landed a position.

As long as he remained detached, moving to the next chapter of his life would be as easy as turning the page.

He finished up the pasta sauce just as the front door opened and shut, and Frank moseyed into the kitchen. "Zaid invited me. Hope that isn't a problem."

"Never is." nodded toward the stack of plates. "Just help me set the table, will you?"

Frank did, and eventually the four of them were seated around the end of the table that wasn't covered in Zaid's crap.

"You cook better than my mother did," Zaid mumbled as he chewed.

"You say that every night." did his best to mimic Zaid's voice. " Terrible cook. She always wondered why the dog got so fat, too. "

Frank chuckled.

"How are you doing, Frank?" Angel asked sincerely. "Haven't seen a lot of you."

As Frank released a sigh, plucked a piece of chicken from his plate and fed it to Francis beneath the table.

"Been rough," he said. "We're in the postmortem stage of the fire, which is tougher than fighting the damn thing. Gotta deal with a bunch of bureaucratic nonsense." He grabbed a paper napkin and wiped his mouth. "Getting word that winter's coming early this year, so luckily that'll slow things down. You still hiking up to Glass Lake every day?"

Zaid had told Frank about Dr. Clevenger's story not long after the scientist left. Even though Frank brushed it off as utter nonsense, he was at least polite about it. The ranger knew about Maidei's experience when she disappeared, as well as Siena's audio files from the future that had found. Remaining skeptical was probably how Frank kept showing up to his job.

"Every day," responded. "Until the snow stops me. So I guess I have a couple weeks left."

Frank clapped his shoulder in a way that reminded of Clyde. "You did everything you could. Those researchers were lucky to have you fighting for them. Don't think we'd even know they were missing if you hadn't shown up. Would have just assumed they burned up."

Didn't really matter . The ending was the same, regardless.

He twirled noodles around his fork. "Maybe we should take tomorrow off."

"Nah," Angel said. "We have a couple weeks until the snow starts and we have to throw in the towel for good. Might as well give it our all. Plus, Francis needs to stretch his legs." She peeked beneath the table. "Dontcha, buddy?"

"Sure," relented. A couple more weeks of this wouldn't kill him. The snow was a deadline, one he could work with.

Plus, it gave him some time to apply to more jobs.

Thick clouds coated the sky as Francis led and Angel around the shore of Glass Lake. It was the first time he'd seen the lake vacant of guests since starting the daily hikes.

A gust of wind blew over them, and tugged his sweatshirt tighter around his body.

"Okay, maybe we won't keep doing this until it snows," Angel said as she fought her wind-blasted hair. "This sucks."

"You go ahead," said. "Set up the amp. I gotta take a leak."

Angel left for the cabin, and ventured into the bushes, Francis bounding into the brush ahead to find a sniffable tree.

As peed, the wind died, and his surroundings went quiet. A ringing erupted in his ears.

Francis poked his head out from behind a tree, listening.

"Come on." waved Francis ahead of him and climbed out of the brush.

As they neared the cabin, Francis released a growl.

"Angel?" yelled, jogging to the cabin door. He yanked it open, the stench of plant rot hitting him in the face, and stumbled back.

The whole of the cabin floor had fallen into a sinkhole. Nothing but soil, roots, and the mouth of the darkest tunnel had ever seen.

From the darkness, Angel screamed his name.