Page 23 of Oathbreaker

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.

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