Page 31 of Snowman

Thor returned, the doctor following close on his heels holding a clipboard, which he barely looked at despite my presence in the main attraction. He didn't even look at me, he didn't want to.

"Johansson." He greeted cheerfully, shaking his hand like this was such a casual, friendly. "Pleasure."

I glared at the doctor as he strode closer to my bed. "Miss here fell and hit her head," he said, continuing to flip through the chart. "She may have a concussion. We're still running checks, but that's all it is."

"No!" I shouted my voice raw desperate. "You're wrong! That's not what happened!"

The doctor had turned his back to me as if I wasn't in the same room.

"I think this is a very troubled young lady who needs care," he said smoothly, ushering Johansson out the door. The man turned once to look back at me; that sick smirk still plastered on his face as he disappeared into the hallway.

Thor stood still for a moment, his face unreadable again. When he finally approached the bed, I tried speaking, trying to make him hear me. "Thor, please—"

"I'm sorry," he said quietly, cutting me off. "But there's nothing we can do."

He turned his back and walked away. My chest ached, and the anger bubbled up from deep in me. My hand reached instinctively for the pillow beneath my head, and I threw it with as much force as I could muster. It hit the back of his head and bounded to the floor. He didn't stop. He didn't turn around. He kept on walking, disappearing out the door like everyone else had.

I felt empty like I had nothing left inside.No one cares,I thought bitterly.Not even him.

Isak leaned and picked up the pillow. He set it gently on the bed beside me, his fingers brushing the blanket. His eyes were steady as he leaned closer, voice low. "I'll teach them a lesson," he whispered. "I promise."

I swung to him then, my face wet with tears. My voice was shaking; the words came out in broken bits. "I want them dead. All of them."

His palm touched briefly on my arm, an almost reassuring squeeze before standing. He said nothing further, only turned and walked out of the room. I curled onto my side, tugging the blanket up to my chin as if it could protect me from the world.

The tears didn't stop, but when a person becomes too tired, they no longer fight them back. I squeezed my eyes shut and let the sobs shake through me as silently as I could. I was back in the circle again, the one I couldn't seem to get out of.

The endless loop of bad luck, of pain, of voices I couldn't silence.

Life is hell,I thought.And I don't know how to stop it.

Every time I closed my eyes, it was the same. The same hands, the same laughter, the same icy water pulling me under. This time, the steps were soft, light as whispers in the quiet of the room. I could hear them coming, heard them stop. I held my breath, pretending to be asleep, curled up small enough to disappear. The steps remained dragging. Then, finally, they faced and faded away, leaving me to my tears and the weight of everything I could not escape.

ELEVEN

SNOWMAN

I wished for aclock that could turn back time. I wished for someone to pull me out of the present and take me back to the past. Back to when she wasn't broken, back to a time before her pain began. I wished I could erase every scar printed onto her body and soul, leaving nothing but her—whole and untouched.

Regret is the heaviest burden a man will ever carry, a shadow that lengthens with each passing day until all that's left is taken. And with regrets, sorrow, a trickle turning into a flood till everything's drowned and none is left but darkness.

But I wouldn't live with regret. I couldn't. I didn't have a clock to turn back the time, nor someone to carry me into the past. All I had was what I knew best: an axe, a knife, and a gun.

I couldn't erase what had been done to her. I couldn't fix her fractured heart, her fragile soul. But I could make sure no one ever laid a hand on her again.

I zipped up the dark blue nylon suit and felt it cling to my body like a second skin. In my hand, I held the faceless plastic mask that had become my identity. It stared back at me, blank and cold. I stood in front of the mirror, but all that stared back was emptiness, just a hollow man with a hollow face.

On the counter beside me lay the local newspaper. The front page showed a picture of an Asian reporter standing outside my last victim's house, a microphone clutched tightly in her hand. The headline screamed in bold, black letters:"Snowman Hunts Again.".They pressed heavily upon my chest, so real. I had once hoped to save this town, to rid it of its corruption and decay. But evil within people cannot be cleansed, no more than a disease can be healed. You can hide it or remove the tumor, trying to drown it, but it will always resurface, wearing a new face. And I was tired. Tired of chasing shadows, tired of wearing this mask, tired of the cold that seeped in through my bones and turned me into what I was.An ice monster.

But I couldn't stop. Not now. Not when she was still hurting. Not when they were still out there. I knew where they hid, where they skulked in, the places they thought made them untouchable. I would find them. I would make them suffer for every bruise, every scar they left on her body and soul.

They thought they could take her away from me, hurt her, and simply walk away. But they were wrong. This wasn't about justice. This wasn't about the town or headlines or the mask.

This was about her. And they would pay for all of it.

The fog hung heavy over the woods, curling around the trees like ghostly fingers. Each step I made, had a reason behind it. And as the crunch in the snow beneath my feet had been muffled under that dense air, the axe swung low in my hand, chafing a thin cut across the snow.

Their laughter, ahead, cut like razor-sharp edges, so cruel and careless. Not loud enough to hide where they were. They lay by the river, in the very same spot where she was, mocking and joking about it, reliving a night they had gotten away with.

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