Page 1 of A Killing Cold

1

I’ve never liked the way snow makes the world go quiet, stifling sound and creating the illusion of stillness. I can’t shake the feeling that the silence is one of waiting. Of watching.

The car crunches implacably along the narrow road. The trees around us are mostly hemlock, wearing capes of snow to conceal their green. Beech and sugar maple appear here and there, branches winter-stripped and grasping. Connor’s family owns this land, all the way to the mountain peak.

“Not far now,” Connor says for the third time since we left the small town at the base of the mountain. “Once you’re out of Datura, it’s only about twenty minutes, even with the weather.”

“It’s a flower, you know,” I note idly. “Datura. Also known as devil’s weed. The Victorians said it represented deceitful charms.”

Connor gives me a look I’ve come to know so well—half-pleased, half-puzzled.

I’ve always liked to know the names of things. It’s the next best thing to knowing my own.

I’m bunching my scarf in my hands again, twisting it up like a cheap rag. It was a gift from Connor, which means it’s anything but. Sometimes I play a game where I guess how much something cost, and then I double it, and then I look up the actual price. I’m usually still a bit low. Red cashmere and wool blend scarf, $490. I wad it up in a ball in my lap.

“They’ll love you,” Connor says, noticing my expression. Connor is a man used to being loved; I’ve known it since the moment I saw him.No scars on that heart, I thought at the time, though later I discovered I was wrong.

“I’ll settle for grudging approval,” I tell him, flicking him a smile to show I’m not nervous, though of course I am. There’s a diamond on my finger that cost as much as a down payment on a house, and I’ve never met my fiancé’s family—other than his sister, Alexis, who swooped into town two months ago for less than twenty-four hours and greeted me with plastic politeness. We’d been together only three months at the time, which makes this not even half a year and already engaged—I’d be worried if Connor’s familywasn’tskeptical.

Hell, I’m skeptical.

“The person you have to impress is Grandma Louise,” Connor says. His voice thrums with nerves despite his words, his fingers drumming on the wheel in an uneven rhythm. “Mrs. Dalton to you, obviously. Granddad’s in charge of the business, but Grandma’s in charge of the family. If she likes you, you’re in.”

“And if she doesn’t like me?” I ask.

“Oh, we just take you up to the top of the mountain for a ritual sacrifice,” he assures me, deadpan, and I roll my eyes at him. “Don’t worry, Theo. She’ll like you.”

My heart thuds hard, just once, and I’m sick with a feeling that might be dread or hope. I need Connor’s family to like me because I need Connor. I need the soft touch of his hands and the smell of his skin, and it feels impossible that I didn’t know him at all this time last year.

Connor hasn’t had to worry about impressing my family—there isn’t anyone to impress. I told him that my parents are dead. It’s what I tell everyone.

It might even be true.

“The only thing you need to worry about—” Connor begins, and then he swears as a dark shape bursts from the tree line. Connor slams on the brakes, twists the wheel, instinct overtaking sense. The wheels lose their grip and the car swings sideways, sliding alarmingly before coming to a lurching stop two feet shy of the thing we nearly hit. A deer.

The buck’s antlers branch to ten long points. Steam rises from its heaving flanks. It stands with its legs splayed, head down, and for a moment I think it’s going to charge the Jeep, but then I see the bright crimson rimming its nostrils. Pattering onto the snow beneath it. The black shaft of an arrow protrudes from its ribs, a slash of red and yellow fletching at the end.

Connor’s arm is outflung in front of me. I grip the door, white-knuckled. Mist plumes with every forceful exhale from the beast; its dull eyes stare at nothing.

“Theo. Are you okay?” Connor asks.

The deer lets out a low stuttering moan. It collapses—its front legs first, then the back. I unbuckle myself.

“Theo,” Connor says again.

“I’m fine,” I say. I open the door, stepping out onto the snow. Connor, with the slow reflexes of a man who has never needed to be wary, catches at my sleeve but doesn’t get a grip. He fumbles for his own seat belt as I skirt the edge of the Jeep, approaching the deer. Its eyes are closed. Its sides hardly move. Maybe don’t move at all. Blood trickles sluggishly from its side.

There is a strange feeling in my body. A tightening in my stomach and up my spine. A need to run. A need to see. The polished prongs of the buck’s antlers are the length of my hand.

“Theo, be careful,” Connor says, and at the sound, the buck’s eyes flash open. It heaves upward, rising to its feet with a horrible bellow, antlers raking upward. I stumble back. My heels catch snow and then I’m on the ground, staring up at the glistening bloodstained muzzle of the deer. Connor shouts.

The buck runs, a broken lope, tracks filling up with blood; it won’t run far, but I will it to.Run. Don’t stop, I think, half-wild.Don’t let them find you.

Connor hauls me to my feet, knocking snow from my fleece as he checks that I’m whole. I brush his hands away, pulse galloping, and stare after the buck. It vanishes among the trees.

The image remains: branching antlers. A splash of red across achingly white snow. That tightening in my stomach returns, and with it the strange echoing feeling of a memory half-lost.

“Theo, I asked if you’re okay,” Connor says, and my focus snaps to him.

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