Page 9 of Mistletoe

Recent events? He had no idea. Brief snatches of coherence, his brother, a room with harsh lights, pain, and anger. Mostly anger.

The woman in the barn—Emma—she shone through the fog of memory, a bright bonfire in the dark of winter.

Hal moved on instinct. He found firewood and flint in a lean-to against the cabin, implying the abandoned structure was used as a way station or for hunting. That same instinct told him he was handy with tools and basic repairs.

He cleared the small stone chimney of debris—instinct had him checking for blockages—and felt quite accomplished when the fire caught. It wasn’t a roaring blaze, but the warmth took the numbing chill out of his bones.

Then, the veil lifted on his memories, giving him a brief glimpse of his former life as he sat by the fire.

Back on Earth, wilderness survival skills were strictly recreational. He developed urban survival skills, such as strapping furnace filters to box fans to filter the air on high-pollution days. Or boiling water because the treatment plant was offline again. Or how to repair the archaic appliances that he could never afford to replace. Or how to keep warm in the depths of winter when the heating went out.

Hal needed to assess the situation. He needed to establish where he was, how much time had passed, and what happened to him exactly, even though he knew it was Ethan’s doing. The unknown outnumbered the known, irritating him like a stone in his too-tight boots.

He sat by the fire, waiting. For the holes in his memory to fill. For a plan to form. For sleep.

By morning, he’d move on.

Chapter Three

Hal

West Lands

A thunderous crackshook the morning calm.

Smoke rose from the mountains. Ethan’s mountain. No,Dravenwas the name of the monster that erased his brother. The thing that held him, tortured him, and made him suffer was not his brother.

Draven.

The army that amassed outside the fortress must have breached the walls.

Good.

Hal wondered at the bitter contempt he felt for his brother. Draven had asked him to stay, to fight, but amidst the confusion, Hal escaped. He would not fight for the man who locked him away. Experimented on him. That man could go to hell, as far as Hal was concerned.

Whatever trouble was currently battering down his brother’s door was not Hal’s problem.

It was time to move.

The landscape was open, rolling fields blanketed under snow with little to break up the horizon. The harsh blue sky pressed down, making the landscape feel flatter. The occasional black dots of a herd moved in the distance.

Homesteads were few and far between. Hal gave them a wide berth, which was easy. There was no road, just muddy tracks through the snow. He kept off the road, such that it was, in case he needed to hide.

The mountains lurked, never retreating into the distance no matter how far Hal walked. A column of black smoke smudged against the blue sky, marking the location of Draven’s besieged fortress. The smoke meant nothing but trouble for his brother, and Hal couldn’t be more pleased.

Hal had never seen so much emptiness. Had never imagined such vast swaths of nothingness. No buildings. No people. No vehicles on the road or in the sky.

It was unnerving. He couldn’t state plainly enough how crowded Earth had been. At least his corner of Earth. People packed into the coastal megalopolis, building on top of each other. The streets overflowed with too much of everyone and everything. Buildings and vehicles crowded out the sky. Fresh air and sunlight were privileges reserved for those who could afford them. Even the rain was snatched out of the sky by collection units and hoarded.

The ship and being confined to a box roughly the size of a coffin were no better. His existence had been restricted to closed-in, limited spaces.

This world was too open. Too empty. It was disconcerting. He felt exposed.

The colony must still be settling into the planet. Rapid expansion and building had been the plan, or at least the bullet points highlighted in the company handbook. Hope sparked that he hadn’t lost too much time to his captivity.

As the sun moved in the sky, Hal noticed subtle details. Variegated purple grass poked through the thin layer of snow. Other vegetation caught his eye, an evergreen-like vine that reacted to his body heat and curled around his finger. Tiny needles pierced his skin. The leaves plumped up immediately as the vine drew blood, the washed-out color growing to a deep violet.

With a snarl, Hal tore the bloodsucking vine off his hand. It was unlike anything he had ever seen, but Hal wasn’t a botanist or even a nature lover. Or someone who enjoyed walks in the park, for that matter. He was familiar with weeds that grew in cracks in the pavement and had never seen a bloodsucking vine.

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