Page 3 of Collision of Winters
As evidence showed, I hated that too, but… “The difference is, Kayden doesn’t know he’s being kept out of the loop. Ignorance is bliss and all.”
CHAPTER 1
February 16th, 2021
Kayden Winters
“This is called kidnapping,” I gritted out. “I’m being held hostage.”
Chris chuckled. “A hostage who can leave whenever he wants. Cool it with the drama, Kayden.”
Leave whenever I wanted? Was he fucking serious? As if the flight to Nome hadn’t been enough, how about the second flight in a bush plane to a place that didn’t actually have a name? And now a merry road trip in an off-road vehicle straight out onto the frozen tundra. How in the actual fuck was I gonnaleave?
I clenched my jaw and stared out the window.
My brothers were overreacting. I hadn’t “lost it” for shit. I wasn’t “out of control.”
So I’d gotten into a few fights, and I’d spent a measly three months in jail because the judge had it out for me.
I couldn’t believe this was happening.
I felt like such an idiot too, for thinking Chris and Wade had wanted to hang out with me. I’d heard of their cabin in Alaska somany times. They came up here to fish, unwind, hunt, and nurse combat trauma.
Then we’d landed in the middle of nowhere, and Chris had informed me that I was here to get my shit together.
Fuck him. Fuck both of them. I couldn’t even call Dad for help. There was no service up here.
What did they think was gonna happen? I’d do some manual labor and magically lose all my anger?
Maybe I could convince Wade to take me home—or at least back to civilization. He wasn’t necessarily nicer than Chris, but we had a bond of sorts. And way more in common.
I’d been angry when the Winters family had taken me in years ago, too, and Wade had been there for me when he hadn’t been busy burning himself out.
An hour or so later, we arrived at a small forest in an area dotted with massive boulders, and I could see a cabin nestled in the tree line.
“Welcome home, kid.” Chris killed the engine and jumped out.
This wasn’t happening.
I jumped out too, and I was immediately assaulted by cold winds that reeked of the ocean.
It wasdeadout here.
Of all the places to have a cabin, they’d chosen the barren tundra of western Alaska?
How did you even come across a place like this? Granted, around the cabin, with its forest and cliffs and boulders, life almost looked cozy. There was a stream, a shed, a fenced-in dog yard, a carport, some patches of grass…but the rest? Nothing. Shrubs and rocks and no-man’s-land.
In the carport stood two four-wheelers, two snowmobiles, and a Jeep like the one I’d arrived in.
“Don’t worry, you won’t find any keys.” Chris smirked at me.
I gave him a flat stare and shouldered my duffel. “But I can leave whenever I want, right?”
He grinned. “Sure. Ocean’s about two klicks that way.” He pointed west. “You’ll find our dock there. Two boats. But I can’t promise there’s much fuel.”
Go fuck yourself.
Just then, someone emerged from the cabin some hundred feet away, and it was obviously Wade.
