He fucking remembered.
The breath leaves my lungs. A wave of raw, helpless emotion crashes through me.
I can’t do this.
I cannot do this.
A storm rips open inside me.
I have to get out. Out of the room, out of this building, out of this mountain.
I bolt down the hall, the soft chime of bells making my anxiety spike.
I can’t breathe.
I can’t think.
I burst out the front doors, take the stairs two at a time, and run down the long driveway, into the trees, following some half-formed trail.
I don’t know where I’m going. Don’t know what I expect to find. I just know I can’t be in that place.
I run until my legs give out.
I crumple to the forest floor, sobbing so hard I can barely breathe. Every gasp feels jagged, every sound torn from somewhere deep and raw. I don’t know who I am anymore, let alone where I am or what I’m supposed to be doing. I feel wrung out, limp, useless—like a discarded rag doll.
The night is closing in around me, shadows pooling between the trees. I know I should move, think, care… but I can’t. Not right now. Not anymore.
CHAPTER 4
Talon
Ishould be walking away.
I am not great with people at the best of times. I am especially not great with women, and particularly crying women. That is far outside my comfort zone.
So, on the way back to my shed, when I spot a woman in the distance lying in the dirt and sobbing her heart out, my initial reaction is to make myself scarce.
But I cannot pull myself to do that, and I cannot just leave her there. It would not be right. Anything could happen to her.
I stand there watching her, my chest throbbing with an ache that matches her sorrow.
To think that I almost did not take this route.
I went into the woods earlier to mend a broken fence on our property border and took the longer route back. I have no idea why, but if I had taken the more direct path, I never would have seen her.
My grandmother would say the spirits led me here, although I am not sure how much I still believe in those things since she has been gone.
Nevertheless, I am here, watching a woman break down in the grass, and feeling completely inadequate to handle it.
She has not seen me yet, which is a small mercy. Usually I am hard to miss, being big and awkward, but she seems entirely absorbed in her grief.
I do not want to startle her, and I do not want to frighten her either. I should leave her alone, but for some reason I do not. I cannot.
Some of it is simple concern that she is lost. There are not many bears in this immediate area, but they come through from time to time, and anything could happen to her out here on her own. I should warn her.
But even thinking about speaking makes my throat close.
I can form the words in my head, yet I know that the second I stand next to her, they will tangle and die before they reach my mouth.