We stare for a moment before calling a truce.
“One day,” I promise, “you’ll wear perfume and all that.”
“Okay.”
We list the things that we’ll do one day. Go out to dinner. Watch a movie. Things the rest of the world does every damn day.
She says that she’s tired and disappears to the bedroom. I know she’s sad. We talk about a future, but in her mind she’s convinced no such thing exists.
I gather our things, trying to be sly. I set them aside on the counter: her drawing pad and pencils, what’s left of the cash. It takes all of two minutes to gather the things that are of importance. She is the only thing I need.
Then, out of boredom, I carve the words We Were Here into the countertop with a sharp knife. The words are serrated, not a masterpiece by any means. I drape my coat over the engraving so she won’t see it until it’s time to leave.
I remember that first night in the cabin. I remember the fear in her eyes. We Were Here, I think, but it’s someone else who leaves.
I watch the sun set. The temperature in the cabin drops. I add wood to the fire. I watch the minutes on my watch tick by. When I think the boredom is certain to kill me, I start dinner. Chicken noodle soup. This, I tell myself, is the last time in my life I’ll ever eat chicken noodle soup.
And then I hear it.
Eve
After
She’s been here before. She gathers that immediately.
Mia says that there used to be a Christmas tree, but now it’s gone. There used to be a fire constantly roaring in the stove, but now it’s silent. There used to be a smell much different than this; now all there is, is the piercing odor of bleach.
She says that she sees excerpts of what may have happened: cans of soup lying on the countertops, though they are no longer there. She hears the sound of water running from a faucet, and the ruckus of heavy shoes on the hardwood floors, though the rest of us remain still, watching Mia like a hawk, our backs pressed against the log wall.
“I hear rainfall on the cabin’s roof,” she says, “and see Canoe scurry from room to room.” Her eyes follow an imaginary path from the family room to the bedroom, as if, in that moment she actually sees the cat, though we all know he is tucked safely away with Ayanna and her son.
And then she says that she hears the sound of her name. “Mia?” I ask, my voice barely audible, but she shakes her head. No.
“Chloe,” she reminds me, her hand settling on an earlobe, her body pacified for the first time in a long time and she smiles.
But the smile doesn’t last long.
Colin
Christmas Eve
Ma always told me I have ears like a bat. I can hear anything. I don’t know what the sound is, but it forces me from my seat. I flip off the light and the cabin goes black. Chloe starts to stir in the bedroom. Her eyes fight through the darkness. She calls my name. When I don’t answer right away, she calls again. This time she’s scared.
I peel the curtains back from the window. The faint glow of the moon helps me see. There must be a half dozen of them: police cars, with twice as many cops.
“Shit.”
I let the curtain drop. I run through the cabin.
“Chloe. Chloe,” I snap. She jumps from the bed. The adrenaline rushes through her body as she fights off sleep. I pull her from the bedroom to a windowless section of the hall.
She’s coming to. She grips my hand, her nails digging into the skin. I can feel her hands shake. “What’s wrong?” she asks. Her voice trembles. Tears fall from her eyes. She knows what’s wrong.
“They’re here,” I say.
“Oh, my God,” she wails. “We have to run!” She slides away from me and into the bathroom. She thinks we’ll get out the window, somehow, and escape. She thinks we can run.
“It won’t work,” I tell her. The window is jammed shut. It’ll never open. She tries anyway. I put my hands on her, lure her away from the window. My voice is calm. “There’s nowhere to go. You can’t run.”
“Then we’ll fight,” she says. She pushes past me. I try to avoid the windows, though I bet the blackness in the cabin makes us invisible. But I do it anyway.
She’s crying that she doesn’t want to die. I try to tell her it’s the cops. The damn cops, I want to say, but she can’t hear a word I’m saying. She keeps saying over and over again that she doesn’t want to die. The tears run from her eyes.
She thinks it’s Dalmar.
I can’t think straight. I peer out the window, and I tell her that there’s nowhere to go. We can’t fight. There’s too many of them. It’ll never work. It will only make things worse.
But she finds the gun in the drawer. She knows how to shoot it. She grasps it in her shaking hands. She attaches the magazine.
“Chloe,” I say softly. My voice is a whisper. “It won’t do any good.”
But she sets her finger on the trigger anyway. She puts her left hand and right hand together. She holds firmly, like I told her to. She leaves no space between her hands and the grip.