Page 57 of Collateral Damage
I back out into the snow, a sick wave of heat washing through my chest despite the freeze. I’ve broken his one rule: Stay put.
I reach for the phone in my pocket, my fingers clumsy and numb.
Out of the corner of my eye, movement makes me freeze.
Thirty yards out, deep in the gray meat of the timber. A dark vertical line that doesn't match the trees. It’s a silhouette, perfectly still, watching me through the veil of falling white.
I stop breathing. The world narrows down to that shape. It doesn't move. It doesn't step forward. It just is.
Please, God. Let it be a shadow. Just a shadow.
I blink, snow clinging to my glasses as I squint. A gust of wind drives a sheet of white between us, and when it clears, the space between the trunks is empty.
A metallic clank shatters the quiet behind me. I spin, my heart leaping into my throat.
Silas is stepping out of the garage, a battery-powered heat gun gripped in his hand. He looks like a ghost in the snow, his face set in a hard, jagged line when he spots me.
"What are you doing outside?" The heat in his voice is a warning.
"You were gone too long," I snap back, the indignation a shield against the terror vibrating in my limbs. "I thought you were hurt."
He doesn't apologize. He doesn't even soften. He just hitches an eyebrow and plants a hand on the small of my back, the pressure firm enough to propel me toward the shed.
"The carburetor was iced," he says, his tone clipped. "I needed this."
He crouches by the machine, the heat gun whining to life. I watch the frost turn to water, dripping off the metal like tears, but I can’t stop looking back at the tree line.
He gives the cord a brutal yank. The generator coughs, a plume of exhaust stinging the air, and then settles into a deafening, steady roar. The overhead bulb flickers, then bleeds a sickly yellow light across the floor.
He’s back. The power is on. But I can't shake the feeling that the thing in the trees is still counting my breaths.
Silas straightens, wiping his hands on his jeans. "I need to put this back and check on the Ski-Doo."
Eyes flicking to the trees again, I shadow him to the garage, staying tight to his back. The generator’s rumble dies away, replaced by the sound of our boots crunching through the deepening snow.
He heaves the door open and slips inside. I stay on the threshold, just inside the door.
The snow is falling more heavily now, thick flakes that blur everything beyond a few yards. Out of the corner of my eye, something pulls my attention to the left—a small splash of color against the white. Without thinking, I take a step toward it.
The snow is deceptive; a hidden drift gives way, turning into a slick, angled shelf of ice beneath the powder. My foot finds nothing but air, and my center of gravity vanishes. I pitch forward, hands shooting out instinctively, but the ground meets me before I can brace.
Pain explodes through my ankle as it rolls violently under my weight. I slam into the frozen earth on my knees, the breath knocked clean out of me.
For a second, I just kneel there, snow soaking through my jeans, my ankle throbbing. I look back, brushing snow away from whatever caught my foot. A fallen log, probably. Or a branch brought down by the storm.
I clear the drifts, expecting bark or wood, but my glove sinks into something soft, matted, and unnervingly rigid.
I pull back the snow to reveal a flank of coarse, brown hair. A head emerges, frozen in place. It’s the fawn, its body half-submerged in the drift. Its eyes are wide and glassy, fixed in a stare that doesn’t blink, the pupils blown out into hollow, milky voids.
There’s no movement, no rise and fall of breath, only the absolute, terrifying stillness of something that was running seconds before the world stopped for it.
Bile creeps upwards as I scramble away, the cold soaking through my leather gloves. Behind me, the garage door closes, and I try to stand, but pain shoots through my foot, sharp enough to make me gasp.
Instantly, Silas is supporting my weight, his hands firm and heavy through my coat.
“What happened?”
I jerk my chin toward the fawn. “I saw something.”
