Page 42 of Possessed By the Mountain Man
Desperate times, okay?
“‘The sound came from the attic. Slow. Dragging. Heavier than footsteps—’” I read dramatically from the battered book I found in the lodge library, “‘—as if something inhuman remembered how to walk but not how to stop.’”
My voice echoes in the glow of the fireplace. Shadows flicker and stretch up the log walls. Goosebumps rise on my arms, but I’m not scared. I’m… lonely.
Pathetic, maybe. But lonely.
Thorne disappeared two hours ago. No explanation. No trace. Just put on his coat and vanished into the storm like some mountain cryptid with a tragic backstory.
Fine. Perfect. Whatever.
I pull my knees closer and keep reading.
“‘The air turned sharp with the smell of?—’”
“You trying to summon something?”
The deep voice snaps me out of my skull. I jerk so hard half the blanket goes flying.
Thorne stands in the doorway. Snow dusts his broad shoulders, melts slowly into his hair. He looks like a storm god who got into a bar fight and walked away pissed off—but victorious.
“You climb out of a tree again or did the wind actually carry you home this time?” I snap, hand on my heart.
He walks in like he owns the entire mountain. “I checked the shed.”
“Great. Riveting. You could’ve said goodbye first like a normal person.”
“Not normal,” he says simply, shutting the door behind him.
No kidding.
He pulls off his gloves, tosses them on the table. Our eyes meet. Something shifts in the air. He notices the candles. The blanket around my shoulders. The book clutched in my hand.
“You were reading,” he says.
“Look at you, master of observation.”
He ignores the jab. “Out loud?”
I shrug. “Sometimes when it’s too quiet, I fill it. Running commentary is my coping mechanism.”
“You got a lot of coping mechanisms.”
“You’ve got a lot of repressed tension.”
His mouth twitches. He doesn’t deny it.
He walks toward the fire, crouching to stack wood like the man personally has a vendetta against the cold. The muscles in his arms flex beneath his shirt with every movement. He’s quiet. Focused. Too intense for a simple task.
The kind of man who doesn’t do anything halfway. Even burning shit.
He glances toward the book. “Ghost stories?”
“I figured if I’m trapped in a creaking hunting lodge during a blizzard with a grumpy mountain hermit, I might as well commit to the aesthetic.”
“Could just go to bed,” he mutters.
“Sleep is for people who aren’t overthinking their entire existence,” I mutter back.
