Dire

“Semen, sweat, and they will hear our noises. We’re not having sex.”

He groaned. “Seriously?”

“Yes.”

The wolves howled again, and I grabbed hold of Gage. “I just want to go home.”

“Me too, Mary Anne. Me too.”

We barely slept that night. Between the howling wolves, and the reality that we were going to have to set off on foot the next day, we were both nervous. Hopefully the weather would clear up enough that someone would come by on the road.

Gage brought my bag over so I could get dressed without getting out of the sleeping bag the next morning. Considering how cold the truck bed was, I definitely appreciated the thoughtfulness. I layered on some extra clothes. I knew it wasn’t going to get much warmer. There was no breakfast this time, and even our slushy Coke’s sounded good.

“Not that we questioned it, but there were definitely wolves here.”

Fresh paw prints littered the area around the truck.

Gage bent down to look at the prints. “They must be some massive wolves, look at the size of those tracks.”

I shivered. I really hoped they only came out at night.

We filled Gage’s backpack with the essentials from our bags and locked the truck. For the hundredth time I was thankful he was with me—even if he was the reason we were in this mess to begin with. Left alone, I probably would have been huddled in the car crying.

Gage helped push me up the embankment again before following me up. The snow had tapered off again, and the sky was clear, but the temperature was still below freezing, so the snow on the ground wasn’t going anywhere. It wasn’t quite as deep as it was around the truck, but it was still going to be tough to walk through.

The hours passed painfully slow. My feet were frozen, and I was cursing myself for buying the cute boots instead of ones that were actually waterproof. My socks were soaked through, as were my jeans. I didn’t think I was entering frost bite territory yet, but I was afraid I was getting close. At least I’d found a hat and scarf to help with the wind. Gage stayed right next to me, and I realized he was trying to block the wind. I never imagined he’d be so protective.

Finally he broke the silence. “Maybe we should have stayed with the truck.”

My arm brushed against his as I tried to stay close. “We had no food.”

“I’m packing a week’s worth of food next time I drive anywhere outside the city.”

“A week? I might try a month.” My stomach growled loudly.

He put an arm around me. “We’re going to get out of this all right.”

“I know. And we’ll have an interesting story to tell.”

“A great story if we include the sex.” He grinned.

“Gage.” I blushed, although my face was probably already so red from the cold that he wouldn’t have noticed.

“Sorry, couldn’t resist. That has been quite the highlight though.”

“You are so sex obsessed. You’d probably be ready to go right here.” Joking about sex made the situation seem less intense.

He laughed. “Believe it or not, I couldn’t. It’s too cold.”

“Yes, it is.”

It took us until late afternoon to go a few miles down the road. The snow was deep and cold, and with our hunger thrown in, we weren’t going very fast.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw something in the forest off in the distance. “Is that smoke?”

Gage blinked. “Maybe?”

“You are always supposed to stay on the road, but what if that’s our only chance for help?” I gestured toward the woods.

“If it were just me I’d head that way in a heartbeat, but we have no idea who’s there. On the other hand, we may freeze to death out here.”

“We stay together. That’s the biggest rule here.”

“Of course.” He tightened his arm around my waist.

I let out a deep breath before I took a step off the road and into the woods. “I really hope this isn’t a bad decision.” I was overcome by an ominous feeling, like there was no going back.

“It may be nothing. Or it may be a cabin. We need shelter, we need a phone, and we need food.”

“Please don’t let us get murdered.” All of the crazy horror movies my brother had forced me to watch ended that way.

“I’ll try not to.” He squeezed my hand, and I realized just how much I appreciated his sense of humor. The situation was awful no matter how you looked at it, but at least Gage kept me from completely losing it.

The snow was only slightly deeper in the woods, but it felt twice as difficult to walk through given the uneven ground. Every step we took away from the road felt monumental, and if Gage wasn’t holding my hand I might have turned back. I didn’t particularly enjoy being out in the cold, but walking into the wilderness toward a cabin or house, that may or may not be friendly, was something altogether different.

“Did you hear something?” Gage asked about twenty minutes later.

I strained to hear. “No, but I’ll try to listen more closely. I was too busy thinking about how my parents are probably flipping out right now.” My father was probably on the phone with the Dean and the Boston Police Department. When I’d forgotten to answer a call one night he’d contacted campus police. And that wasn’t during a massive blizzard.

“I’d guess they are. They’re going to kill me.”

“If they kill you it means we survived, so that’s a good thing.”

He brushed his shoulder against mine. “Wow, you made another joke.”

“Believe it or not I do know how.”

“If you say so.”

The sound of crunching snow had my heart racing a mile a minute.

Gage’s hand tightened around mine. “Shh, stay quiet for a second.”

I nodded, trying to stay calm.

After a moment I leaned in close to whisper. “Do you think it’s a person?”

“Maybe, but it could be an animal.”

My thoughts went immediately to the giant wolf prints. I looked up at the sky. The sun was already on its way down. It would be dark soon.

We stood there motionless, neither of us sure what to do next. The crunching had stopped right when we did. Someone was watching us.

“Let’s head back to the road.”

“Yeah, I think that’s a good idea.” We turned back around toward the road. I glanced over my shoulder as we continued our walk, but all I saw was endless mounds of white snow.