Above us in the trees, the wind howled. I thrashed underneath him, my legs sweeping the snow, but I was no match for his size. His breath was hot, the steam filling the air white above my face. It smelled sour, like old coffee, and my heart raced.
I felt something then, something I have never been able to fully explain. The sense that Eliot was watching me came over me. It felt like the sun’s rays bursting through the snowy branches in the morning, the warmth of the day now starting to creep into my chilled skin. I knew he could tell that I was in danger, and I knew he would be there to save me.
This strange feeling of trust that flooded my body made me relax, and the man above me pulled my wrists up tighter, but I did not feel the pain. Drawn back into myself, drawn further away from agony, I felt at peace, like I was hovering above myself, watching a terrible scene unfold that involved some other person. Watching terrible things happen to some character from a legend, and not me at all.#p#分页标题#e#
Eliot flew over me in a blur. The heavy shock of his impact made a resounding thud as it knocked the hunter off, and when the two men crashed into the tree next to me snow tumbled down from the shaken branches. I pushed myself sideways, out of the man’s reach. One of my shoes had been knocked off and the toes were white with cold.
Fists flew, and I saw the hunter reach back with one large hairy fist. Before I could scream, Eliot had butted his head into the man’s chin with a sharp crack that might have been tooth or bone or both. I felt dizzy at the sound, faint. It was as though my entire body had been drained of blood.
A large stone, a bit bigger than my fist, lay near me on the stream bank. I reached for it as a weapon. My hand pulled on the stone, loosening it from the frozen earth. When I tried to grab hold of it, though, my fingers were too slick with blood to grab on. The cold was too much. My fingers tensed, hard and clumsy, unable to lock around the stone, and my teeth chattered like machine gun rapid fire. My hand slipped on the surface and I tried again to get purchase, but it fell from my grip once more.
Come on, Brynn. I reached again for the stone and grasped it in both of my hands, lifting it up carefully. A shadow fell on me from behind and I twisted around, holding the stone up in defense. My eyes blurred with snow and tears, and for a second I did not know who stood before me. Then I blinked away the fog and saw that it was Eliot.
“My god, Brynn, you’re soaked,” he said, kneeling down. I clutched the stone to my chest and sobbed as he balanced me with his arms.
“It’s alright,” I heard him say as though from a distance. “It’s going to be alright.” The hunter lay a few meters away, not moving. I let the stone tumble from my hand and back into the icy water. A ringing in my ears made his words unintelligible. As his hands moved over me to check for injuries, I let myself lean into his strong body, looking down at the ground to keep my balance steady. I saw something strange, and my addled mind seized onto it as my body began to shut itself down.
“Eliot,” I said. “You’re not wearing any shoes.”
Those were the last words I said before passing into darkness.
I saw the world going back to the house in slow, distinct flashes. The white of the snow on the branches above me, the scarlet drops on the snow—blood? From the deer?—and the tightness of Eliot’s arms around me, carrying me as though I were the most precious thing in the world. My dress was hard, frozen to my skin, and I heard the ice crack in the seams as Eliot clutched me closer. I lay my head against his chest. A terrible thunder made my eyes rise to the sky to look for clouds, but it was Eliot’s heart I heard, the heavy beating as he stumbled through the trail toward the house.
“Brynn,” I heard him say. “Brynn, my Brynn.”
Dark again, and I woke to blankets surrounding me. My body felt heavy, numbed. Eliot stood not far from the couch where I lay, his ear pressed to his phone.
“Yes,” he said in Hungarian, and then his words lost themselves, floating upward in the air and out of my hearing.
Dark again. Complete darkness and complete peace. I heard singing, the soft notes of Satie’s Gymnopedies, and then Eliot’s voice in my ear.
“Brynn, wake up,” he said. “Wake up.” My eyes opened to his worried face. He pulled off my blankets and picked me up as though I weighed nothing, walking down the hall to a stairway I had never seen. It led downward, lit dimly by a soft orange glow that reminded me of candles.
“Where are we going?” I murmured. My head lolled against his arm.
“We have to get you in warm water,” he said, stepping down carefully to avoid knocking my head against the wall. “We have to get you into the baths.”