Confused, Alex asked, “When?”
“You said God didn’t care for his trash,” she answered. “That your world was a dumping ground. You’re an orphan, just like me.”
She kept walking to the wood pile and squatted down to load up again, unaware of the impact of her question. When she came back, he still stood in the same place. Surprised, she slowed her steps.
A dozen counterattacks were on Alex’s lips. Cruel, cutting words that would shift the balance between them and slam the door on any more questions or commentary. But their eyes met in a moment of awareness…of her…of himself…of the idea that they shared something as fundamental as common ground. His cold retort—words meant to wound and deflect—died on his lips.
Lilly didn’t indulge in self-pity, but she didn’t hide from the hurt that made her who she was. She took strength from the very things that reduced most humans to rubble. And she made Alex want to do the same. Unbelievably, he felt a smile spreading across his face. A smile that Lilly answered. In that strange and giddy moment, Alex felt understood.
He was falling—into Lilly’s beautiful eyes, into her soft voice and hard truths. Since she’d challenged him in the woods with her rifle and dogs, he’d been spinning. Since she’d asked him how and why, he’d been caught in the storm of doubt. Since she’d made him think he was better than he really was, he’d been swept away in the tide of hope.
When he spoke, his voice was low and thick with emotion. “However this ends, Lilly Winslow, I’m glad I had a chance to be with you. You should know that.”
Without hesitation, she dumped the wood she carried and threw her arms around him. Alex caught her against him and kissed her cold mouth, filled with sudden, indescribable, happiness.
“The first time I saw you,” she breathed, “I knew you were trouble. But I knew you’d be worth it, too.”
“You should have run away.”
“I’m glad I didn’t.”
As was he. He kissed her again and she pressed closer.
“What did you think the first time you saw me?”
“That you had pretty eyes and I hoped I wouldn’t have to kill you.”
She met his gaze, dark humor mixing into the shining blue. “You wouldn’t hurt me.”
“I’m hurting you now,” he said softly.
***
Alex’s words washed over Lilly, sad and true, but somehow irrelevant. She didn’t care if he hurt her as long as he touched her again. As long as he proved that their meeting, which had changed her in some deep, irrevocable way, hadn’t left him unaltered.
Suddenly, Belle lifted her head and woofed softly. Alex spun, staring into the distance.
“What is it?” Lilly asked searching the snowy landscape. “Did you hear something?”
Alex shook his head, but he continued to scan the dark woods around them. Lilly bent to retrieve the split logs she’d dropped and caught a shadow from the corner of her eye. She looked up and froze.
Something stood a few feet in front of her. Dark as pitch, nebulous as a ghost, the creature had four legs and had eyes so pale they glowed. Its outline shivered in and out of focus, making her think it was an illusion. A trick of frosted snow and obscured afternoon shadows. Without a sound, it turned its back and faded away.
“Alex…”
His name caught in her throat. He’d moved closer to the shed and didn’t hear her.
She scanned for the creature—specter, whatever it was—and saw it again on the porch. Insubstantial, textured like velvet. Belle bounded up the steps and padded to its side. She bumped her head against its flank affectionately, tail wagging. A tongue came out from the black face and licked her.
“Alex.”
This time he heard the panicked whisper. Alex spun and faced Lilly where she still crouched in the snow. He followed her fixed stare to the porch.
The creature faded again, but Lilly sensed it was still there. Belle’s tail wagged happily and she made soft sounds as she circled, her head down in deference to the apparition that Lilly knew must be a hellhound.
“You see it?” he asked, his voice as soft as hers had been.
“I see something,” she clarified, unable to describe the pulsing silhouette that moved like a phantom.
In the distance, a sound rose up over the wind and wailed a piercing note that sent chills through her already ice-covered senses. Far to the south, another voice joined it. Violent, hostile. Soon the shrieking howls surrounded them—nothing like the lonely wolf-calls she’d heard before. The dogs circled with agitation, but they didn’t bark. Instinct must be telling them that making a sound now would lead danger to their door.