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Familiar.
Horrifyingly familiar.
As my eyes adjust, recognition hits me like a white-out blizzard.
No, no, nononono!
Two-story windows, glossy wood floors, stone fireplace, curving staircase to a catwalk…
The cabin.
I’m back in Hoss.
My worst nightmare realized.
Panic spikes anew, my pulse vaulting into a war cry of terror. The cabin closes in on me, walls pressing nearer, air growing thinner.
A soft, rhythmic whirring sound buzzes from somewhere nearby. What is that?
I concentrate on the ceiling, counting the beams, desperately trying to anchor myself. But the sense of suffocation only grows. My breaths are too shallow, too rapid, each one fighting against the invisible weight on my chest.
Only my eyes move. I dart them side to side, frantic, searching for escape, for someone to assure me I’m not alone.
Lying on the couch in a sitting room full of memories, I’m swaddled in a blanket, the soft material tickling my skin. My bare skin.
Head to toe, I’m completely naked.
Where are my clothes?
Where’s Rhett?
An IV line snakes in my peripheral vision, connected to my arm. The other end attaches to a fluid bag and small portable pump.
That explains the whirring sound.
I’m drugged.
Trapped.
A prisoner in my body.
In this cabin.
This hellish place.
Every crack in the wall, every shadow cast by the window light, brings back the fear, the endless night, the cold, the hunger, the abuse, the hopelessness. All of it lives in my bones.
Yet everything looks different.
During our final months here, we tore apart every wooden structure to fuel the hearth.
There’s no trace of our struggle for survival. The destruction is gone, the wreckage swept away. New furniture fills the space. Repaired flooring. The cabin looks reborn, untouched by its haunted past.
The transformation is jarring, making my skin prickle and crawl.
Rhett has been traveling nonstop for the past five months.
Mostly to major cities. I’ve been working closely with top hospitals in Seattle, San Francisco, and New York.
