He missed.

The rabbit turned and looked at Max. He had no idea whether the bullet went high, wide, or short, but he sighted on her and fired again. This time the rabbit collapsed, flipping onto her back, and something in Max’s stomach knotted up.

He plodded forward like a man in leg irons, and as he drew near he saw that the rabbit was still alive, blood oozing from a wound in her hip. Max should have put a second bullet into her right then, but he hesitated. The rabbit twitched and looked up toward Max, and he was sure that he saw fear and confusion in her eyes, as if she were asking, “Why?”

He finally pulled the trigger a third time. He squatted on one knee next to the rabbit, and pinched his eyes closed to fight back the tears. He wanted to throw up. What the hell was wrong with him? He had tied up a man and dropped him into a frozen lake, watched as his face disappeared into the darkness of the water, and had felt nothing. But a rabbit’s pain churned his gut and knotted his throat. How could a man be so utterly weak? If Jenni were still alive, she would see him for the pathetic wretch that he was, and be ashamed.

But if Jenni were still alive, he would never have had to execute Mikhail. How different his world would have been.

That night, he cooked the rabbit on a spit over the fire pit out front, the evening chill turning his breath white, and when he ate he could barely bring himself to swallow. But he did because the only thing worse than eating what he had killed would have been to let it go to waste. By the time he had finished his meal he understood that his attempt to live as a hermit had failed. He would go back to the electric company in the morning.

Across the lake, the setting sun blazed against the stratus clouds, as though the world beyond his land were on fire. Jenni would have pointed out the beauty in that glowing sky, in the dance of the trees as they swayed in the light breeze, their leaves drifting down to the lake, but all Max could see was the cold of another long winter gathering its strength.

He wished he hadn’t run into Lyle. He wished that he hadn’t felt the warmth of that woman’s hand or seen the simple courage in that little boy’s smile.

That night, under the glow of a short, fat candle, Max slid an oak log into the stove to prepare for the night. Then he climbed the steps to his bed in the loft. Outside, the thin clouds had parted and a full moon bathed the room in moonlight. He blew out his candle, climbed into bed, and stared at the ceiling to await the onset of dreams and nightmares that had become his nightly observance—unaware that the walls he had worked so hard to build around him were about to be breached.