She gave a soft little yawn, like something a dormouse would make, and my chest lifted and swelled. I had to clamp down on the feeling, hard. Fuck. I’d never in my life found someone so cute and lusted after them so hard, at the same time. “There was coffee in the ration pack,” I told her. “Do you want it before we go?”

She sat up and rubbed her face. “Let’s save it. It can be a mid-morning reward.”

I nodded, kicked snow over the fire and then stopped, looking through the trees ahead of us. The sun was just creeping over the horizon, bathing the forest in rich orange light. Above that, the orange faded to a warm yellow and then it blended into a cool blue. There was no sound at all, not even birdsong, like the whole world was holding its breath to watch the sunrise. It was one of the most beautiful things I’d ever seen.

I felt Erin’s fingers slip into mine and, without words, we squeezed hands. We stood there just watching for a few moments before we started to walk.

We’d been crunching through the snow for maybe a mile when I grabbed Erin’s arm. I’d seen a tree ahead of us twitch. I dropped to a crouch and readied my rifle. Had they found us and circled ahead of us?

The tree twitched again. Then a wolf pushed its way out from under the branches and straightened up, looking right at us, its thick brown and white coat dusted with snow.

Shit. “Don’t panic,” I told Erin. “They’re only dangerous in packs.”

Erin seemed to hear something and glanced behind us. Then she silently plucked at my sleeve. I looked back to see two more wolves there. Then another one, in the trees off to our left. They started to slink closer and now I could see how thin they were. We were in the depths of winter, when pickings were thin: they probably hadn’t eaten in weeks. And now they’d found us.

I brought my rifle up and went to take the safety off. “Fuck.”

“What?” asked Erin.

“The rifle must have been too far from the fire, last night,” I told her. “It’s frozen solid.”

33. Erin

33

ERIN

The wolf ahead of us started forward. It was bigger than the rest, and bolder. Danny pointed the useless rifle at it and the wolf froze. “Yeah, you know what a gun is, don’t you?” said Danny. “Smart boy. Just stay there.”