Page 11

I get inside, lock the door, and start going through the motions of getting my evening in order. I rinse my coffee mug from this morning, check the back door, and set the files Reyes gave me on the small kitchen table.

I’ve vowed to not open them after 8 p.m. because I am not doing missing persons homework as soon as I get home, no matter how much my brain wants to jump in.

I shower, brush my teeth, and crawl into bed with muscles aching from a day that felt three days long.

For a while, sleep stays just out of reach. I left the window slightly cracked open because the cabin holds heat strangely, and the night air presses cool against my face.

I can hear the forest sorting itself around in the dark: wind through the pines, something small moving through leaves near the porch, the distant rush of water from the nearby river. I used to find comfort in naming every sound. Tonight, every familiar thing has a second meaning to it.

I turn my head and shove an arm under my pillow, staring toward the dark window. “Great,” I mutter to the empty cabin. “First day back, and I’m already lettin’ teenage campfire stories freak me out.”

Obviously no one answers, but for one stupid second, I feel like I’m being watched.

Not through the window, exactly. Not in the way that makes me want to grab my flashlight and check the yard. It feels deeper than that—a pressure in the center of my chest I can’t explain. I lie still and listen until the feeling fades and exhaustion finally takes hold.

When sleep eventually comes, it drops me straight into the trees.

I know I’m dreaming because the forest is too vivid and wrong at once. The path beneath my feet is one I recognize, then it isn’t. The trunks are too tall, the spaces between them too narrow, and the canopy overhead turns sunlight into a deep green black.

I’m running, breath hard in my chest, legs burning with the familiar strain of uphill ground. But I don’t know where I started or where I’m going.

Something is behind me.

It moves without crashing through brush, without snapping branches or any of the clumsy noise something that large should make. Its awareness follows close at my back, steady and patient, and every instinct tells me I should be terrified.

I’m not—that’s the worst part.

It’s as if some part of me has been waiting years for something worth running from.

Branches tug at my sleeves, damp air fills my lungs, and my bare feet don’t step on any stones or get tripped by exposed roots. But underneath the night air and the green smell of moss and old leaves, another scent threads through everything.

Sweet.

Herbal.

The smell thickens until it feels almost warm, wrapping around me and coating each breath. I’m pulled deeper into a forest that keeps opening at the exact moment I need a path. The dream carries me forward, and the thing behind me follows without hurry.

I know with a certainty that makes no sense, that if it wanted to hurt me, it already would have.

I stop suddenly, and slowly turn my head, but before I can see what’s following me, I jolt awake in bed as if I’d been dropped from a height.

For a few seconds, I can only breathe. My shirt clings damply to my chest, the blankets are twisted around my legs, and my cock is embarrassingly hard.

“Fuck,” I gasp, dragging a hand over my face.

The room smells like old wood, clean sheets, and the faint smoke that always lingers in the cabin. Beneath it, just for a second, I catch a hint of something sweet and herbal.

My breath locks, but then it’s gone.

5

Lucas

Five months later, I know which porch board groans under my weight and which one stays quiet. I know the cabin holds heat badly in the morning, but traps it like a stubborn old dog in the afternoon. I know the coffee machine needs one good smack on the side before it does its job, and I know the shower pipes scream when I turn on the hot water too fast.

The ranger station no longer feels like a place I’m visiting from my old life. My name is written on schedules, my mug sits beside Parker’s in the break room, Sarah yells at me when I forget to sign incident logs, and Tom still calls me kid even though I’m old enough to have lower back pain after bending over a desk for too long.

The work sets into a rhythm—trail checks, permit calls, weather reports, fallen branches after storms, and tourists who think ‘steep incline’ is a suggestion. Most of it is paperwork, patience, and knowing when the weather is about to ruin someone’s day.