XII.
Several days later, they stopped the truck in an abandoned rest stop near Finlayson Lake, several clicks east of the almost abandoned airport of the same name, along the dirt road that passed for a highway this far north. Logan folded up the map he had spread across his lap and looked at Terry in the drivers seat. She was zipping up her parka and sliding on large gloves over top of thin neoprene ones. She looked back at him expectantly, jittery with barely contained energy. She knew they were close.
"This is it," he said. "We leave the truck here and go on foot. We got maybe two, three days walk before we get close enough to scope out his cabin. From here on in, you step where I step. Do what I say. Got it?"
"Got it."
He looked at her carefully, pulling on his own gloves. "Last chance to turn back, darlin'."
She kicked open the door, and as she slammed it: "Don't call me darlin'."
.
She had no experience camping, no experience hiking in a foot of snow - half hard ice as it was or not. She knew bikes, and she knew cheap motels. She struggled to keep pace with Logan, but never said a word. And just as he had when they travelled on the road on their separate bikes, he learned to read her to know when to stop, because she was never about to ask.
They made camp two times, and though she first started out not knowing how to even pitch a tent, she learned quickly and he never had to explain things twice. They had lucked out with the weather. Though it was mostly over cast, they only ever got light flurries. Terry muttered it was the coldest she'd ever experienced, despite a real lack of falling snow, but Logan found it just a tad bit under the level of comfortable. She was thankful for the hand warmers she'd thrown into Logan's pack. She was also pleasantly surprised to discover a small but comprehensive first aid kit tucked inside the pack. He only shrugged his shoulders when she asked why he'd brought it.
In the early morning of the third day they crested a small rise, the permafrost of the area sparse blow them, the northern scoop of Finlayson Lake lake hidden by rolling hills off to their right. Logan held out an arm to stop Terry as she moved up beside him.
"What is -"
He shushed her harshly, eyes roving about the land. There was less snow as they hiked up, giving way to dead, brown thigh high grass. The wind was in their face, the coldness of it making Terry's eyes water. She waited five minutes before taking another step forward.
"What is it?" she repeated.
"I thought I caught Creed for a second, on the wind. We should be gettin' be close, but I thought it'd be another few hours, still."
Terry's gloved hand went to the gun on her thigh, the holster partially hidden by the long parka. She reaffirmed its position, then pushed back her fur lined hood. She took out one of the eight by elevens of Creeds cabin she'd folded up and stuffed in one cargo pocket, studying it and the surrounding area in tandem with her binoculars. She looked at Logan to confirm her gut instinct. She pointed north west. "That way."
He was already staring hard in that direction. "Yup."
An hour later and they were carefully working their way through a natural footpath leading through a small forested area at the base of a larger mountain. Logan had spied the cabin through the leafless branches, and he left Terry and the supplies behind as he scouted ahead. The wind was still in their faces, coming down off the mountain and across the clearing the cabin sat in. Their advance should be unnoticed. He crept to the edge of the tree line, but saw no movement in the cabin. He waited and watched carefully, but there was very little to go on. The cabin was too out in the open to get close to it, tucked up next to a rock face on one side, a cliff on the other, and the near mile of flat open land before the tree line he currently hid in. It looked dark and looked quiet: no lights, no smoke from the fire place. He'd hate to see Terry's reaction if they'd missed Creed. The front porch had a drying rack, a large hook hanging from the overhang, a couple chairs and a long work table with a basin. All clean, all empty. Alongside the closest outer wall of the house was a small shed. In front of the shed doors, wrapped in plastic, was the clear shape of a large Harley.
He backed up and circled back around to Terry. She was crouched behind a fallen tree, body vibrating with the need to move, to do anything besides sit here and wait. She nearly jumped out of her skin as he plopped down beside her, his arrival unobserved, but managed to hold in her yell of surprise.
"Well?" she demanded harshly.
Logan settled back on his heels against the trunk. "We wait. Nightfall at least. Or maybe wait 'till the early morning."
"Is he there?"
He shrugged.
"What the fuck does that mean? Is he there, Logan?"
He shrugged again. "Not sure. No lights, no fire, no movement. Couldn't get a handle on his stink, either. He could be gone, could be asleep, could be out."
She stared at him until he finally shifted enough to meet her eyes. She understood the difference in his words. Gone. Or out. "I want to see."
"What? No."
"Yes." She stood up, forcing him to follow suit. "Take me closer, I need to see the cabin."
"If he is here, Terry, then you run the risk -"
"Get me close enough to see the cabin. Not for him to see us."
He studied her carefully, then finally nodded. He lugged the backpack onto the trunk and jammed it into a 'y' branch to hold it there. Terry looped the binoculars around her neck and then they picked their way back to the animal made trail that led through the trees. Despite her most careful steps, the hardened snow still crunched beneath Terry's feet. She huffed at Logan's disapproving looks and attempted to think lighter thoughts. He lead them to the edge of a small clearing. Across the ten foot gap of untouched hard packed snow was another several feet of brush, and then the open meadow leading up to the cabin.
Logan stopped them at the clearing, a hand on Terry's arm to still her. She shook it off and grabbed the binoculars, bringing them up to her eyes and peering at the cabin. She stepped left two feet to get a better look. Logan took a step back behind her, watching the surrounding woods carefully. Something was unsettling him, raising the hair on his neck. Something's not right, there's something … I can smell Creed, but it's … old. At least a week. He hasn't been through here in a while, but … what is it? What's … The wind shifted, bringing new scents his way from the surrounding trees as it pushed its way across the clearing to the cliff side.
Terry gave a grunt. "That bastard …" She dropped the lenses and started forward.
"Wait …" Logan raised a hand for her but she stepped out of his reach. His eyes were drifting upward, seeking for the danger his senses told him was close by. Is that … wire?
"Terry!"
She ignored him and took another two steps into the middle of the clearing toward the cabin. He opened his mouth to say her name again, and then there was a snap of wire and a crack of wood. Terry was lifted clear off her feet and yanked two yards toward a tree. She landed heavily on her back and slid across the snow, right foot held awkwardly over her head by a noose of cable looped around a nearby tree. A snare trap, set most likely for a deer.
"Shit!" She scrabbled for purchase on the icy snow, trying to simultaneously flip herself over and also reach for her ankle. The snare wrapped tighter about her ankle as she struggled, tightening to the point of pain.
"Fuck!" As she would get a gloved hand up to her ankle she'd lose purchase with the other and slip again to her back.
"Logan!" She rolled her head back, extending a hand, expecting to find him there, ready to help, and froze when she saw that he hadn't moved from his spot by the tree line. She dropped her outstretched hand, gaping at him. "Logan?"
He took a step back. His face was impassive, body tense, hands loose and ready at his sides. She hadn't heard them slide out but there they were, six brilliantly gleaming metal claws. He pulled his eyes from the surrounding trees to the cabin. No movement. He looked down at Terry, took a second step back, and she understood.
"Don't! Don't you dare! Logan!" She reached for him again, trying to pull herself toward him, and was only yanked back from the wound tension in the cable. She yelped at the tightening of the cable around the cargo pant and her boot.
Logan brought a finger to his pursed lips, his claws snikt'ing back in he shushed her. He smiled gently, sadly, and then turned and walked away.
"No! NO! LOGAN!" She screamed after him, calling him names and throwing out useless threats and cursing his very existence. "Not like this, you sick asshole! Not like this!"
When she ran out of ways she was going to hurt him she switched to Creed and his very being, and then to the whole situation and the mockery it had made of her life. She pounded at the snow and dug up rocks and threw them at where Logan had been standing.
She found the binoculars just at the edge of her reach where they had fallen, stretched to her limits to snag the strap, and then used them to pound at the cable wrapped about her ankle. She succeeded only in bruising her foot. She broke the lenses in the binoculars and tried the glass on the cable, but only ripped a hole in her glove. She tossed the useless equipment to the side and cursed it as well. She realized she still had her gun strapped securely to her thigh, but didn't even remove it from the holster before shelving that idea. "What're you gonna do, shoot off your fuckin' foot?"
Then she lay on her back, letting the cold creep through her layers of clothes and into her bones, felt her hand ache and her foot tingle and go numb. Then she began cursing herself. Felt the anger bubble and boil until she was nearly frothing at the mouth, and she was pounding the ground at her sides in time with wordless screams of rage.
A dry chuckle cut through her tirade and silenced her. Her body jerked up and head whipped to the side. Victor Creed stood silhouetted against the blue sky, his large form casually leaning against a tree, arms tucked into jacket pockets. He seemed impossibly larger and more intimidating then when she had first met him, oozing death and pain and agony and torture in his very smile. A gleaming, fanged smile he had only for her.
