11 / mercy
The next evening, as the sap slackens, he takes her car into town and returns with a six-pack of lightbulbs and a vanilla latte that has "Sorry I'm a spaz" written on it in loopy handwriting that is obviously a barista's and not his own. It isn't her favorite, but he leaves it on the counter for her without a word and she drinks it anyway. Their firewood supply dwindling, he puts himself to good use and chops firewood, which she's forced to watch through the kitchen window while she stands over their simmering chili on the stove.
It's nothing if not awakening.
For all the violence she's known at his hands, there's still something about watching a man swing an axe and bring it down upon the wood that will warm them. In a flannel she hates, sweating and having neglected to shave for a few days, Kai Parker is looking pretty good. She drinks the latte and peels her eyes away from him only to scrape burnt chili from the bottom of the pot.
Embarrassed, she avoids looking at him for the rest of the evening. They share a quiet dinner, then watch House at the End of the Street, a movie they both missed due to their imprisonment. After noting out loud "That guy's a creep" before it has even been revealed, Kai's eyelids flutter until he can't fight sleep anymore and passes out.
For some reason, the fact that he a.) can identify a psychopath right off the bat and b.) is repulsed by them, is amusing to Bonnie.
She's relieved that he sleeps. She can look at him without fear of being noticed. Cheeks hot every time she thinks about the firewood, she justifies it by reminding herself they are alone, on their own sort of wintry island, miles—and sometimes, she thinks, worlds—removed from everything either of them knows. Isolated from their contexts, it is easier to forget what he is, who she thinks she is.
She doesn't like this movie, she decides, and turns it off to listen to the fire crackle instead. Staring at it makes her feel warmer, though she's startled by the temperature of the living room, and so burrows herself deeper into the couch, deftly ignoring his socked feet behind her tailbone. Even with the fire going and a million blankets, it's freezing. She supposes the loft traps whatever heat the furnace generates and it's easier for her to keep warm in the top bunk at the peak of the cabin. Heat rises. Beneath her, he quivers and adjusts every so often, and she has to wonder how he manages to sleep at all.
Looking over at him, it occurs to her that this may as well be it.
Her opportunity.
Her nemesis dozes and she's wide awake.
If she didn't care who else she hurt, she could overfeed the fire, spell the door locked and leave him to burn, just drive away and never look back. The keys are right on the hook. Her boots are even underneath them. He is prostrate and vulnerable and cold. She could even just take up the axe he was using earlier and wedge it in his throat, warm the both of them with the steady, sheeting flow of his blood. It would be so easy.
None of her ideas are as cruel as the ones she envisioned at first, but those now seem impractical, and these, after the good week they've been having, just feel silly and indiscriminate. Even if there were no consequences, she isn't sure now that she'd be able to do it. Which makes her feel guilty for all the time she's spent thinking she could.
She remembers something funny he said a few days ago and begrudges herself one grin.
Maybe revenge isn't the answer to her pain. Maybe it's time. Maybe it's distance, the kind that puts the length of the country between them. Maybe it's only this, whatever they're doing.
Kai stirs and she feels herself pressing down on merciful thoughts of him, nervous or maybe just not ready to reveal that she can be merciful at all. He'd take the notion and run.