Chapter Text
The trouble started in Denver. Well no, the trouble started long before that, but it was in Denver where the feeling really coalesced. She’d walked off that plane into DIA as unsteady as a newborn deer, her anxiety so thick she could taste it in the air around her. Her body so absolutely rigid that when she’d tried to take a drink from the water fountain beside an airport bar, she’d nearly choked, her throat tight, her chest tighter.
It had been in the crowded airport bathroom when everything hit her. Really hit her. When she’d looked up from the sink and found a shell looking back at her, the dark circles under her eyes so deep they looked like bruises. And the single narrow bruise at the base of her jaw bright against her skin. The only one she couldn’t really cover up. Livie didn’t want to think about the others, on her wrists and her collarbone, the deep dark one that runs from her left breast to her hip bone. It made her feel almost canned, like she was playing a role that didn’t fit. The kind of battered woman she’d see on those billboards on the side of the Glendale Freeway. She didn’t want to think about who she is now, who she had to become to let this happen. So she didn’t. She’d wandered out of that bathroom, hoping to all the rest of the world she looked like anyone else arriving in Denver, feeling inside like a fugitive and like a child in equal measure.
She’d headed to the taxi stand to call Dorian, needing the sound of cars and people to fill all the terrifying empty spaces in her mind, hoping the background noise would mask the way her voice shook. It didn’t. Oh sweetheart, he’d said before even saying hello. I’m fine, she’d said without even bothering to try and sound that way. He’d tutted, but hadn’t said anything else about it. A small mercy.
He’d given her directions out of town, mentioned something about a local caretaker coming up to the house to make sure it was still standing and then left her alone with her own racing thoughts, in a city she’d never been before.
She stayed one night in an airport hotel, where she tossed and turned on the stiff sheets. Paid cash, like some kind of criminal on the run, for a Jeep older than she is with a mileage so high she could barely fathom it. Stood for a long time in the waning light of a Safeway parking lot, looking at the car that was supposed to be her chariot, her knight in shining armor, and finding it a flimsy protection for a terror so intense her whole body bent to the force of it.
And as she stands on the damp tile in this gas station in the middle of absolute nowhere, that terror is still churning inside of her. And that trouble that started so much earlier than Denver feels so real, so palpable, that Livie’s sure she could reach out and touch it.
“So it’s closed?” She taps her nails on the counter, a steady, loud rhythm. The woman behind the counter shoots her a look and she retracts her fingers into fists.
“Was closed.” The woman licks the pad of her thumb and turns the page of her magazine. The door dings, a wintry chill rolling in through the open door. Livie bounces nervously on the balls of her feet, fights the urge to start in on the skin around her nails with her teeth. “Pass opened up again thirty minutes ago.” The woman looks at her from over the top of her magazine. “You’re lucky.”
Livie doesn’t feel very lucky. Her nose is so cold it’s running, her cheeks burning and numb. “I mean…is it safe?”
The woman shrugs. The door dings again. A man coughs loudly back by the bathrooms, kicking the snow off his boots. “Sure. They got crews up there doing avalanche mitigation.”
“Avalanche mitigation.”
The woman flips another page in her magazine. She’s got lipstick on her left front tooth. The door dings again. “Yep.”
“As in…like…there could be an avalanche?”
“You’re in the mountains, sweetheart.” Livie glances out toward the pumps. She can only see the outline of her car through the thick falling snow. “You got four-wheel drive?” Livie glances back at the woman, swallowing hard, and nods. “All-weather tires?”
“Snow, I think.”
“You’ll be fine.”
Livie looks again out into the snow, pulling her thin coat a little closer around her. It’s more of a windbreaker really. For those few and far between days in Los Angeles when the skies darken and the temperature dips below 65. Last Livie checked, the temperature outside was 18 and dropping.
She’d meant to get a proper coat, it was on that hastily scrawled list she’d kept hidden in her desk at work, but everything had happened so much faster than she’d expected. Best laid plans and all that. She hadn’t had time. To do anything but run. Livie reaches up to her neck, stops herself just before she finds that tender bruise with her fingers. “I’ve never driven in the snow.”
The woman raises an eyebrow. “Well, drive slow then.” The little clock behind the counter ticks 3:30. Then, like she can read Livie’s mind, the woman glances up again from her magazine. “Gonna be dark soon. Better get a move on.”
She’s alone when she starts up the pass. The snow has, at least, slowed a little. She can see the road now, can see, in full effect, just how steep and high and terrifying those mountains look from where she’s idling at the base of them. Livie can’t even see the pass she’s supposed to take. Just the mouth of it, flanked by two blinking signs, and then dark pines, sloping up to a summit hidden by the storm churning at the peak. Livie puts the car into four-wheel drive and takes a deep breath. Her family used to vacation in Aspen when she was young. The roads weren’t like this, but there was snow. She hopes that maybe she’d learned something, just by watching.
It’s slow going at first, which is fine by her. The jeep jostles her, rolling over the snowpack, gripping onto the places where they’ve sanded the ice. If she just focuses on moving forward and not on the darkness, or the heavy snow or the way her engine has started to make a chugging sound that cannot be good, then she can stay calm. She’s fallen in line with a little convoy. A big dodge in front of her, chains dangling from its tires. In front of him, the blinking lights of a plow. They snake up the pass, the road narrowing the higher they go, ground sloping away to darkness beside the narrow road, the other just a solid, jagged cliff face. There’s a quiet beauty to the tall pines, reaching powerfully toward the sky, heavy with a snow so soft and so white it looks almost painted on, so soft she wants to reach out and touch them, leave her mark in the untouched powder. She traces them up to her tops, up to where, she imagines, a starry sky is hidden behind those dense clouds.
Howe always had cold hands, his fingers like ice on her skin. And she feels them hard on her jaw in that moment, feels him wrench her head back to face the road. Pay attention. His voice is a loud hiss in her ear. You never fucking pay attention. Her tires catch ice. It’s slower than it should be, far less dramatic, but she still can’t stop it. Livie bounces in her seat, hitting the brakes so hard they squeal, her other tire catching ice, sending her spinning slowly off the road. The snow cushions the car, the jeep settling in the ditch with a quiet thud. Livie looks up from where she’s curled in on herself. The quiet in the jeep is so thick she can hear her own heartbeat. She brings her chilled hands to her face, then runs them down her legs, taking a quick inventory of herself. Then her car. It seems to be all in one piece. Then, with a sudden dawning horror, Livie flips around to look at her backseat. Sighs hard in relief when she finds it just as dark and empty as she’d been before. His voice had been so real she could almost feel his breath on the shell of her ear. She exhales a ragged breath, resting her forehead against the cold leather of the steering wheel. Howe is, as far as she knows, a thousand miles away. And even if he’s scrambling, even if he’s knocking on every door of every person she’s ever known in Los Angeles, he won’t be able to find her. Not yet, at least. Not for a while. Only she and Dorian know where she is. Out here in the wilderness. She’s here. She’s alone. She’s here and alone. Oh Maker, she’s here and alone. Livie sits up bolt straight. The convoy she’d been following is gone, the road now so dark it fades into abyss where her headlights don’t reach. The snow is falling heavier now, dense flakes sticking to her jeep’s hood, to the road. Darkness fills the places where the snow isn’t. Those spots of snow almost bright, even in the dead of night. She can’t see the canyon beside the road, but she can feel its heavy drop. “Okay,” Livie takes a deep breath, “okay.” She shifts into second gear, trying to remember what she’d gleaned from her quick look over the jeep’s owner’s manual. The engine turns over and over, her tires squealing but going nowhere. She’s kicking up snow, her steering wheel fighting her as the ice rocks her tires.
“Fuck,” she scrapes her hair back with her nails, “fuck, fuck, fuck, FUCK.” The knock on her window nearly sends her through the roof. She shifts in her seat, leaning towards the center console. The man knocks again. Livie hesitates, glancing out the far window. All she can see is snow and rock. She shores herself up, rolls the window down a few inches.
He has playful eyes, nice eyes. And even though Livie knows that’s ridiculous, it makes her roll her window down a little further. The man is bundled, the skin she can see pink and wind-whipped from the cold. Behind him, a battered white truck. Colorado Avalanche Information Center printed in bold lettering on the side. The number underneath it partially obscured by snow. The man pulls his balaclava down under his chin and smiles. “You doing alright?”
Livie manages a laugh. It sounds strange to her own ears and she tries to remember the last time she laughed for real. “Been better.”
The man laughs too, puts his hands on his hips. He seems wholly unbothered by the weather deteriorating all around them and that soothes something inside of her. “Well, I can certainly see that.” He crouches down to take a better look at her tires, pats her car door like the rump of a horse. “Let’s get you out of this ditch, huh?”
“Please.” She says, breathless. He grins. And when he steps a little closer to her car, Livie gets a better look at him. He has a wide, mischievous smile. A ruddy, gingery complexation and when he moves to grab at the radio clipped to his belt, Livie can see tattoos on every inch of his exposed skin, the biggest an intricate Celtic knot tattooed on at the base of his neck.
The radio crackles when he brings it to his mouth. “Jack Rylen, mile marker 182. I got a car on the side of the road. Gonna assist off the pass. Over.” He waits for a moment, waggling his eyebrows at her. Livie leans back in her seat and takes a deep breath, lets herself feel, for a moment, safe. She can’t remember the last time she felt like this. Funny that is should be here, on the side of a mountain.
The radio crackles back to life. “I hear ya, Rylen. Be advised heavy snowpack on the downswing. No salt/sand. Over”
“Gotcha. I’ll take ‘er slow. Over and out.” Rylen pats the side of her door again. “Let’s get off this rock, huh?”
She’d felt an almost eerie calm as they crawled over the pass, Rylen following her the whole way in his truck, but once the two of them pull into the snow-packed parking lot of a gas station, that familiar tightness settles back in her chest. From what she can tell, the rest of the town is a little further down the road. The little Food Mart at the base of the pass just a pit stop. It’s lit up like a stadium, floodlights illuminating the pumps and a row of semi-trucks parked along on end of the plowed lot. A few truckers are mulling about outside, smoking or spitting chew into the drifts. There’s something lonely about this gas station, the shallow ridge above it dotted with quiet pines and that loneliness echoes inside of Livie. She fights the sudden urge to cry, the sudden urge to curl up like a little child and hide. She can’t do that now. There will be time to break down later.
Careful to stay on the plowed patches, Livie pulls her car up beside the closest pump and takes a long, deep breath. Her stomach growls and, maker, she cannot for the life of her remember the last time she had a proper meal. The gas station’s got to have something and she’s about to lean over to rummage for loose change in her purse when Rylen’s truck pulls up beside her. He swings out, slamming the door behind him. When he winds around the truck, she notices that he’s a little lankier than she first thought. Long and wiry. It reminds her, a little, of Howe. She pushes the thought aside, tries not to flinch when he takes a few steps toward her. “So, you headed to a hotel in town then?”
“A friend’s house. I’m, um, taking care of it for the winter.”
Rylen frowns. “You got an address?”
Livie hesitates. She’s not really all that interested in someone besides Dorian knowing where she’s going to be living, but she doesn’t want to turn her phone back on to get a map, afraid of what she’ll find when she does. She looks up toward town and sees nothing but snow. She can’t make that on her own. Livie swallows hard. “It’s, um, it’s up on Rock Ridge Road.”
Rylen whistles. “Steep up there.”
“Is it?”
“Very. ‘Specially on a night like tonight.”
“Shit.” Livie glances back over at the main road, watches as pickup truck limps along toward town. “Is there like…a hotel I could stay in tonight?”
Rylen shakes his head. “Not likely. Got a lotta skiers stranded in town on account of the blizzard. Can’t imagine there’d be a vacancy here tonight.” Livie frowns, crossing her arms over her chest. She starts to bounce on the balls of her feet, heart suddenly pounding. She looks back at her jeep. Could she sleep in there? Hunker down and then try to make it up to the house in the daylight. She feels cold just thinking about it. “Hey.” Livie blinks up to look at him. Rylen clears his throat, gesturing vaguely toward the road, “why don’t I follow you up. You get stuck I’ll drive you back down and we can figure something out.”
Livie chews her lip, shaking her head. “You’ve got a busy night. I couldn’t ask you to do that.”
Rylen shrugs. “Eh, not really. Got word few minutes ago they’re closing the pass again. My night’s pretty much done.”
Livie worries her jaw, holding herself tightly. It is bitterly cold, a sharp wind coming in off the pass. She tries not to be terrified, tries hard to be rational. This guy is nice, sure, but…but…another cold wind howls down the road. Livie’s fingers have gone numb. “Thanks. I really appreciate it.”
She’s still shaking when she pulls up into the driveway. The drive had been so steep that as she gets out of her car, snow crunching under her boots, she wonders if she’ll ever be able to get down again. The caretaker, at least, plowed the road before she got there, but more than once she’d been sure that her little jeep was going to start rolling backward, would pitch over the steep drive down into the tree-lined gulch. It had only been the steady headlights of Rylen’s truck behind her that kept her from descending back into total panic.
That panic resurfaces as she shuts the door to her jeep. The house is tucked up against a rock face, flanked on two sides by thick pines. A Frank Lloyd Wright looking house, all sharp angles and tall windows. She’s not a bit surprised that Dorian’s parents own it. A sleek ski chalet, right out of the 1980s. It looks nice. And lonely. Livie shivers in the driveway then turns back to the jeep. She’d only managed to pack a single bag. A backpack that looks even smaller than she remembers in the backseat. It’s light in her hands
Rylen pulls his truck up and rolls down his window. “You gonna be okay from here?”
Livie swings her bag over her shoulder. “Yeah, yeah thanks”
“Alright,” He pats his steering wheel, “good stuff.” He pauses. “You know about the springs down here?”
She shifts on her feet. “Yeah.” She hesitates. Dorian mentioned the mineral springs once or twice. Long before they’d ever planned something like this. She can barely remember. “Sort of.”
“Go on down there tomorrow. Get yourself warmed up. Tell ‘em Rylen sent ya and they’ll cut the price in half.”
“Okay, sure.” She swallows hard. “Thank you.”
He waves her off. “Don’t mention it. You’ve had a rough night.”
Livie manages a weak laugh. He’s about to roll his window up again when she stops him. “Hey, um, do you know of any place I can get a decent cup of coffee.”
“Hanged Man. Across the river from the springs.”
She pats his half-open window. “Thanks, I’m…well I guess I’m moving here. For a little while at least. So I should…probably know…where stuff is, you know.” She flinches, chastising himself for telling him that, but he doesn’t seem to notice.
“Well, welcome to the Springs.” She smiles, then takes a step back, lets him roll his window back up.
She watches him head back down the drive, watches as his taillights disappear then sets her backpack down on the stone path, protected from the snow by the house’s awning. The path is lit, but it does little to mitigate the heavy darkness. She takes a long, slow breath, then turns to look at the house. The darkness at her back feels suddenly full. She hurries inside.
Livie sets her backpack down on the kitchen table with a heavy thud. Dorian had talked such a big game about how rundown this place was, but Livie likes it. It isn’t rundown, though she can see why it wouldn’t be to Dorian’s taste. It’s clean and well-maintained, just a light layer of dust on the counters and most of the furniture. It’s a little outdated maybe, but has the sort of vintage, seventies ski vibe that feels chic. And different. And different feels safe. So, yeah, she likes it. Likes the dark wood and eclectic tile, the chrome fixtures. She can live here. For a little while at least.
She leans on the kitchen island and just breathes, lets her shoulders slump. There is a silence in the house, the kind that she’d forgotten all about. The ticking of a wall clock, the humming of the central heating. The snow is piling quietly outside on the window sills. No heavy footsteps, no slamming doors. Her body unclenches and then, like it’s forgotten how, seizes up again. Her chest tightens. Livie frowns, fishing for her phone from her pocket. She turns it on, then immediately silences it. It feels like a bomb in her hand. Like the most dangerous thing she’s ever touched. She sets it in the middle of the kitchen island and tries to ignore it. Turns to the stove to test the gas. It comes roaring to life. She shuts it off and turns to the fridge, opening it. Empty, but she can work with that. Maybe in the light of day, the drive will seem less intimidating. She’ll ask around at the springs Rylen mentioned. It can’t be that hard. She had lots of friends before Howe. She had a whole life. Maker, her chest is still so tight. Livie glances over at her phone. Notification after notification pings on the screen Text messages and missed calls and voicemails. She doesn’t need to look to know who they are all from. Livie pads back over to the kitchen island and flips the phone over, backs away from it like it might bite. She sighs again, heavier this time then glances over at her purse. Almost on instinct, she reaches for it, rummaging through all her crumpled receipts and half-used tubes of chapstick until she finds the neatly folded photo at the bottom of it. She smooths it with her fingers. It’s an old photo. From the early eighties, worn by age, the color missing from the lines where she’s folded and unfolded it year after year. He is, in the photo, the same age she is now, and as she tacks it to the fridge with a ski shop magnet, the magnitude of that settles onto her for maybe the first time.
Her sisters look like their mom. Tan skin and sandy hair. Big smiles and blue eyes. Livie has the Cousland button nose but she is, to her core, full up of that Trevelyan darkness. It skipped somehow over her older sisters. She has her father’s brooding eyes, his auburn hair. Her stepfather was a redhead. Ruddy and freckled. She’d stood out like a sore thumb in all their official family portraits. An older pain settles in her chest. She kisses her fingers then presses them to the photo. Her grief feels doubled. She tries not to imagine what her father would think of her now. Of everything that’s happened. Livie turns her back on the photo and watches as the snow continues to fall.
She isn’t surprised to get her voicemail, but when the tone beeps, she finds herself stuttering, unsure what to say. Livie punts. “Evie, hi, um…” She hesitates, drumming her nails on the counter, “I know it’s been a while, but, um, it’s me. You probably knew that.” She clears her throat. “I’m not with Howe anymore and I…just wanted you to know that, so…call me back when you get this and um…” she looks out the narrow window under the cabinets above the sink, the snow has covered it almost completely, “maybe don’t tell mom I called you. Or Orianna. I…want to tell them myself, you know.” She chews her lip. “I love you.” A beat of silence. “I love you a lot.” She ends the call and holds the phone to her chest, takes a shuddering breath. She can feel it vibrating against her palm. Message after message. Call after call. Livie closes her eyes, listens to the clock tick down the hall.