The Shuddering

nonstop, and the wind was aggressive. If the weather didn’t let up, there was no way they were going anywhere. She’d rather take her chances waiting for those creatures to break in than walk out into the wilderness with a guarantee of freezing.
    “You know, two years ago, when we planned on coming up here, before that ski accident?” he said, cutting into his slice of cake. “Alex had something going at work and you told Ryan to come up here anyway, just me and him?”
    She nodded toward her plate.
    “I was the one who decided to postpone.”
    Jane glanced up at him, chewing the inside of her lip, not sure whether she was supposed to respond—whether she was supposed to ask why, or if silence was an acceptable response.
    “I didn’t want to come up here if you weren’t here too. Despite everything.”
    She smiled faintly and looked back down.
    “I’m still glad I came,” he said quietly, frowning at his plate. “I know that’s fucked up. It makes me feel shitty for even admitting it, because…” He paused, shaking his head at a thought. April. The baby. “I guess if this is the end…if this is what it took to wind up here with you guys…”
    “Don’t say that. If you hadn’t come, this wouldn’t have happened.”
    “Janey…” He lifted his eyes to meet her gaze. “If I hadn’t come, I just wouldn’t be here when it happened. It would have still happened. But I’d be in Denver calling Ryan’s cell for weeks, and I’d eventually get into my Jeep and drive out to Phoenix, only he wouldn’t be there.”
    Jane slid her plate onto the coffee table and stared down at her hands. Her chest constricted against Sawyer’s words: if this is the end . She wanted to cry, wanted to apologize because suddenly it all felt like her fault. But her thoughts were derailed when Sawyer slid up onto the couch, cutting the distance between them.
    “Janey, listen…” She could smell the chocolate on his breath. “Everything is going to work out. We’re going to be fine.”
    She nodded without looking at him, but he caught her chin in his hand, gently tipped it up so they looked into each other’s eyes.
    “We’re going to be fine,” he repeated. “I promise.”
    But she could see it in his eyes: he didn’t believe it. He was trying to convince her, to keep her calm, to keep her sane, but for Sawyer it would never be okay again.
    His world was already gone.



CHAPTER ELEVEN
    R yan stirred from sleep, and for a moment everything was fine. They were at the cabin, the snow was great, Lauren was fantastic, and he felt good about the future. But every muscle in his body tensed when he heard Oona’s growl beside him. He rolled onto his back, then sat up, only to be presented with Jane and Sawyer sleeping in front of the fire, tangled in each other’s arms, knives strewn across the room, the cold starting to creep in through the windows, eating away the last of the cabin’s heat. Pinching the bridge of his nose, he then let his hand fall from his face, his palm slapping the slick fabric of his snowboarding pants, and crawled toward the coffee table. The scent of baked chocolate roused a hungry rumble from his stomach, and he grabbed the spare fork that lay there, digging into the cake that was left on the covered stand. With a mouth full of chocolate and frosting, he rubbed behind Oona’s ears, his gaze returning to his sister and best friend, unable to help the pang of sadness that flared in his gut. He should have tried harder, should have thrown himself in front of that creature to buy Lauren some more time. She had been incredible, the girl he had been waiting for, for so long, the girl he was convinced didn’t exist at all, and he had let her die—no, he had let her be torn apart .
    Another subdued growl resonated inside Oona’s throat. Ryan froze midchew and blinked through the darkness. She was definitely at attention now, as though seeing something that Ryancouldn’t. Swallowing the chocolate lump in his mouth, he stared through the living room and into the kitchen, his eyes wide.
    The slight squeal of hinges reached his ears as the kitchen door slowly swung inward, and Ryan felt the cold almost immediately. Seeing the wind and snow blow inside proved that he wasn’t imagining things; that door was genuinely open. Oona was staring at it too—her ears slicked back against her head, her snout wrinkling as she prepared to snarl.
    The urge to warn Jane and Sawyer was almost overwhelming,