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While it’s far from ideal to sleep with a rope binding her wrist to Van’s, Taissa has stopped minding it. If anything, the tether is a comfort—proof that Van is still here, still alive, and still hers.
The attic is dusty and claustrophobic, the air thick with the ghost of decay from the cabin’s previous owner, but none of that matters. It’s theirs, their secret haven away from the others, away from the biting hunger and the ever-present weight of survival.
There’s so much Taissa misses from the world before—hot showers, real food, the feel of clean clothes on her body. But absolutely nothing compares to how much she misses time alone with Van. When they weren’t just bodies fighting against the wilderness, when there was no scavenging, no hunting, no desperate search for something to keep them going. There was just them.
Now, they have this. Only at night, but it’s something.
Tai shifts on their makeshift bed, settling herself over Van, their bodies pressed together beneath the threadbare blankets that barely hold in the warmth. The fire downstairs has long since burned out, and the cold seeps in through the wooden slats, biting at any exposed skin. But Van is warm beneath her, the steady rise and fall of her chest an anchor, a reassurance that Tai clings to more than she’ll ever admit.
Tai reaches up, brushing her fingers along Van’s cheek, tracing the ridges of the scar that cuts across her skin. Her thumb lingers, slow and reverent, and Van’s breath stutters, caught between the past and the present.
“I’m so lucky to have you here,” Tai whispers.
Van’s lips curve into a soft, tired smile, and she squeezes their joined hands beneath the blanket, her grip steady despite everything they’ve been through. “Yeah, well… I don’t think I would’ve made it this far without you.”
The words should be reassuring, they should bring Tai some measure of comfort. But instead, they settle like a stone in her chest, heavy and unshakable. Her throat tightens as memories claw their way to the surface—Van, broken and bloody, firelight flickering against her still body. She nearly died because of Tai’s plan to move south. It was all her fault.
She swallows hard, looking away.
“Hey,” Van’s voice is quiet but firm. “Look at me.”
Tai hesitates, then forces herself to meet Van’s gaze. Even in the dim light, her blue eyes are steady, unwavering, filled with unbreakable fierceness.
“Don’t go there,” Van murmurs.
“How can I not?” Tai’s voice is rough, edged with guilt she’s too tired to keep shoving down. “After I lit that fire, after I saw you like that– I was ready to throw myself on top of you. I wanted us to burn together.”
Van doesn’t flinch, doesn’t look away. Instead, she just tightens her grip on Tai’s hand, grounding her in the here and now.
“We didn’t,” she says, like that simple fact is enough.
Maybe, for her, it is.
For Tai, it never will be.
The silence between them is tangled with unspoken things. But then Van shifts beneath her, nudging her nose against Tai’s in a silent invitation.
Tai exhales, then closes the space between them, pressing her lips to Van’s. The kiss is slow, lingering, filled with a quiet desperation neither of them voice. They have so little left, but this—this is theirs.
Van hums into the kiss, her hands slipping beneath Tai’s shirt, chilled fingertips ghosting over warm skin. Tai shivers, but not from the cold. She deepens the kiss, sighing as Van pulls her closer, their bodies fitting together like they were always meant to.
When they finally break apart, Tai presses one last kiss to the corner of Van’s mouth, then her jaw, then the scar that tells the story of everything they’ve survived.
Van grins up at her, breathless. “If this is how you apologize for nearly getting me killed, I think I could get used to it.”
Tai huffs a laugh, shaking her head. “Shut up.”
Van just laughs, then tugs her back down, sealing their mouths together again. And Tai lets herself fall into it—into Van, into this, into love that still feels whole, even in the middle of their broken world.
The wind howls outside, rattling the cabin’s walls, a ghostly reminder of the wilderness waiting beyond. But in here, wrapped in the warmth of Van’s body, Tai lets herself believe—just for a moment—that they are safe. That the night won’t bring new horrors, that tomorrow won’t be another battle for survival.
Tai’s breath comes slow and measured, but her thoughts churn beneath the surface, relentless. She tightens her grip on Van’s hand, grounding herself in the steady warmth, the quiet reassurance of her presence.
“You should sleep,” Van murmurs against her lips, her voice hushed in the dark. “You’re thinking too loud.”
Tai huffs softly, the sound barely more than a breath. “Can’t help it.”
Van shifts beside her, their foreheads brushing, warm and solid. “Tell me.”
Tai hesitates, swallowing against the knot tightening in her throat. She wants to keep it inside, bury it beneath everything else she refuses to name—but the words are there, pressing at the edges of her ribs, insistent. She exhales sharply. “I keep wondering how much worse it’s going to get. How much more we’re going to lose.”
Van’s fingers tighten around hers, anchoring her. “We haven’t lost each other.”
Tai clenches her jaw, her breath catching. Not yet. The words sit heavily on her tongue, bitter and real. She doesn’t want to say them, but they slip out anyway, hushed and fragile, like speaking them aloud might make them true.
Van pulls back just enough to search her face, concern knitting her brows. “Is that what keeps you up? The thought of losing me?”
Tai doesn’t answer. She doesn’t have to. Van knows, of course she does.
Because the fear has been there from the start—coiled tight in Tai’s chest, in the pit of her stomach, in the way she counts Van’s breaths sometimes just to make sure she’s still there. She was close to death twice in a matter of months. Once because of the crash, and again because of the wolves. The world has taken so much already. It feels greedy to think it might let her keep this. Keep her. Some part of Tai is already bracing for the moment it will all break.
“Tai,” Van’s voice is sugary behind the exhaustion. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Tai shakes her head, the movement slow, weighted. “You can’t promise that.”
“No,” Van doesn’t hesitate, doesn’t try to lie. “But I can promise this.” She lifts their joined hands, pressing a kiss to Tai’s knuckles, the tenderness of it sinking into her skin. “I will fight for us. No matter what.”
Tai swallows hard, something fragile cracking open inside her, a wound she didn’t realize she’d been holding shut.
Van watches her, waiting, then offers a small, crooked smile. “Besides, I’m too stubborn to die. You know that.”
Tai huffs a breathy laugh, but it catches at the edges, raw and uneven. “That’s not funny.”
Van tilts her head, considering. “A little funny.”
Tai sighs, shaking her head, exasperation threading through the exhaustion weighing her down. But before she can look away, Van catches her chin gently between her fingers, guiding her back.
“You’re not the only one afraid, Tai,” Van murmurs, her voice is so tender by now.
Tai stills. It’s rare to hear Van admit that. She’s too good at hiding her fear behind the high walls she has built, hides it by following Lottie’s little cult and her alike ideas.
“I think about it too,” Van continues, her thumb brushing absently over Tai’s jaw. “What happens if we don’t make it. What happens if we do.”
Tai frowns. “If we do?”
Van nods, her expression unreadable for a moment, her eyes shadowed with distant uncertainty. Then, quieter, almost like she’s afraid of the answer, she says, “What if we make it home, and we don’t know how to be ourselves anymore?”
The thought lands like a stone in Tai’s gut.
It’s one thing to fear losing Van to this place, to the cold and the hunger and the endless ache of survival. But this is a different kind of fear, one she hasn’t let herself dwell on. The idea that even if they do survive, they might not come back whole. That they might not come back together.
Tai exhales slowly. “We will,” she says, but the words feel more like a wish than a certainty, a quiet hope she’s afraid to name.
Van searches her face, as if trying to decide whether to believe it. Then, finally, she nods. “Okay.”
Tai lets out a slow breath, reaching up to tuck a loose strand of hair behind Van’s ear. Her fingers linger for a moment, tracing the familiar curve of her jaw. “If we get out of this, together, what’s the first thing you want to do?”
Van doesn’t even hesitate. “A hot shower. And then I’m taking you on a date.”
Tai blinks, caught off guard. A date. The word feels foreign, too soft, too normal for who they have become. “A date?” she echoes, half skeptical, half amused.
Van grins, wide and easy, like it’s the simplest thing in the world. “Yeah. Like a real one. Nothing like that underground queer bar we went to.”
“That place was a dump,” Tai shakes her head, amusement flickering beneath the exhaustion.
“Exactly.”
“Where, then?”
Van hums, tilting her head as if pretending to consider. “Somewhere fancy and pricey, because you’re paying—that’s for sure,” Van stops as they both laugh. “We’ll go to the kind of place where we have to dress up, and I get to see you in something that isn’t covered in dirt and blood.”
Tai snorts. “Not sure I’d know how to do that anymore.”
Van smirks, nudging their shoulders together. “I’ll teach you.”
Tai shakes her head, rolling her eyes, but a fondness grows in her chest. It’s dangerous—this kind of hope, this kind of imagining—but she lets herself hold onto it for just a moment longer.
Van watches her for a beat, gently asking, “What about you?”
Tai exhales, her fingers tracing idle patterns against Van’s wrist as she thinks. There are a million things she could say. A million things she wants. But at the core of it, only one thing truly matters.
“I just want to be somewhere quiet,” she murmurs. “Somewhere safe. Where I don’t have to listen for danger every second.”
Van nods, her grip tightening ever so slightly around Tai’s. “Sounds nice.”
Tai shifts closer, pressing a lingering kiss to Van’s shoulder, feeling the steady rise and fall of her breath. “One day,” she whispers, hoping that by saying it aloud it might come true.
Van sighs, content, her voice a quiet promise against the dark. “One day.”
Outside, the wind howls, rattling the attic walls. The world is still cruel, still waiting to take more from them. But here, pressed close in the fragile quiet, they let themselves be hopeful that rescue will come.
They let themselves believe in each other.
Tai shifts onto her side, exhaustion pulling at her limbs. Van mirrors the movement, adjusting the blankets around them with quiet care. The space between them is almost nonexistent now, the heat of Van’s body pressed close, grounding, the rope still tying them to each other. Then, the softest brush of lips against Tai’s forehead—fleeting, barely there. But it sends a warmth through her that no fire ever could, something deep and aching and terrifying.
“I mean it, you know,” Van murmurs against her skin. “You don’t get to carry all that weight alone.”
Tai huffs, turning her face into the crook of Van’s neck. The scent of her—faint pine, smoke, blood—fills her lungs. “Not much of a choice.”
Van’s fingers find their way to Tai’s back, tracing slow, thoughtful circles. Gentle, when nothing else out here is. “Bullshit.”
Tai pulls back just enough to meet Van’s gaze, frustration flickering beneath the tiredness. “You don’t understand.”
But Van doesn’t waver. “Tai, please,” her voice is soft, but there’s no mistaking the steel beneath it. “I was there too. I know what this place does to us, what it makes us do. But I also know you. And I know you’d rip the whole world apart to keep me safe.”
Tai swallows hard, thinking. I would. I already have.
Van’s smile is small and knowing, like she can hear the admission even if Tai doesn’t say it aloud. “See? So let me do the same for you.”
Tai wants to argue, wants to tell Van that she doesn’t need protecting, that she can’t afford to let herself be taken care of, she can’t let herself be the one who is saved. But then she feels it—the steady press of Van’s wrist against hers, the knot still holding them together, their fingers tangling like a silent promise.
The attic falls quiet, save for the wind outside and the steady rhythm of their breaths. Van’s fingers now trail absently along Tai’s wrist, tracing the shape of her pulse, as if grounding herself in the proof that Tai is real.
Tai watches her, something fragile and aching tightening in her chest. The words sit heavy on her tongue, unspoken for too long. She says, barely a whisper, “I love you.”
Van stills. Just for a second. Then she exhales a soft, breathy laugh, like she can’t believe it took Tai this long to say it first. After the bloody I heart you that Van wrote on Tai’s arm, she had been the one to bring it up every time.
“I know,” she murmurs, pressing their foreheads together.
Tai huffs. “Rude.”
Van grins. “I love you too.”
Just like that, the weight in Tai’s chest eases, replaced by something terrifyingly hopeful.
Tai watches as Van drifts off, her breaths evening out, her body finally surrendering to exhaustion. So easily, so trusting.
She should sleep too, needs to, but the impending fear won’t let her. Tai’s eyes stay open, fixed on the ceiling, but all she sees is the dark shape of something looming just beyond reach.
Her other self.
The thing inside her, clawing its way closer, waiting for the moment she loses control.
She swallows hard, fingers twitching against the blankets. How much longer until she takes over me completely? Until I’m nothing but a passenger in my own body?
Van shifts in her sleep, pressing unconsciously closer, as if she knows. As if, even in dreams, she’s trying to tether Tai to herself, to this moment, to something good.
Tai exhales, slow and shaky. She doesn’t wake Van. Doesn’t let herself reach for comfort she isn’t sure she deserves.
Instead, she keeps watch. Because someone has to.