Shiver

Chapter Four: The Someone

Author's Note
Shark by Oh Wonder really kinda sets the romantic tone in this book- if we ever get to it cx.

The coffee had grown cold in the freckled, trembling hands of the middle-aged redhead. Her skin had morphed pallor, the flush in her cheeks gone, aside from the red tip of her nose. It had been rubbed raw from her constant scrubbing of involuntary snot that came with her uncontrollable sobs.

The Brodys' house was well accommodated for natural horrors, but the sudden and almost out of place cave-in she was experiencing seemed too odd, even for the Brodys, who were located ten miles deep into pure Alaska wilderness, much like her own home and family.

The only road back into town, a thin, hardly graveled pathway big enough to fit her pickup truck, had been cut short by the sudden crashing of four healthy pine trees blocking her exit to town, back to her babies. Not even all of the Brody boys, who were growing into strong men with sharp minds, couldn't manage even moving one of the monstrously tall trees farther than a step's width.

"Misses Maverick?" The second eldest of the Brody boys silently walked towards her, he kicks his abused boots off before his journey, leaning up against the doorframe of his kitchen.

She sobered at the shoes, not even unlaced and the snow already melting on their wooden floors. It was a sure sign the boys were done for today, hopeless even though it was hardly two in the afternoon. It was pragmatic, the temperatures were bound to drop even further as the day passed on.

"Yes, Salix?" She asks, her hands tightening around her cold mug of coffee, the one Salix's mother, Sofia, had brought as a way to soothe the hysterical mother. To any parent, knowing your children would be forced to supply themselves in the last frontier would be incredibly nerve wracking, but she seemed to have gone to the next level with pure unadulterated fear.

"Ma'am," he begins; he takes a seat to the stool next to hers, tucking back his own long, dark hair as he stared her directly in the eyes. He was sincere, she respected that, especially considering the wild hysterics she was in. "We aren't going to be able to move the trees today," Salix finished while he tugged off his thick, leather work gloves.

Rowena brought her fingers to scrape over her face, as if the touch of her own skin would wake her up out of this nightmare.

"Thank you, Sal, for trying," she replied with a wavering voice.

On shaking legs, she stood from the stool and placed her coffee cup into the sink. Without addressing the boy, she slipped out of the kitchen to the laundry room, where her heavy jacket, meant for weather like this, hung next to the rest of the Brody boys' mixed and matched assortments of winter clothing. The mother tugged on her own worn wool socks onto her feet, immediately, her boots followed with trembling hands attempting to lace up and knot the damn things.

The plan, as of now, was to simply suck it up and trample through ten miles of terrain to get to her babies.

Her truck had necessary survival kits, blankets and dried food in the sundry of assortments, beneath her passenger seat, a loaded rifle and a black Glock that fitted perfectly between her palms.

She packed her supplies from the bed of her truck, her traveling backpack loaded to maximum capacity before she was halfway finished.

"Misses Maverick!" Salix's voice carried over from the front porch to her parked truck. His dark skin poked out of his rolled up plaid shirt, his crossed forearms were crawling with goosebumps and veins. "What are you doing? We're about to serve dinner, stay for the night- we'll figure this out by the end of the week!"

"I don't have a week, Sal!" She shouted back to him sternly- and she didn't. Just being here, away from her Rowan and Rory had her stomach reeling with angst, when that... when that thing was in their home, practically taking her twins captive.