Act 1: Survival
The tracks appear two weeks after the injured deer.
I'm checking snares near the eastern ridge when I spot them. Boot prints in fresh snow, multiple sets. At least three people, maybe four. The stride length suggests adults, moving with purpose, not wandering.
I crouch down, studying the depth and shape. Recent. Within the last few hours.
Too close. Far too close.I follow the trail for maybe half a kilometre before stopping myself. They're heading east, away from the cabin. Away from us. Following them further would be stupid. I mark the location mentally, head back.
Zoe's at the cabin, working on something by the fire. She looks up when I come in, sees my expression.
"What is it?"
"Tracks. Multiple people. Three, maybe four kilometres from here."
She sets down whatever she was doing. "How recent?"
"Hours. They were heading east, away from us."
"The ones who did the deer?"
"Could be. Could be anyone." I strip off my gloves, flex my fingers. "We need to be more careful. No more ranging far alone. Keep watch."
She nods. No argument, no panic. "We've been lucky so far. Quiet."
"Yeah. Maybe that's changing."
Four weeks later, I find the camp.
I'm further out than I should be, tracking what I thought was deer sign. Woodsmoke. Recent, sharp, the kind that burns your nostrils in cold air. I freeze mid-step. Then I see it through the trees.
A small clearing, evidence of at least five or six people. Makeshift shelters, torn down but visible. And in the centre, a fire pit.
I approach carefully, rifle ready. The camp's abandoned. But the fire pit has embers still glowing, faint heat rising.
They were here this morning. Maybe just hours ago.I circle the perimeter, reading the signs. They stayed here at least a few days. Bones scattered around, animal remains. Scraps of cloth. And markings on the trees. Symbols carved into bark, crude but deliberate. The same pattern I saw on the deer's wounds.
My heart's hammering but my hands are steady. Training kicking in. Assess the threat. Count the numbers. Map the area.
At least six people, possibly more. Armed, probably. Organised enough to have camps, to move with purpose. And they're in our area.
I memorise everything I can, then get out. Don't run, don't make noise. Just move efficiently back toward the cabin.
Zoe's expression darkens as I describe what I found.
"Six people. Maybe more."
"Armed?"
"Didn't see weapons, but I'd bet on it."
She's quiet for a moment, staring into the fire. Then: "We should leave."
The words land like a stone in still water. I feel the ripples before I respond.
"Leave? Go where?"
"Glasgow. There's a settlement. I've heard rumours." She looks at me. "Hugh Gilespie. You know him?"
"The politician?"
"He's organising people. Taking them in. I heard he's fair. Trying to actually help, not just some warlord."
"Rumours. We don't know him. Don't know what his help costs."
"We don't know these people either, and they're carving symbols into deer." She stands. Moves to the window. "Six people, Jamie. Maybe more. And they're close."
"Glasgow's a warzone. Militias tearing each other apart. We'd be walking into that."
"And here we're alone. Two of us against however many of them." She turns from the window. "You keep saying we're defensible. Defensible against what? Two people? Three? What about six? What about ten?"
"We know the terrain. We have supplies. Winter travel's suicide."
"Winter here is suicide. We're just doing it slower."
I don't respond. I'm looking at her standing by the window, arms crossed, and I know she's right. Part of me knows she's right. The part that counted the boot prints and felt the cold settle in my stomach.
Another part of me is looking at the cabin. The fire. The piano. The workbench where I gut rabbits every morning. The chair by the window. The wall I patched last week. The roof that still leaks.
All of it. Built from nothing. Ours.
"Jamie." Her voice is quieter now. "I know what this place means to you. To us. I know how hard we worked to make it work."
-"Then don't ask me to leave it."-I don't say that. Can't. The words won't come out right. They'd sound desperate. Weak. Like I'm clinging to a building instead of making a logical choice.
"Five, maybe ten kilometres through open ground," I say instead. "Freezing temperatures. No shelter between here and the city. If one of us gets hurt, if the weather turns, if we run into anyone else on the road..."
"And if they find us here? If they come while you're out checking snares? While I'm alone?"
That one hits. The image of Zoe alone in the cabin when the door comes down. Zoe without the rifle. Zoe with her hands and her piano and nothing else.
"We'd see them coming. I've mapped every approach. We'd have warning."
"How much warning? Five minutes? Ten? And then what?"
I don't answer. She sees it.
"You can't protect this place, Jamie. Not alone. Not against six people. Not against more." She sits back down. Not angry. Something worse than angry. Tired. Scared. "I'm not saying you're wrong about Glasgow. I'm saying neither option is safe. At least in Glasgow there'd be other people. Numbers. Walls that aren't made of wood."
"Walls we can't control. Authority we didn't choose. Rules someone else makes."
"Rules." She almost laughs. "You think we have rules out here? You make them up as you go. We both do. That's not freedom, that's just surviving."
The word sits between us. Surviving. Not living. She used that word on purpose.
She's right. And I can't say it.I stand. Walk to the window. Look out at the white. The endless, quiet, frozen white.
"Stay vigilant," I say. "Fortify. I'll scout the area, map their movements. If they're just passing through, we wait them out. If they're settling..." I pause. "Then we reassess."
"Reassess." She repeats it like it tastes sour. "That's not a plan. That's waiting to see how bad it gets."
"It's what I have."
The fire crackles. The wind pushes against the walls.
"Alright," she says. Quiet. Defeated, not convinced. "We do it your way. For now."
I nod. She goes back to staring at the fire. I go back to staring at the window.
Neither of us says what we're both thinking. If we'd left a month ago, before the camp, before the tracks, we'd have walked out of here on our own terms. Now we'll leave on someone else's. Or we won't leave at all.
The next six weeks blur together.
Every morning I check the perimeter. Two kilometres out in each direction, rotating pattern so I don't create tracks they can follow. I map everything. Another camp, four kilometres north. Tracks crossing near the loch. Smoke in the distance.
They're not leaving. They're staying.
I start night watches. Two hours on, four hours sleep. Then three hours on, three hours sleep. Zoe tells me I'm not sleeping enough. She's right, but I can't stop.
My training's kicked in and won't switch off. Every approach to the cabin mapped, every sightline noted. I cache supplies in three spots within a kilometre. Work out escape routes. Fallback positions.
Zoe's watching me. That look again, the one she gets when I'm scaring her but she doesn't want to say so.
"Jamie."
I look up from the map I'm sketching. Rough, but accurate. Terrain features, their camp locations, our position.
"You need to sleep."
"I'm sleeping enough."
"You're not." She crouches beside me. "Jamie, you can't keep this up."
"Better burned out than dead."
"Better alive and functional than paranoid and exhausted."
I want to push back. Defend myself.
But she's not wrong about the exhaustion.
"I'll sleep," I say. "After I finish this."
She doesn't believe me. But she doesn't push.
Week seven. The signs stop.
No tracks. No smoke. No evidence they're still in the area.
I range further, checking their old camps. Cold fire pits. No recent activity. Like they vanished.
"Maybe they moved on," Zoe says one evening. She sounds hopeful.
I want to believe her. Want to think we're safe again, that whatever they were doing here is done.
"Maybe."
"You don't sound convinced."
"I'm not." But I don't have evidence. Just a feeling. The same feeling I had when I found the deer. That something's wrong.
Another week passes. Still nothing.
My watch schedule slips. Four hours sleep becomes five, then six. I'm still checking the perimeter daily, but the obsessive edge is dulling. Exhaustion finally winning.
Zoe seems lighter. Not relaxed, we're past that. But less tense. She plays piano again in the evenings. I hadn't realised she'd stopped until she started again.
"We need to restock," I say one morning. "Meat's getting low."
"How far were you thinking?"
"There's good hunting eight, maybe ten kilometres south. Haven't been that way in weeks. Should be untouched."
"That's far."
"Yeah. But it's been quiet. I'll be gone maybe two days. Three at most."
She considers it. I can see her weighing the risk.
"Alright. But you take the rifle, full kit. And if you see anything, anything at all, you come straight back."
"I will."
"Promise me, Jamie."
"I promise."
I leave before dawn two days later. The air's so cold it burns, but the sky's clear. Good hunting weather.
Zoe's still asleep when I go. I leave a note. Simple. Where I'm going, when I'll be back. Don't worry.
The forest feels different this far south. Quieter. Untouched. I find deer sign within the first few hours, fresh tracks heading toward a glen I know.
Two days. Maybe three. We'll be fine. It's been quiet for weeks.I settle in to wait, watching the glen. Patient. Professional.
The rifle's comfortable in my hands. The forest is quiet. Zoe's safe at the cabin.
I don't let myself think about those tracks we saw last month. The carved symbols. The fire smoke on the horizon. We've been careful. We've been watching.