The storm didn’t hit right away. Aden managed to get into his tent and shed himself of the wet, clinging clothes, but it didn’t much help him get rid of the damage already done. It took a long time to pull himself out of the panic attack. A long time left alone in memories he had been trying to outrun along with the rain. He could still taste the salt and iron on his tongue.

When he finally caught a real breath, the sound of the heavy rain assaulting his tent filtered in slowly, and his muscles melted, aching from their previous tension. It was dark out. His eyes were cloudy, puffy, sore. His hair was still damp. Somehow, despite the comfortable temperature it had been since arriving in Colorado, he was freezing.

Aden unpacked his sweater with shaky hands and put it on, but it didn’t do much to warm him. It felt like the cold was in his bones. Violent shivers assaulted him. He tried to fight through them, but when it felt a little like his fingers were going to fall off, he forced himself out and out of his tent.

He went right for the cabin, as quickly as his stiff limbs would allow. It had to have been past midnight. The campsite was dead. The rain was brutal. He circled around the back of the cabin, to Corey’s window. The light was still on. He moved his hand to knock, but hesitated, pulling back.

He didn’t know how she would react. He didn’t know what she was even thinking. He had left so quickly, it was just now hitting him how his behavior must have looked to her. She had to be upset, or worse, angry. He knocked on the glass anyway, because his hands were shaking and he was alone, and at the moment that felt more terrible than any reaction she could muster.

Movement in the room, and she was pulling the window open, like she had been waiting. Aden mustered the courage to meet her amber gaze and they read concern as a hard line on her forehead. He sighed, relieved.

Corey ushered him inside and closed the window after, shutting out the deafening rain. She gave him a towel for his hair and wrapped a blanket around his shoulders, all without a word. When she was finished, she crawled back into her bed, and Aden followed her lead, laying himself down on the floor where he previously had slept. Corey turned off her lamp and the room was engulfed in darkness.

She let him speak when he was able to find the words. He wasn’t sure how long it took, but he knew it was a while. Her analog clock ticked the seconds away and he used it’s pace to try and slow his thoughts and lungs.

He started with a shaken inhale, and he heard her stop breathing to listen.

“My sister… she was swept away by a wave during a storm. They haven’t found her yet.” He stopped, to fight the pain in his chest, working up his throat. “I couldn’t hold onto her…”

Silence again. Nothing but the hard downpour outside. Then Corey inhaled. “Cassie?” she asked on a breath through the black.

“Yeah,” Aden answered. “Cassie.”