pdated and complete version, there's more scenes added at the bottom.

“We’ll be going into town soon.”

Leyla perked up from her position on the couch, the book she had been grazing with unfocused eyes crumpled in her grip. Her head swivelled sideways, staring wide-eyed at Ezekiel’s back.

“Really?”

He gave a short nod.

“I’ll be joining as well?”

The knife he wielded continued its arcing path over the piece of wood – her new crutch, a version which required her to do more of the work now that the plaque had been removed from her foot.

“You will.”

Leyla opened her mouth then shut it. She turned towards the window and stared at the forest that marked the horizon in a perpetual flow. Her lips slowly parted in awe as images of a town began to form in her minds eye.

She could almost see it.

The slanted roof tops and chimneys with strands of smoke rising to the sky.

The silhouettes of people walking from one shop to the next holding baskets loaded to the brim with breads and meats and food. The children ran and stumbled after each other with bright shards of laughter that fell on her ears like a gift from a dubious source.

Leyla didn’t know it but she was nodding her head now, pleased by the vision, her heart doing a few odd gallops of excitement.

From where he sat by the kitchen table, Ezekiel watched her staring at nothing in particular with that dazed look of awe. Her forearm rested on the back of the couch, chin propped on it.

Sunlight fell in slants across her forearm and cheek, he could see – without straining– the fine pale hairs that stood on end along the curve of her cheek.

Unbidden, his gaze slowly dropped to her neck and lingered there where her artery pulsed visibly.

“I wonder what your town looks like.” She mused, turning away from the view of trees and towards the hunter.

Ezekiel held out the crutch. “Like any other town.”

Leyla rose from her position on the couch and carefully set her foot on the ground. It no longer hurt as bad, the broken bone gently mending itself over the past weeks.

Despite the dexterity of his hands, Ezekiel had not taken his time stitching her leg.

But the emotions were quickly eclipsed with gratitude for the care. And now, days later, she had taken a slight liking to the criss-crossing stitches. How unruly they looked pockmarking her otherwise flawless skin, how jarringly dark they stood out on the paleness.

They gave her a rough edge.

A dangerous edge.

She looked like she had survived something many had not.

“You’ve made it shorter.” Leyla said while taking the crutch from Ezekiel, their fingers brushed and she felt the calloused edge of his. Her eyes flicked in his direction but he was focused on her hand.

“Your muscles should be adjusting by now.” He stepped aside, gesturing for her to walk along the now empty space before her.

Leyla ambled forward, grunting each time her bad foot made contact with the ground. The pain was dull, barely there but present enough for her to hesitate each time she pressed it onto the ground.

She walked back and forth and even paused by the front door to unlock it and step out onto the patio. The air was cooler than inside. She stood a moment breathing it in, conscious of Ezekiel’s eyes on her back.

A shudder marbled out gooseflesh along her arms and she wasn’t sure if it was his attention or the lack of a sweater.

Leyla walked down the front steps and made it a few ways forward, pausing as she glanced over her shoulder at the open door to find the spot where he had stood empty. She turned and began to circle the house slowly, looking at the frame and structure of its build.

Ezekiel had mentioned that he had found it ruined and fixed it over the decades.

Her eyes levelled with the wooden boards and windows and she wondered where the owners were. The house had three rooms. Meaning each had an occupant. Were they humans? Or animals?

Did they have children?

Her breath was growing labored now from the pulsing pain. She paused and leaned on the crutch giving her leg a break.

Town.

The thought came like a breath of warm air in her chest. A silver lining of hope cresting through a bleak horizon.

Ezekiel would be taking her into town very soon.

“I can find the car,” she murmured, a gleam now in her eyes. “There must be something left in there from his place.”

Leyla tried to think of something else that she would find in the town but came up with nothing other than a bubble of excitement, fragile enough to pop. Yet floating before her.

A town. Life. People–

Her smile dropped.

“No, not people, animals.”

But it was something more than the woods and the cabin. Something tangible and visible, and perhaps through it she might glimpse a way forward.

By the time she rounded to the front of the cabin Ezekiel was leaning on the patio with his arms loosely crossed watching her approach.

“When will we go?” She asked, the excitement evident in her voice.

He studied her face, the ruddy flush of her cheeks and said; “Tomorrow at dawn.”

“Dawn?”

“Animals will be straying out after certain hours, if we wish to get your clothes,” his gaze dropped to the oversized clothes she was wearing and draped over her frame like a wilted thing. “And shoes, we might as well do it before they notice a newcomer.”

Leyla was nodding now but unable to fight the downward tug of her lips. She studied the ground then squinted up at him, “how early are we talking?”

“Six.”

“Oh.”

A pause.

“Will all the shops be open?”

“The ones that we need will be.”

Her head bobbed up and down as if to a tune only she could hear. “... will… the car place be open?”

Ezekiel’s face remained impermeable, still as undisturbed water. “Car place?”

“Where my– Bacardi’s car could be.”

There was a lull that settled between them. Leyla was suddenly acutely aware of her heartbeat climbing at a steady pace as the stretch widened between them. Ezekiel’s eyes had not lifted from hers.

He pushed off the deck and slid his hands into his pockets, turning away from her and into the house while speaking.

“Sure.”

When dawn arrived it found Leyla sprawled out on the twin bed with the sheets tangled roughly between her legs and her face turned towards the wall. She lay on her back, the small barrel of her chest rising and falling steadily.

Something touched her shoulder gently.

She grunted and began to move then lay still.

The hand curled into her shoulder and gave a light squeeze.

“Get up.”

“Hng–” Leyla’s face turned towards the source and she squinted through the darkness at his face suddenly leveled with her own. The smell of toothpaste was sharp on his mouth.

“We’re leaving in fifteen.”

Leyla rubbed her eye groggily trying to blink past the film of sleep. “What time is it?”

Ezekiel paused. It was far too dark to make out his facial expression. Suddenly the hand lifted from her shoulder and settled on the nightstand where he turned the clock’s face towards her, its numbers glowing a sinful red.

5:02

He rose, towering over her bed, and turned away. “Your clothes are set in the bathroom.”

She was still flat on her back when he reached the door and turned towards her.

Leyla was dimly aware of his gaze lingering on her drowsy form. Unimpressed.

She made a show of gripping the blanket and lightly tugging it off her leg, the other still tucked in warmth, and lay still hoping that was convincing.

“Leyla.”

“Mmm?”

“Up.”

It took her a minute to fully awaken, and even then the walk to the bathroom was led by the wall which she pressed against while squinting at the obscene artificial light that winked on when she entered.

Ezekiel had set her clothes neatly on the closed toilet seat. Beside it was a toothbrush.

His.

It took her a moment to fully understand that her own was not in the bathroom.

“Ezekiel?” Her head popped out of the bathroom door, hair strewn across as though she had just walked through the eye of a storm.

He paused at the bottom of the banister with boots in hand.

Leyla jerked a thumb into the bathroom, “have you seen my toothbrush?”

“Yes.”

“May I have it?”

“No. Use mine.”

She blinked once.

And again.

“Why?”

He was descending the staircase now as if the conversation had been finalized. “We’re heading into a town full of animals that can scent a human from miles away,” his bottomless eyes lifted to hers from below, “I would rather your scent be concealed until we return.”

Leyla performed her ablutions and changed into his clothes with her eye still keen on the toothbrush. She brushed her hair next, braiding it once and tucking it into the collar of the heavy jacket.

She considered not brushing her teeth. Skipping the duty just until they returned. But then her tongue made an unconscious lap over her teeth, skimming the filmy texture of plaque and last night’s dinner.

With a sigh, she reached for the toothbrush.

Ezekiel was already out of the door by the time she reached the bottom step. The door was wide open and beyond that she could see the sky– a pale blue marred with streaks of grey clouds high up.

It was cooler than the previous day.

She laced her boots and reached for the crutch, ambling out of the house.

The truck was running on idle with the driver door open.

Leyla spotted him just as he exited the shed with a rifle slung over his shoulder and a large brown package secured under his arm.

“Lock the door.” He said, hauling the package onto the back of the truck . She did so with the key and pocketed it.

The truck was a beat down compartment whose engine made noises as if it had weathered the worst and now ran on the hopes that someday it would die. Leyla opened the passenger door and stared at the seats with its ripped and patched materials, the steering wheel and a manual shift at the center between them.

Ezekiel appeared on the other end, a dark red beanie low over his brow.

He held out a hand and gestured for her crutch which she slid towards him then, holding the assist grip beside the door, she lifted herself onto the seat.

It was cold inside the truck.

Something she briefly noticed before the realization of the journey brought on a low thrill through her body. Her knee bounced as she rubbed her palms together, already pressing her face onto the window in anticipation.

“How far is the town?”

“Thirty minutes if the truck makes it.”

“Has that ever happened?” She turned to him, smiling funny and froze at the intentisyt of his stare.

“What?” Leyla asked, already reaching for her face in search of something that might have stood out.

Had she not washed off the toothpaste?

But then he was leaning forward. Across the gear shift in one swift motion that caught her off-guard as his face hovered within proximity. He stopped short of a breadth between them.

Leyla couldn’t cower any further with the door pressed against her back.

She watched him nervously. Saw his nostrils flare a few times wide enough for the dark hairs to be visible.

His hand reached up and she flinched.

“Be still.”

Gently cupping her jaw, he leaned even closer whilst tilting her head to the side. Leyla jumped at the touch of his cold nose nudging along her hairline.

He breathed her in.

Every exhale stirred her hair as he descended along her temple to her ear which he folded forward and sniffed the skin behind there.

His nose finally came to an end at her mouth corner where he lingered, lifting her top lip revealing her blunt canine. He smelled her mouth and made a noise of contentment as he released her.

“You smell like me.” Was all he said already pulling on his seat belt and switching the gears.