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Adam was really trying. Trying to give her something that was almost impossible.
It was cute in a way, really.
Even when she made herself believe it was working, it wasn’t. Sure, maybe she felt that tiny spark for a second, but it was the wrong kind of heat,a shallow spark she hadn't felt since she packed her bags and boarded that plane. The kind that sputtered out the second they crashed into unknown territory.
It was never going to be enough. There was something far stronger buried in her, even if she could never say it out loud.
She might have written it in her journals once, but she stopped doing that the moment she came back. The moment she married Jeff Sadecki.
The golden boy who was never supposed to be hers.
Then again, nothing here really belonged to her, did it? Not the house, not the husband, not the suburban safety. But Shauna was good at adapting. She had adapted to the wilderness, had let herself be entirely consumed by it,even if she never truly believed in whatever entity the others worshipped. She had just needed a reason for why so much was taken from her.
Just like here, in civilization. She forced herself to stay with Jeff so that Jackie’s death would mean something. Jackie died because of her,because of them. Staying was how she made it worth it, even if it meant surrendering every ounce of control she used to hold so tightly out there.
So she adapted to this life, too. A life that belonged to Jackie, not her. She let herself get used to the lack of power. She even forced herself to enjoy it from time to time: the routine, the chores, packing Callie off to school until Callie didn't need her to anymore.
It wasn't all terrible. She had even grown to love Jeff eventually. He was a good husband. A good father. She had trusted him enough to tell him about their first baby,the one that never got to breathe. Never got to cry.
It hadn't even been hard to like Jeff; she’d liked him long before everything went wrong. Maybe if she could just erase Jackie from her memory, everything with him would feel normal. Romantic, even. They had lost their virginity to each other, after all. But there it was again: taking something that wasn't hers.
So if she really loved him now, why cheat? Why blow up her life for a man who crashed his car into hers?
Just to take the wheel back? To claim a shred of control that belonged strictly to her, not to Jeff, and not to Jackie’s shadow?.
Adam was cute, playing at making her feel young. But he didn't know a thing. He read those stupid sensationalist magazines, but he didn't know,nobody knew,what they had actually done out there. The dark, horrific things they had secretly grown to enjoy. Still, he tried. He pulled her out of the dull drone of domesticity for tiny, stolen moments. With him, she could forget Jeff, forget Callie, and sometimes even forget Jackie.
It was a distraction. A golden-retriever boy playing at being a bad influence. But playing rebel was still better than playing house.
Sometimes she allowed herself the sick joke of wondering how bored Jackie would be if she’d lived to see this "dream" life. Jackie would have been miserable. Jackie was boring, just like everyone else Shauna knew.
Except Adam made her feel... un-boring. He offered the illusion of being young and reckless, of holding the reins, of being entirely herself.
And then, in a flash of steel, came the real spark. The one she hadn't felt in twenty years.
The thrill.
It made her blood boil and shiver all at once as she watched it spill from his mouth. She could feel her real, young self roaring back to life. She could feel the heavy, invisible weight of antlers sprouting from her brow, the bite of a sub-zero breeze, the low, terrible sigh of the pine trees. The horrific nature she had missed most of all.
His body hit the floor with a loud, heavy thump.
Shauna let out a breath of pure, unadulterated satisfaction. Her hand trembled as the bloody knife slipped from her fingers.
It was just enough to bring her back. She had always known there was something wrong—not with the forest out there, but inside her own mind.