His Rose

Rose.



Jason’s mangled face made it difficult to smile, but if he could have, he would have smiled every time he thought her name. It was a good name, a pretty name. It suited her.



That first day, there had been a lot of revelations. He had learned her name, she had spoken his - it had been a long time since anyone had said his name. She had smiled at him, and he could almost feel her fear of him trickling away. And that first night, when he had made her understand he was not going to leave, she had set up a cot for him in the living room. He had promptly moved it outside, of course. It had been too long since he had slept anywhere but his cellar or outside - he just wasn’t comfortable indoors anymore.



After the first few days, there had been a problem with food. The bad men, Rose had explained, were supposed to deliver her food, but they hadn’t. She had looked so scared then, scared of the bad men, that he had touched her arm, trying to tell her that he was here to protect her. He didn’t know if she understood, but she had smiled at him then. Later, when he came back from hunting, she had run out and hugged him, said she missed him, told him not to leave again. Her smile came back even bigger when she saw the deer he had brought.



And just last week, when he came back from hunting and she wasn’t there to greet him. He had panicked, thinking that perhaps more bad men had come and taken her. His chest had hurt for some reason, and he had crashed through the woods, looking everywhere for her until he heard her voice calling his name. When he’d found her on the dock, he had hugged her close, relieved that he hadn’t lost her. When he buried his masked face in her hair, his chest had hurt again, but this time it was a good hurt.



Rose, he thought again. His good girl. Rose.





-----





Rose watched Jason move around in the trees behind the cabin, thinking. It had been nearly three weeks the incident (that was how she thought of it now - “the incident”) that had led to their meeting. After the first day, she was never scared of him, nor did he give her any reason to be. She could almost feel herself growing more attached to him every day.



Whenever he left, she started to wonder what would happen if other men came while he was gone. She would start to get nervous then - her heart would beat too fast, her breathing would get too shallow, and she couldn’t quite think straight. Only the sight of Jason coming back through the forest would make the fear go away.



She knew he felt the same way about her. Once, while he was gone, she had gone down to the dock to try and keep her mind off the fear, not that it worked. She hadn’t realized he was back until she heard someone crashing through the woods around the cabin. Her fear had spiked, and she had called his name, terrified that it might be someone else.



But it had been Jason, his only visible eye dark with worry when he crashed out of the trees onto the dock. He had grabbed her, practically crushing her to him in a hug. She had buried her face in his jacket, the fear instantly forgotten. She had breathed in his scent - earth and sweat and the slight tang of old blood - and felt safe.



Rose snapped back to the present as Jason came out of the woods, trailing a thin wire cable. She watched as he attached it to one of the short poles he had planted in the ground that morning.



“Jason?” she said curiously, walking over to him. “What are you doing?”



Jason shook his head. He couldn’t explain this to her without words. It would be impossible to tell her about his network of traps all over the forest. The particular cable he was hooking up now was attached to a wire that stretched across the bridge up the road.



He hadn’t been back to his cellar for any length of time since meeting Rose, which meant he couldn’t hear when someone was caught in his traps. It was even more important to him now, because he was supposed to be protecting her. He had thought for a long time how he could hear his traps go off without leaving her. He knew that every time he left it distressed her, and it didn’t make him feel very good either.



So, he had decided to hook a few of his traps up to her cabin. It meant he would be gone once for a long time, hunting out the traps he wanted and connecting them properly. But in the end, it would be better.



Rose watched as he selected a few small bells and pieces of metal from a pile on the ground and attached them to the wire. He tested his creation by pulling gently on the wire, and nodded in satisfaction when the bells and metal jangled.



“Oh!” she exclaimed, suddenly getting it. “It’s like an alarm, isn’t it?”



Jason stood up and nodded.



Rose bit her lip, looking at the three remaining poles around the edge of the clearing.



“You’re going to go set up more.”



It was a statement, not a question. Jason heard the distress in her voice and reached out to brush her cheek with his fingers, knowing it made her feel bad and trying to apologize. He was surprised when Rose grabbed his hand and pressed her cheek into it.



“Hurry back,” she said simply, rubbing her cheek against the rough calluses of his hand.



Jason nodded, pulling his hand reluctantly away from the softness of her skin. She had never done this before, and it made his chest feel warm in a way he wasn’t familiar with. She squeezed his hand once, then let it go. He paused for just a moment, looking at her, then turned and walked into the forest. He would hurry, all the sooner to be rid of this strange tightness in his chest.