I swear to God, the moose appears out of thin air.
One second, I’m minding my own business, driving up a winding road through a frosty, glittery pine forest. It’s my first day in Lapland, and I arrived at my Airbnb a few hours before my check-in time, so I decided to explore the area. It’s a beautiful afternoon; the roads are clear and empty, the mountains are towering around me, and the snow is falling in big flakes, fluttering peacefully down from the sky.
And then I turn a corner, and come face to face with a fucking enormous moose.
It’s huge, twice as tall as my car, with long, branching antlers that look sharp enough to spear me. Its body is blocking the whole road. There’s no way around it, so I smack my horn to scare it out of the way.
Which is a bad move.
As the noise of my horn blares out into the forest, the moose jumps, spins almost a full circle, and charges right at my car.
Swearing, I yank the steering wheel to the side and slam into reverse, sending the car spinning off the road and into the copse of trees. For a second, everything feels out of control as my tyres skid across the snow. I squeeze my eyes shut, bracing for impact—
And then a shockwave rocks through me. I hear the sound of breaking glass, and feel freezing air against my skin as my back windows shatter inwards. My seatbelt locks and cuts into me as I’m slammed forward. Before I can go flying through the windshield, the airbag explodes in my face, shoving my head back. My skull cracks against my seat. Pain rips up the back of my neck, and I scream as the car spins to a stop, creaking and groaning.
For a few seconds, I sit there, panting. Adrenaline is rushing through me in waves. My hands are still clenched on the steering wheel, my knuckles bleached white. Everything is eerily quiet. I can hear trees rustling outside, and the tiny pittering of thick snowflakes falling and melting against my windshield.
I try to move, but I’m pinned in place by the airbag. It hisses, deflating slowly in front of my face.
Closing my eyes, I take stock. I don’t feel wet anywhere, so I don’t think I’m bleeding, and nothing hurts enough to be broken. My neck burns as I try to turn my head, but hopefully, that’s just muscle strain. I exhale slowly, feeling tears prick at the back of my eyes.
Not to be dramatic, but this has definitely been the worst week of my life.
Just seven days ago, I was in a high school art classroom, happily teaching seventeen-year-olds about charcoal smudging techniques. I went to the pub after work, and by the time I got home, there were news trucks outside of my house, and none of my friends would answer my calls. The school’s head teacher had fired me via email, and my answering machine was full of messages from journalists. Someone had spray-painted WHORE onto my front door.
One email. That’s all it took, for my scammy, slimy little ex-boyfriend to tear my life apart.
I expected the drama to blow over quickly, but it didn’t. Over the next few days, the harassment got worse and worse, with more reporters banging on my door and angry neighbours shoving nasty letters through my letterbox. Last night, I finally broke. I had to get away. Sweden seemed like a good place to lie low for a bit. I’ve wanted to see the Northern Lights for years. I figured if I went far, far north, all the way up to Lapland, there’d be no chance that anyone would find me. And I’d be safe.
Obviously, I forgot to include wild moose in my calculations.
Dimly, I register the sound of tyres on gravel, and my heart jumps as I realise a car has pulled up in the road behind me. Thank God. There’s the slam of car doors, and then footsteps run towards me. Two male voices are shouting, but I don’t understand what they’re saying. I see a dark shape outside my window, and then the driver’s seat door cracks open. A man leans inside my car, scanning the mess. He says something in urgent-sounding Swedish, but I’m still so dazed by the crash, I just blink at him.
This guy looks like some kind of Nordic God. A gruff, grizzled face, a blonde beard, and ice-blue eyes. When I just keep staring, he reaches into the car, cupping my cheek with a gloved hand, and repeats his question slower. His thumb brushes lightly over my cheekbone.
I finally get my mouth to work. “I—I’m sorry, do you speak English?” He cocks a blonde eyebrow. There’s a little pfft sound as the airbag deflates completely, hanging from the steering wheel like an empty plastic bag. I let go of the wheel, dropping my hands to my sides. My head is swimming. I try to remember the handful of phrases I memorised from my guidebook this morning. “Uh. P-pratar du engelska? Sorry, I—I don’t understand what you’re saying.”
Thor turns to someone behind him. “She’s a tourist,” he says in English, his words dripping with utter disgust.
“Oh, in that case, we may as well just leave her to die then,” a low voice drawls back. I fumble at the seat belt buckle, but my hands are too numb to click it open, slipping over the plastic. Thor reaches down and presses the button with one thumb. I shudder as the seatbelt slithers up my body, snapping back into its socket.
That was all that kept me alive. A strip of polyester. Without it, I’d probably be dead right now.
Shit.
Thor narrows his eyes at me. “You drive like a fucking idiot,” he growls out. “And your Swedish accent is the worst I’ve heard in my Goddamn life.”
I sputter.
“Oh, move out of the way,” the second guy mutters, and Thor gets shoved aside. “If she’s dying, she may as well look at something pretty before she goes, instead of your ugly face.” My eyes widen as a new head pops through the car door. He’s just as hot as the first guy—all sharply-cut cheekbones and full, pouty lips. His eyes are a very light green, and his hair is a bright coppery-brown colour, falling in tousled curls over his forehead. He gives me a crooked grin, and a dimple peeps out from one cheek. My face heats.
I’m not sure what’s wrong with me. I don’t normally just blatantly check out dudes. Perhaps I’m actually dying in the snow, and my brain is just providing me a soothing hallucination of beautiful men as I slowly bleed out. That would be nice.
“I—I’m sorry,” I say stupidly, because it’s the only thing I can think to say.
“Aw, don’t be sorry, honey,” he says cheerfully, running his eyes over me. He has the tiniest trace of an accent, a gentle lilt that gives his words a pretty, sing-songy sound. “Are you injured? Does your back hurt?”
“I—” I roll my shoulders, and pain shoots up my neck again. “Not my back.”
“Good.” He reaches in and offers me a gloved hand. I take it, letting him gently tug me out of my wrecked car. “I don’t like your chances of getting an ambulance up here right now.” He pulls me out onto the road. Cold air stings my face as snowflakes flutter down, landing on my coat. I stumble as my feet hit thick snow, and he slides his other arm around my waist, keeping me upright. “You’re okay,” he says softly. “You’re okay. Unlike the poor tree you just mowed down.”
Bracing myself, I look around at the devastation I’ve caused. I’m half-expecting to see a giant carcass bleeding out into the snow, but judging by the line of hoof prints leading into the forest, I just missed the moose. Good for him.
Instead, I rear-ended into a fucking huge pine tree.
“Holy shit,” I breathe, taking in my car. It’s not much—a second-hand, orange hunk of metal with a chipped paint job—but I’ve had it since I was a teenager. I saved up waitressing paychecks for years to buy this car. And now it’s so crumpled and cracked, it barely looks like a car at all. “Oh God. There was a moose—”
“I saw it,” Thor grunts. “Eli saw it. The people back in the village bloody saw it. Apparently, the only person who didn’t see it was you.” I look up at him. He’s got his arms crossed and his jaw clenched as he looks flatly back at me. “How exactly did you miss an animal that was two metres tall? You drive like a fucking idiot. You could’ve killed it.”
My mouth falls open. “I could’ve killed it? It could’ve killed me!”
He shrugs, like my death wouldn’t be such a bad thing.
The redhead shoots him a look, then turns back to me. “Don’t mind him, he gets all grumbly when his animals get hurt. What’s your name, honey?”
I hesitate as my mind races. “Um. Uh. It’s… Daisy,” I settle on. I’m a terrible liar, and judging by Thor’s quirked eyebrow, he thinks so, too, but the other man just smiles, offering me his hand.
“Daisy. That’s pretty. I’m Eli,” he says, giving my hand a firm shake. “And the big bear currently glaring at you over my shoulder is Cole. Sorry about him, he has severe behavioural issues.”
Thor—Cole—grumbles something under his breath, patting the crumpled-in trunk. “Hope you didn’t have anything important back here.”
My eyes widen. I brought canvasses and all my paints with me, figuring that if I kept on painting commissions, I could hide up here for months. If anybody ever wants to hire me again.
Maybe people don’t want a whore painting their family portraits.
Crap, crap, crap.
I run over and yank the lid of the boot up, staring in horror at all my broken equipment. All of my canvases are completely ruined, the frames splintered and the fabric ripped. Most of the paint looks fine, although one tube of cadmium red has exploded, spattering all of my stuff with dripping, vibrant crimson. It looks like a crime scene.
Eli comes to stand behind me, taking in the carnage. “Shit,” he says.
I reach out to touch my suitcase, and my fingers come back red. The reality of my situation dawns on me. I’m stranded in a foreign country, with no car, no way of making money, and no fucking clue where I am. I glance up at the sky. In the last couple of minutes, the snow has gotten even heavier, and the clouds are darkening ominously.
“Shit,” I echo.
