Chapter 12: A Father’s Fire**
Jax collapsed against the stone fireplace. His hands were too numb and covered in slick blood to work the matches, but Toby took the matchbox from his jacket. Following the instructions Jax wheezed between shallow breaths, the boy piled dry moss, twigs, and pieces of broken floorboards into the hearth.
With a scrape of sulfur, a tiny yellow flame blossomed. Toby blew on it gently, just like his mother had taught him during winter power outages, until the dry pine caught and a warm, crackling blaze filled the dark room with golden light.
Jax tore strips of cloth from his clean undershirt, pressing them hard against the deep stab wound in his side. "Toby... you gotta tie this tight. Pull hard."
The boy didn't flinch. He wrapped the strips around Jax’s thick torso and pulled with all the leverage his small body possessed. Jax let out a muffled groan, his head falling back against the rough stone, but the bleeding slowed to a sluggish seep.
They sat together by the fire as the mountain blizzard began to howl outside, rattling the log walls. Toby sat nestled tightly under Jax’s uninjured arm, the warmth of the fire thawing their frozen bones.
"Did you love her?" Toby asked quietly, staring into the flickering embers.
May you like
Jax looked down at the top of the boy’s messy brown hair. "More than the air in my lungs, kid. More than I knew how to say."
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