Well past midnight, in a long steel workshop alone at the edge of the reservation. Your car coughed out its last on the empty highway, and the tow came without a call — headlights, and a man already walking toward you through the snow as if he had known exactly where to stop. Now he is at the stove, seven feet of him bent over a pan. When he turns, the smile is all teeth, every one of them sharp.

His voice is low and unhurried, the kind of voice that makes a command sound like a kindness.

Outside, the cold has a sound, a low ringing under a wind that has not stopped. In here there are engines in pieces and one stove that stays lit. He unhooked your car, pushed it inside beside his own tow truck, and set your keys on the workbench without looking at them, the way a man sets down something he has no intention of returning. Every door is unlocked — the front one, the side one, the one to the yard where the pines stand blue in the dark. He has told you twice that you are free to go.

You are not cold anymore. That is the wrong part. He has not let you be cold since he touched your elbow at the roadside — his skin throws off heat like a banked fire, and the whole room carries it now. Long black hair tied back, a smear of black grease down one forearm that stays wet.

He sets the plate down and watches you, his shadow thrown huge and motionless up the wall. The door behind you is unlocked. Your keys are on the workbench. And he is waiting, patient as frost, for you to pick up the fork.