We Hunker Down in the Bathroom
This story contains explicit sexual content, dark themes, violence, and elements suitable for adult readers only.
© 2025 Rae Calder. All rights reserved. Do not copy, repost, or distribute without permission.
The rope around Danica’s wrists wasn’t tight enough to hurt.
That almost made it worse.
Matias knew exactly how much control he needed and no more. Every few steps, he gave the line a short tug. Not enough to trip her, not enough to drag her. Just enough to remind her that the raider behind her had caught her stealing from his cache and hadn’t decided what to do with her yet.
“You’re wasting your time,” she called over her shoulder, forcing her voice steady through the cold. “There’s nothing left worth hauling.”
“Still our cache, scav. You’ve been warned.”
His voice was rough, calm, irritatingly certain. Like the storm gathering over the Ashlands didn’t bother him. Like the dead grass, stripped cars, and cracked road were nothing compared to the trouble she caused him.
Danica looked back at him.
Big mistake.
Rain had darkened his hair and plastered his shirt to the hard lines of his chest. A scar cut across one cheek, pale against wind-burned skin. He looked like every warning she’d ever ignored. Armed, brutal, and too close.
Her pulse jumped and she hated that it did.
The first crack of thunder rolled low across the horizon. Matias’s eyes lifted to the sky, and for the first time since he’d caught her, his expression changed.
Not fear. Calculation.
Ashland storms didn’t just kill the weak. They killed the slow, the stubborn, and anyone stupid enough to think they could outlast it.
They came fast, cold and ruthless, with wind sharp enough to peel skin.
Matias pulled her toward him and caught her arm. Danica dug her heels in. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”
He leaned close enough for his breath to warm her ear.
“Then freeze out here, scav. Or come with me and do what I say.”
He shoved her forward and she stumbled, her boots sliding over the slick concrete.
“Hey—”
“Move.”
The second thunderclap cracked hard enough to swallow her reply. The air changed all at once, charged and metallic, raising the hair along her arms. Tiny sparks snapped across the rusted car frames scattered around them, bright and vicious in the gloom.
The first drop of freezing rain hit her cheek.
Then another.
Then the sky split open and the world vanished behind a white sheet of sleet.
Matias hauled her toward the slanted shape ahead. A motel sign swung crookedly in the wind, half its letters eaten by rust.
The Rest Easy.
Danica gave a breathless laugh that came out closer to a cough. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
He didn’t answer. His hand locked around her arm, hot even through her jacket, and dragged her toward the nearest door still hanging on its hinges. It screamed when he forced it open.
Inside, the room was black, cold, and rotten. Broken glass glittered across the floor. Wallpaper peeled from the walls in long, curling strips. Sleet drove in through a shattered window, already whitening the carpet.
Matias shoved the door shut behind them and braced it with a chair, one hand still wrapped around the rope.
The storm swallowed the room.
Danica stood dripping in the dark, her breath fogging between them. “So what now?” she asked, softer than she meant to. “Watch me freeze to death?”
Matias swept the room with a hard look, checking corners, ceiling, exits. Lightning flashed through the broken window and carved his face out of the dark, scarred, sharp, and completely unreadable.
“We hunker down in the bathroom.”
“Excuse me?”
“It’s the only room without a window.” He pushed past her. “That storm’s going to tear through this place. You want to live, you shut your mouth and listen.”
“I’d rather take my chances.”
He looked back at her, eyes dark. “No, you wouldn’t.”
Before she could argue, he pulled her through the room. She stumbled into the cramped bathroom, nearly slipping on cracked tile. The air smelled like mildew, rust, and old rot. A half-broken tub crouched against one wall, filthy but intact.
Matias kicked debris aside and forced her down into it.
Danica hit her knees hard. “Careful, raider. You keep putting me on my knees and I might start thinking you like me there.”
His jaw tightened, then he crouched in front of her and tied the rope to the rotted faucet. “Keep talking like that and I’ll start thinking you want trouble.”
“I stole from you. Pretty sure that part’s been established.”
He pulled the knot tight and leaned in close enough that she could feel the heat of him through the cold. “You haven’t seen trouble yet.”
Outside, the wind screamed against the motel walls. Inside, the silence sank heavy and cold between them.
Danica tugged once at the rope. The faucet creaked but held.
She exhaled slowly through her nose. The first tremor hit her fingers. She tried to hide it by folding her hands together.
Matias shoved the bathroom door shut, dulling the storm to a muffled roar. In the dark, she heard him moving, the scrape of his boots, the rustle of his pack, the slow, controlled breath of a man who was far too calm in a room this small.
“What are you doing?” she asked, voice tight.
“Calm down, scav.”
A muted click split the dark and orange light flared between them.
Danica blinked against it as Matias set a candle stub on the back of the toilet. The flame guttered, weak and nervous, throwing uneven shadows across cracked tile and stained porcelain. It caught on the hard cut of his jaw, the scar slashed across one cheek, the wet black of his hair clinging to his forehead.
He looked worse in the light.
More real.
More dangerous.
She hated that her eyes stayed on him.
Matias shrugged off his coat and hooked it over what was left of the sink. Water dripped from the hem in steady, hollow beats. His shirt was soaked through, plastered to the wide planes of his chest and the heavy muscle in his arms. Not pretty muscle. Not soft. The kind built from hauling weapons, breaking doors, surviving winters with blood under his nails.
He propped his rifle against the wall, close enough to reach, then crouched beside his pack.
Danica pulled at the rope once. The faucet creaked.
He didn’t even look up.
“Don’t waste your strength.”
“I’ll waste it however I want.”
His mouth twitched, not quite a smile. “That mouth get you into trouble often?”
“Only with men who deserve it.”
That made him look at her.
For a second, the candlelight sat between them, shaking over his face, over the wet fabric clinging to his body, over the rope between her wrists and the faucet.
“I’m curious,” he said. “Why a scav like you keeps risking her life to dip into our caches.”
“Your caches?” She laughed, short and sharp. “You mean the supplies you picked clean from people who couldn’t fight back?”
His expression hardened.
“You’re no fucking saint.” He shook rain from his hair, sending dark drops across the tile. “We steal from them. You steal from us. Then we have to take more to replace what you lifted.” His eyes dragged over her, cold and assessing. “Sounds like you expect raiders to do the dirty work so you can feel better about yourself.”
Danica forced her chin higher, even as another shiver crawled down her spine. “You don’t know anything about me.”
“I know you were hungry enough to steal and stupid enough to get caught.”
“I know you tied up a woman in a bathtub because you’re scared she’ll run.”
His gaze dropped to the rope, then returned to her face.
“If I were scared of you, scav, you’d know.”
Heat licked under her skin despite the cold.
She hated him.
She hated the way he said it, low and steady, like he didn’t need to raise his voice to be believed.
Matias reached into his pack and pulled out a blanket, throwing it over his shoulders.
“You’ll be lucky if my people just throw you in a cage when I bring you back.”
The words should’ve scared her.
They did.
But the cold was worse.
It had started in her fingers and toes, small at first, then deeper. Now it sank its teeth into her bones. Her wet clothes clung to her skin, stealing heat with every breath. She folded her hands to hide the trembling, but the rope gave her away, shaking against the faucet.
Matias noticed and his eyes narrowed, tracking the movement.
“Fuck,” she muttered.
A gust slammed into the motel hard enough to rattle the bathroom door. The candle flame flattened, nearly dying before it struggled upright again. Sleet hissed somewhere beyond the walls, driven through broken glass and rotted wood.
Matias leaned back against the tub, blanket tight around his shoulders. “If you even make it back to camp.”
Danica bared her teeth at him. “You think that rag’s going to save you? You’re soaked too, asshole.”
He opened his mouth.
Another blast of wind hit, colder than the last. The draft knifed through the cracked walls and under the bathroom door. Danica saw it before he could hide it, the hard lock of his shoulders, the brief shudder that moved through him under the blanket.
Her smile came slow.
“Oh,” she said, letting her gaze move over him. “Not so tough now.”
“Shut up.”
“No, really. I thought raiders were made of leather and bad decisions.”
He rubbed one hand over his arm, brisk and annoyed, then stopped like the motion had betrayed him. The candle threw his shadow huge against the wall, but he looked painfully human for half a second.
Cold.
Wet.
Trapped with her.
Danica pulled her knees tighter to her chest. Her teeth clicked before she could stop them.
Matias heard that too.
His jaw worked once, twice, and then he swore under his breath.
“Don’t,” she warned, though she didn’t know what she was warning him against.
His gaze lifted back to hers.
“You’re freezing.”
“So are you.”
“Yeah.” Matias stood, slow and deliberate. “That’s the problem.”
He bent and unfastened his boots, stripping them off with quick, efficient movements. One hit the tile, then the other. His belt followed, the buckle clinking in the cramped dark.
Danica went still.
Every small sound seemed louder in the bathroom, sharpened by the candlelight and the storm outside.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Not dying here.”
