As soon as she was gone he pulled the curtains shut and stripped out of his wet shoes and clothes. It was not easy, stiff with frost and clinging to his skin as they were. He realized how exhausted his muscles felt—how generally exhausted he was. When was the last time he slept that he wasn’t drugged or knocked unconscious? He could barely remember. He draped his clothes on the mantel over the electric stove and then stood in front of it for several minutes, wearing just his boxer shorts and slowly warming his body and working his limbs to get the blood flowing fully again.
