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Then I thought of the other women at the mansion. The nine others going to Russia with Ralavich plus however many were there for the other men to “enjoy.” All the other women in call centers and warehouses who’d get into a black Mercedes on the promise of a better job and awaken to marble floors and chandeliers and a pack of hungry men who were too powerful to stop. If I got to Canada, I might be able to help them. But only if I escaped.
The sights steadied. He was so close, now, I could see the thread pattern on his camouflage coveralls. My finger found the trigger. I took a deep breath—
The attorney flew sideways through the air as if he’d been hit by a truck. Except it wasn’t a truck that had hit him. Cal had charged in from the side and slammed into him, taking him right off his feet. They crashed to the ground together, the attorney general’s rifle clattering to the ground. My whole body wilted in relief.
That’s when the attorney general pulled out the knife.
He was much smaller than Cal and nowhere near as strong, but they’d rolled so that the attorney general was on top and Cal had to use both hands to force the blade away. And Cal’s rifle was still on his back, trapped awkwardly beneath him. I brought my rifle up again. But they were rolling and twisting around. What if I shot the wrong one? I cursed, lowered the rifle, and ran towards them.
Any other time, the attorney general wouldn’t have stood a chance. But Cal was panting and heaving for breath: he must have run here, giving it everything he had. And the wound in his shoulder had weakened that arm. Meanwhile, the attorney general had the extra strength of a man fighting for his life. He was trying to force the knife down to Cal’s face and the blade was twitching and shaking as Cal’s strength failed—
I swung my rifle around and hit the attorney general in the side of the head with the stock. He slumped sideways, unconscious.
Cal and I looked at each other. I let the rifle fall from my hands. And then I was throwing myself full-length on top of him, my arms wrapped around him and my face buried in his chest. He put his arms around me and it was the best feeling in the world, like cuddling up to the world’s biggest, warmest teddy bear, one who could hug you back.
“I thought I lost you,” he told me, the words rumbling through me from his chest.
I couldn’t speak. I just nodded.
“Thought I was keeping you safe,” he said, crushing me to him. “I’m sorry.”
I nodded again. “Is it over?” I said into his chest.
He gently pushed me back so that he could look into my eyes. “Yeah,” he said firmly. “I got the other two. That’s everybody who was close to us. The others are way back. We can slip away, if we go now.”
He helped me to my feet and passed me my rifle. Then he took my hand and as soon as his fingers wrapped around mine, I knew everything was going to be alright. He looked around, getting his bearings, and then we were moving, leaving the river behind and disappearing into the vastness of the landscape. Now we were together, the woods didn’t feel scary. They felt like our territory, somewhere we could lose the outsiders.
We went at a fast walk for over three hours. The hunters knew the rough direction we’d taken but they’d still have to search a wide triangle either side of it and with every step we took, those triangles expanded. In a clearing surrounded by massive pines, Cal finally called a halt. “No way they’ve tracked us all this way,” he told me. “Not those guys. We should rest.”
I nodded gratefully and slumped down on my ass on the ground, and he sat down beside me. We were sitting on a carpet of soft pine needles and the pine trees formed a wall around us: we couldn’t see more than ten feet in any direction. They deadened sound like a theater curtains: it was so quiet, we could hear our breathing and the slow creak of the trees as the wind played with them. All around us, it was dark and still, and high above, a circle of starry sky was framed by the treetops. Despite being outside, it felt private.
I took a breath of cool night air and realized it was the first time I’d really stopped since that morning, when we’d gotten up early to go to Jacques. We’d hiked to the river, then the raft and the ambush and being taken off by Alik and Cal rescuing me and then racing back to the cabin, and then I’d barely had time to patch up Cal’s wounds before Ralavich had arrived and we’d had to run for our lives. I took another breath, slower this time, and felt my stomach growl. Breakfast was a long, long time ago and I’d only had an energy bar since. I thought about digging in my backpack and finding another one and splitting it with Cal, but that required effort, and suddenly...I sighed and let myself slump sideways into the comforting solidness of his shoulder. As the adrenaline wore off, the exhaustion was hitting me, turning my limbs to lead. I wasn’t sleepy, but I didn’t want to move for a while.
