The voices start within minutes, echoing through the trees with a coordination that sends ice through my veins. Not shouting. Not the chaotic noise of amateurs crashing through wilderness. These men call to each other with calm precision, reporting positions and directions like they've done this before. Like they're good at it.
"North ridge, moving fast."
"Got tracks, fresh."
"She's heading for the river corridor."
They're hunting me the way wolves hunt elk. Driving me toward terrain that will slow me down, box me in, leave me nowhere to run when they close the distance. The military precision I saw in the footage is here too, professional and terrifying in its efficiency.
I angle away from the river corridor, pushing through a dense thicket of alder that tears at my jacket and catches on the pack straps. Thorns rake across my cheek, drawing blood that I taste when it reaches my lips. Copper and salt and fear. My breath comes in ragged gasps, too loud in my own ears, broadcasting my location to anyone close enough to hear.
A branch snaps somewhere to my left. Close. Too close.
I freeze behind a thick spruce trunk, pressing my back against rough bark, trying to quiet my breathing even as my lungs scream for air. Through the trees I catch movement. A man in tactical gear, rifle held ready, moving with the kind of careful deliberation that speaks of training and experience. He's scanning the forest floor, reading signs I didn't know I was leaving.
He stops less than twenty yards away. Listening.
My heart hammers so hard I'm certain he can hear it. The SD card in my pocket feels like it weighs a thousand pounds, evidence that could save those women or get me killed. The man's head turns slowly, methodically covering every angle, andfor one horrible moment his gaze sweeps right past my hiding place.
I don't breathe. Don't move. Don't exist.
He keys his radio. "Lost the trail at the thicket. She doubled back or went to ground."
"Keep moving. She can't have gone far."
The response crackles through, cold and certain, and the man moves on. East, away from me. But there are others. I heard at least four distinct voices, maybe more. They're spreading out, creating a net that will tighten until there's nowhere left to run.
I give him thirty seconds, counting heartbeats because my hands are shaking too badly to check my watch. Then I move again, quieter now, trying to place my feet carefully despite the terror screaming at me to run flat out. The forest opens into a rocky slope, loose scree and granite outcrops that make for treacherous footing but harder tracking. I take it, boots sliding on loose stone, using my hands to steady myself when the angle gets too steep.
Pain shoots through my ankle when it rolls on unstable ground, sharp enough to make me gasp. Not broken. Not sprained. Just tweaked enough to make every step after that one pulse with warning. I ignore it. Push through it. Because stopping means dying and I'm not ready to die for seeing something I was never meant to see.
I've spent years studying how predators hunt. The coordination. The strategy. The inevitable conclusion when prey makes a wrong turn or tires too soon. Now I'm learning what the elk feels when wolves close in. What the rabbit knows when the hawk's shadow crosses the ground. The knowledge is visceral and immediate and utterly useless for changing the outcome.
My foot catches on a hidden root concealed beneath dead leaves and I go down hard, hands and knees slamming into unforgiving earth. The impact drives air from my lungs andsends bright sparks of pain through my kneecaps. For a moment I just kneel there, gasping, tasting blood from where I bit my tongue on impact. My palms are scraped raw, embedded with dirt and small stones. Everything hurts. Everything screams at me to stop, to rest, to give up because this is impossible.
But I hear them behind me. Closer than before. Converging.
I force myself up. Blood wells from my scraped palms but I barely register it, too focused on the sounds of pursuit. Boots on stone. Radio chatter. The mechanical efficiency of trained men working together to bring down prey that's already wounded and slowing.
I burst through the treeline into an unexpected clearing and my breath catches. An airstrip materializes like salvation, crude but functional, carved from wilderness by someone who needed a place to land where official eyes wouldn't follow. A small plane sits at the far end, single engine already running, propellers spinning in preparation for takeoff.
Hope flares in my chest, desperate and blinding. Someone is here. Someone with a plane. Someone who can get me out, get the evidence out, get help for those women whose terror is burned into my memory. I'm running toward it before logic can intervene, before I can question why there's a plane here at all or who might be piloting it. The questions don't matter. Only escape.
My injured ankle screams with every stride, threatening to buckle, but I push through it. The pack bounces violently against my shoulders. Blood from my scraped palms smears the straps where I grip them for stability. Everything hurts but none of it matters because that plane is my only chance and it's already moving.
The man in the cockpit turns at my approach, and even from this distance I can see how he assesses me. Dark hair cut military-short, sharp features that might be handsome if theyheld any warmth at all, eyes that scan the treeline behind me with professional detachment. He doesn't wave. Doesn't call out. Doesn't show any sign of welcome or concern. Doesn't slow the plane's taxi toward takeoff position.
He sees me and dismisses me in the same glance.
"Wait!" My voice cracks, desperation stripping away any pretense of composure. "Please, wait!"
The plane doesn't slow. It accelerates, wheels bumping over uneven ground as it angles toward the runway. He's leaving. Actually leaving. I've gone from hunted to abandoned in heartbeats, and the unfairness of it mingles with terror to create a fury that drowns out exhaustion.
I push harder, legs screaming protest, lungs raw with cold air and exertion. Behind me, voices erupt from the treeline, shouts of discovery and pursuit. They've found me. They've seen me. And they're not giving up.
The door is right there, metal gleaming in morning light, close enough to touch if I can just reach it. My fingers find the handle as the first shot cracks through the air, loud enough to make my ears ring and my body flinch instinctively. Another shot follows immediately, close enough that I feel the air displacement as the bullet passes. Instinct makes me duck but I don't let go of the handle, can't let go, because this is my only chance and I'm not dying here in the dirt with evidence in my pocket and those women's faces burned into my memory.
His eyes meet mine through the cockpit window. Ice-blue and flat. Not warm. Not welcoming. Assessing me like a problem he doesn't want, a complication that will cost him more than he's willing to pay. For a frozen moment I think he'll shake me off, let me fall away as the plane gains speed, leave me to whatever fate waits in the hands of the men with guns. I've seen that calculation before in predators deciding whether prey is worth the effort of the kill.
