He knelt at her side, leaned down until his mouth was beside her right ear.
“You’re awake,” he breathed. “If you want to live, you need to be silent.”
She wheezed, trying desperately to draw in air.
“You’re too loud. I need yousilent.”
Then you shouldn’t have thrown me down like a burning sack of flourshe wanted to scream at him. But that would probably make her head pound harder.
Worth it.
“Get yourself under control now.” He shifted and she felt something cold and hard press against her jaw below her ear. “Or I shoot you in the head. Your choice.”
She could argue the faulty logic that if he wanted silence, firing something literally nicknamed a boom stick to punish her for wheezing too loud kind of defeated his purpose. But she couldn’t waste what little breath she had trying to cure his stupidity.
After what felt like ages, her chest loosened and she pulled a nice, long breath in through her nose. It cleared her head a little and helped with the nausea. Weisser pulled the gun away and straightened his spine. He still pointed the gun at her, even as he reconned the area.
Under the face paint, he looked worried.
He knows his way around the forest so he’s not worried about that. He wants me completely silent. We’ve stopped moving and are hunkered down in the undergrowth beside a fallen log.
I’d say we’re being followed.
A tiny spark of hope kindled in her heart.
Not followed. Tracked.
Hope roared to life, filling her heart.
By a Ranger. My Ranger.
Weisser had no chance.
“Not yet, not yet, not yet,” Weisser chanted quietly. He wiped sweat from his brow.
She tried to figure out how much time had passed since he’d taken her. Wren knew light, knew how it looked at any given time of day in any season. The trees made judging the lightdifficult, but not impossible. The sun was still up and lighting the highest branches. She estimated twenty minutes, half an hour tops. Carrying her on his back through the forest, Weisser couldn’t be covering too much ground too quickly, but she couldn’t gauge how far they’d gone. It wasn’t her specialty.
Elias, on the other hand, now he would know. He told me he was the best tracker growing up, that only Shane came close to his skill, and Elias only got better in Ranger school.
Despite the hope in her heart, she realized she was trying her best to find all the positives she could to fight off the panic that was telling her she was at the mercy of an unstable man. Who hated her guts. Who had at least one gun on him. Who had nothing to lose.
Panic would get her dead. Wren closed her eyes and concentrated on getting it under control.
Elias will bring his friends. Correction: our friends.
Elias with his tracking. Bear with his brawn. Gabe with his eagle eye. Ben with his tactics, Waylon with his daring. Shane with his?—
Dog. Was that a dog? I think I just heard a dog.
She opened her eyes and braved a look at Weisser’s face to see if he’d heard it, too. His eyes darted, his head swiveled, his breaths picked up the pace.
There’s a dog loose in the woods. Bet I know where it came from.
Weisser turned his head in the direction of the sound, past the fallen log to Wren’s left, and listened.
Weisser smiled. His white teeth glowed against the dark green face paint.
He looked down at her, an evil Cheshire Cat. He realized the gun barrel had drifted during his inattention so he pointed it back at her face.
