“Shhh.” A slender finger presses my lips. “Quiet, Alena.”
My name, in a feminine Russian accent, sings of its origin. It’s beautiful. It’s…
“Sasha?” I whisper, trying to focus in the darkness, to move on what feels like a mattress. But, shit, I twist. My wrists are bound in front of me.
“Yes. Shhh. Please.” She kneels by my right side.
I glance left, and the light illuminating her nude skin is streaming in from the moon outside a window. An RV window. The words EMERGENCY EXIT clear and our hope.
She sees my excitement and whispers, “No escape.”
I turn, looking up at her. “Where is he? Sheremetev?”
With her finger to her lips, she whispers with a nod over her shoulder. “Vodka. Sleep. Shhh.”
“Can you…” I whisper too quietly, I fear. “Can you understand me? English?”
“Little,” she whispers back.
A little is all we need.
Using my strength, I pull myself up, sitting as my brain dive-bombs with whatever the hell Sheremetev drugged me with.
The last I remember, we had a crash victim strapped to a backboard, carrying her up the steep riverbank, bodies jostling, orders barked over the rescue chopper’s blades. It was controlled chaos as I felt someone bump into me, then a sting, before I was suddenly dizzy, and the EMT’s face was a blur, leading me to… Where?
Where was I taken?
Where are we?
Oh my god, Loch.
I know he’s searching for us. Dad. Axel. All the kings and queens. Every bone in my body knows they will break a million to find us. But it doesn’t help if we’re a hundred miles away in the middle of nowhere.
And there’s a drunk predator outside a thin door with God only knows what sadistic plans for us.
“Sasha.” I point to the window. “Where?”
She shakes her head, her long, dark waves swaying. “Mountain.”
I kneel, demanding my eyes to focus, peering out of the window, and thanking Fate for the full moonlight. It glows over the white, peeling bark of a rare, mountain paper birch tree, feet away.
Like I don’t know my forestandmy trees. Those grow only at high elevations, usually around rocky formations, mostly in Pisgah.
We didn’t go far.
“Escape,” I tell her as I glance down at the zip ties on my wrist.
Amateur.I smile. Dad taught me how to bust out of these years ago.
Using my teeth, I move the lock to the middle of my hands before I raise them high, and pull hard, yanking them down over my hips, snapping the plastic free.
Sasha’s eyes go wide, impressed.
I scan her body. The only thing she’s wearing is my mom’s bracelet gleaming on her wrist like a good omen. Sasha’s not bound, and I’m still in my uniform.
Snapping my shirt off, I hand it to her. One layer is better than none in the winter. “Dress,” I whisper as I turn to study the window.
These emergency ones at the back of campers, notoriously, ironically, get stuck. Not what you need in a fire, but if you kick it hard enough, it’s designed for escape.
