"Reznik," he murmurs. "Blyat'.I'm sending men now. They'll be in Pike Hollow by nightfall."
"Nightfall?" I squeak out. The engines are louder now. "We don't have until nightfall."
"Then you need to get out of those woods and into town. Find people and stay near them. Reznik won't move on a crowd?—"
A rifle shot cracks through the trees, startling me so bad that I drop the phone. It lands in the snow. I scramble for it, get it back to my ear. "They're shooting. I have to go. I have to find him?—"
"Do not go toward the gunfire, Caroline. Stay where?—"
I end the call. I shove the phone in my pocket and I run.
I know it's stupid. Afon told me to stay down. But there's a man out there who jumped in front of bullets for me, who said I was made for him and only him, and I am not going to crouch behind a duffel bag while somebody shoots at him.
I crash through the snow toward the sound, branches whipping at my face. The trees thin. I come out at the top of a small rise and there he is, thirty yards off, down behind a fallen log, the Remington against his shoulder.
He turns his head. He sees me.
Our eyes lock.
His mouth opens. He's about to scream at me to get down, get back, get away?—
And then the world explodes.
They come out of the trees on three sides. I don't even understand how. From nowhere, there are suddenly men everywhere, four of them, five, ten dark shapes against the snow with guns up. They were waiting. The snowmobiles were never the real threat. The snowmobiles were the noise that pulled us out of hiding so the rest of them could close the net.
The first shot misses me by a foot. I feel it more than hear it, a hard punch of air past my cheek.
"DOWN!" Afon roars.
I drop. I hit the snow hard and the cold shock of it spears through me, snatching my breath away.
Afon pivots. He's fast in a way I've never seen, not even in the bunkhouse. The Remington barks once and a man on the left goes down. He racks it and fires again and a second man spins and folds. He's moving the whole time, never still, putting the fallen log between himself and the others, drawing their fire away from me.
It works. They're all looking at him now.
A man comes around the far side of the log. Afon doesn't see him. He's blind on that side, the wounded side, his attention riveted on the two shooters to his front. The man raises a pistol, lines it up on the back of Afon's head, and I open my mouth to scream a warning that won't come fast enough?—
Wolf hits the man at a dead run.
He comes out of nowhere, a hundred and twenty pounds of black and tan, and he takes the man down by the arm, jaws clamped, his whole body twisting to drag the shooter off his feet. The pistol fires wild into the trees. The man screams and beats at Wolf's head, but Wolf doesn't let go. He hauls and shakes and pulls the man down into the snow, away from Afon's blind side.
The second shooter turns.
I see it happen slow, like the world dropped into syrup. The man swings his rifle off Afon. He points it at Wolf. The Rottweiler has the first man down in the snow, jaws locked, shaking him senseless. He doesn't see it coming.
"NO!" I scream.
The shot cracks.
Wolf yelps. It's a sound I've never heard him make. He lets go of the man's arm and stumbles sideways in the snow. Red blooms across his shoulder, dark against the black fur.
Then he tumbles down.
"Wolf!"
Hearing me scream, Afon spins around at the sound and puts the second shooter down with one round through the chest.
Afon doesn't stop there. He moves through the rest of them fast. One shot, then another. A man tries to run and Afon drops him before he makes the trees. Then it's quiet, except for the wind and Wolf's labored breathing.
