by Lindy Ryan
Rachel had to spit dirt out of her mouth to talk. “What the fuck do you want from me?”
“Stand up and put your hands in front of you. Now.”
The second man was stocky with short-cropped black hair and hard, beady eyes. Black shirt. Khakis. He looked military, but didn’t smell like a soldier. Trained soldiers didn’t chase someone down, didn’t run them off the road. Didn’t point guns at wounded, innocent women.
Hired guns then, she realized. “Why are you doing this?”
“Why aren’t you with the rest of the people?” the other man asked.
What? “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Where is everyone? I came back into town from camping and the whole fucking island had disappeared.”
The two men looked at each other. The nose of the gun dropped while they conversed, but just barely.
“She has no idea,” the stocky man said to the other.
The other man, the scowler, replied, “What do you want to do?”
Stocky’s beetle eyes swept over Rachel’s body. His lips twisted into a sneer. “I’m not wasting my time dragging this one back up the hill.”
“Kill her,” decided the other.
Rachel’s pulse skipped in her throat. Seriously? These men obviously had something to do with the disappearance of the others. No, she thought. They know exactly what happened. And now they’re going to kill me, too.
Was that what had happened to everyone else in Juneau—to her mom and dad? To Cowboy? Were they all dead?
Listen and be ready.
“I am ready.” The words tumbled softly through Rachel’s lips.
The men looked at her, but she no longer cared about the fury in their eyes, the harsh set of their jaws. She no longer saw the green grass, the white mountains, the blue sky. Instead, she saw only Ruby. Ruby’s red hair, tumbling wild down her shoulders. Ruby’s—
“You got this one. I did the last one.”
—eyes, shining in the dark. Ruby’s—
Stocky lifted his gun, pointed the barrel at Rachel.
—lips, the way her smile curved to the left when she laughed. Ruby’s—
The hammer clicked back. Rachel closed her eyes.
—hands, fingers twisted in hers. Ruby’s—
She thought, at first, she heard the gunpowder ripping free of its hold. But the sound grew, came closer. It thundered around her, familiar and strange, and full of fury.
Lucy.
Rachel’s eye flicked open and she saw the dog in mid-flight, a snarling silver bullet shooting across the screen, her teeth bared. Froth filled her jaw, and her eyes were focused on the man with the gun. In a blur, Lucy latched onto the man’s forearm, her body whipping violently to the side as her dangerously sharp canines tore into his skin. Blood erupted, flesh splitting open. The man screamed out in pain. Dropped the gun.
The other guy stepped back and reached for his weapon, but he was too slow. Rachel reacted, her instincts propelling her forward, arms forward and reaching toward the pistol dropped on the ground in front of her. Before ever taking a breath, she raised the weapon, aimed, and squeezed the trigger.
The shot rang out. A quick, loud crack in the quiet.
The first bullet ripped through the chest of the man now aiming his gun in her direction. His body jerked backward; his feet gave way as his eyes rolled back into his head.
Breathe. Rachel made it to her feet, adjusted her pace, and pulled the trigger again. The second shot took Stocky through the neck. Pink mist colored the air around him, and he hit the ground. Dead.
Lucy was still on the other man, the fur of her snout tinged red with his blood. She was hanging onto his leg now, keeping him from moving.
A desperate, pained sound echoed through the area.
He’s screaming, Rachel had time to realize, and her arm dropped, her sight leveling on the second man.
Her voice was flat. “Lucy.”
At the sound of her name, the dog dropped the man’s shin. She backpedaled until she pressed against Rachel’s leg, barking, her teeth still out, dripping red.
Rachel kept the gun trained on the man Lucy had incapacitated. She studied him as he gripped his damaged leg with his injured arm. Blood dribbled from the ruined fabric of his pants. He winced in pain, but when his eyes locked with hers, they were full of anger. He scratched at the ground for his fallen gun, sneered, opened his mouth—
“Fuck you,” Rachel said before the man could speak, and she squeezed off another round.
The left side of the man's head exploded as the bullet ripped through his frontal lobe and exited the back of his skull in a bloody mess of bone and gray matter. His body whipped to the side, then backward. He crumpled onto the dirt. Motionless.
Dead. The chamber clicked empty.
Rachel fell to her knees, let go of the gun.
I’m alive. The thought sat uncomfortably in her stomach, like a piece of unchewed food swallowed too suddenly.
Alive.
The soft wet brush of Lucy’s tongue tickled over her cheek, her neck, her arms. Rachel leaned onto the dog and pulled her in close. The dog’s body was warm against hers. It pulsed with life, pulling her back into herself. Lucy’s tongue panted, tail wagged.
“Thank you, girl,” Rachel whispered into the dog’s fur. “I owe you big time.”
Rachel hobbled to her feet and stared one last time at the men who had tried to kill her, but she didn’t recognize them. This was a small town. Most people looked familiar, even if they weren’t, but the dead men on the grass were strangers, which only made the unchewed feeling in the pit of her stomach grow. What had happened in Juneau? Who were these men, and what did they want?
What else had they done?
Who else had they chased down and killed?
Rachel shook off her thoughts. She had to go, had to move away from the center of town, from civilization. She needed to find safe ground. Relax. Gather her thoughts.
She grabbed the gun, shouldered her pack, and scanned the hillside below. “Let’s get out of here before others come looking for their friends.”
Rachel and Lucy made their way down the hill. The rocky path tore into Rachel’s heels. The rain had stopped, but the world around her was wet, silent. The sun had also begun to peak through the clouds. Still no birds. No animals. The quiet rang in her ears.
The pair continued down a small narrow path, following the prints of elk and deer. Long blades of grass bent to the side, marking the way. Lucy walked just ahead of Rachel, tail wagging and nose to the ground. On point. Rachel followed closely behind.
The trek was short but slow going, the pain in Rachel’s damaged body protesting with every step until the trail ended in a wide clearing at a waterfall overhang. Glaciers rose on either side of her, a cold, daunting hike into inhospitable, frozen ground. The mountains stood nearby, overflowing with green and topped with snowy peaks. Rachel learned over the craggy cliff edge and looked down.
Sixty-five feet below, water rushed in a wide stretch of river.
Shit. “We won’t be going that way.”
Rachel scanned the area. All rivers in Juneau led back to the ocean, but the ocean led to the harbor, to the only way—other than by air—in and out of the small town. They wanted to go up, inland. Away. She pointed upriver. “We need to follow the river, Luc. It’ll take us up into the mountains, where no one will be able to find us.”
Lucy grumbled. Yes.
Rachel stroked the dog’s fur, her fingers catching in patches of mud and dried blood that covered Lucy’s body, face, and head.
“We’ll get you down there and wash you off, girl. Clean you up.”
Rachel paused to plot her path to the water. Pain suddenly erupted in her shoulder. Blood burst from the upper portion of her right arm, and her body spun around, a gunshot echoing in the distance.
She had been careless in assuming the men were alone, that no one else would show up, and someone had just hit her with a clean, five-hundred-yard shot.
>
Rachel’s legs crumpled as her balance failed. She stumbled backward, her vision fading. Lucy was barking, but the sound was growing fainter. Fading.
She tried to keep her body upright but it was no use. Rachel stumbled to the edge of the cliff. Her eyes closed—Ruby—and she fell into the cold, turbulent water below.
6
The frigid temperature of the rushing river was enough to force her eyes open, push her back to life.
Rachel’s body thrashed as she twisted underwater, the strong currents pulling her downstream. Millions of tiny air bubbles popped around her face, obstructing what was left of her vision. She kicked her feet as her head bobbed up and down.
Surface, her mind screamed, red tendrils coloring the water around her. Get to the surface.
Through the water, light brushed tauntingly against her cheeks, and pain tore through her again as Rachel stretched out her arms. The agony was so intense her right arm went limp, but she kept thrashing. She had to get to the surface. She kicked as hard as she could, cupping her one good hand against the water in an attempt to help force her body to the surface.
Her pack was still attached to her back—a giant, waterlogged, weight attempting to keep her under, but she was not ready to give up. Not yet. Her body was being whipped down the river, washed out to sea. She had to get her head out of the water before she ran out of air, but her movements were growing weak, sluggish, and her vision was dimming.
Drowning. She was drowning. She was swimming and fighting and she was drowning.
Ruby’s voice entered her mind. Keep fighting!
Summoning all her strength, Rachel kicked her feet again and pulled her left palm down, pushing water down and under.
More water rushed over her.
A bright glare of light. Darkness of underwater. Again.
Rachel’s broke through the surface. She gasped for breath, squinting into the bright sunlight as it flooded her vision. The sounds of the turbulent waters were deafening. Everything was spun into a hundred different directions, disorienting her with every turn. Something under the surface of the water smacked against her right foot. More pain, needle-sharp and stabbing into the places where her skin had torn, split her open. She pulled her body to the side and kicked, attempting to dislodge herself from the main current and move closer to the shoreline.
Barking.
The water muted the noise, mutated it, but it was barking. A dog. Rachel twisted her head toward the sound.
Ruby raced beside the river, her red hair flying in the wind behind her. Swim, she called across the water, and her arms mimicked the motion, rising and falling in front of her as if she treaded water rather than air.
Ruby.
Rachel sunk, blurring the image of her wife on the shore. No. She fought to get her head above the rushing current. The river wrapped around her ankles, rushed into her mouth as she spluttered. The water was even colder inside her. Had she been screaming—calling for Ruby?
Don’t leave me, Rachel thought, fighting against the raging river. Ruby was there, she just needed to get out of the water, to break free of nature’s clutches—
Rachel’s vision broke above the rushing waves. Ruby was gone. In her place, Lucy ran along the shoreline, barking madly as she chased Rachel downriver.
Ruby had been there, though, Rachel was as sure of that as she was of Lucy running beside her now, barking encouragement, panic, fear. Even in death, Ruby hadn’t left her, and even with the last seconds of her life counting down the barrel of a gun, Lucy hadn’t abandoned her. She had come back, she had fought. Her faithful companion chased after her now, not letting her mistress out of her sight even when there was no certainty Rachel would make it to shore alive.
This is what love looks like, Rachel thought. It never gives up.
She wouldn’t either.
Doing her best to block out her pain, Rachel kicked harder. Harder. Somehow—with the grace of God—she began to move closer to the shoreline. A large rock waited up ahead, perhaps a boulder or a slab of granite, one of the small, stubborn chunks of ice that never melted. If Rachel didn’t get further to the side, she would slam into it face first, but if she swept by too wide, she would lose her chance to grab onto it, to anchor herself and any hope of dragging herself out of the river.
Be like water.
Rachel screamed, fury and determination, as she stopped thrashing and let her body become fluid. She rode the current, the water rushing through her fingers and under her stomach. She bent her head to the side and angled her body, hoping the rock would catch her like a leaf caught in a storm.
The impact was nowhere near as graceful.
Rock smashed, unyielding, into the mid-section of her calves, sending shockwaves up her legs. Her body flipped around from the impact, but she ricocheted out of the current to settle in a shallow section of calmer water. Rachel dug her weakened hands into the silt beneath her, dragged herself to shore. Then, clawing at mud and roots, she pulled with all her might until she was breathless from the exertion.
When her body was against solid ground, cold water still lapping against her back, she gasped for air. Rachel watched as the water ran red as her wounds bled out, then she collapsed.
7
Rachel awoke to Lucy’s barking.
The dog straddled her body, growling and yipping encouragement, begging her to get up. The sun beat down on them. Rachel coughed into the sand and rolled onto her side. Lucy moved away. She stopped barking, but a low grumble continued in her throat.
Still blue. The sky was still blue. This time of year was more light than dark, until the summer solstice marked the descent into the darker half of the year. The color was disorienting, and Rachel’s chest tightened. It could just as easily be late morning as early afternoon or even evening.
Her hair and cheeks were caked with dried mud. Her lips were crusted with the stuff, and more flecked from the corners of her eyes. Rachel raised one hand, rubbed at her eyes, then patted the dog.
Lucy immediately calmed, then laid down at Rachel’s side and rested her head on her paws.
“You saved me again, girl. We’ll need to turn the tables at some point, that’s for sure.” The exhaustion in Rachel’s voice was unmissable. Hadn’t she always sounded so tired?
She slipped the pack off her shoulders and flipped onto her back, her right shoulder screaming in pain. Patches of her hair and clothes that had been above water had aired out by now, but the water pooled around her was still red, tinged with blood. Using her left hand, Rachel flung the pack ahead of her and onto the shoreline. She inched up, pushing herself forward with her knees, and pulled herself onto a dry spot of river gravel—just enough to be free of the icy water.
Move.
“I know,” she said out loud. She needed to move, to keep going. To stay warm.
Rachel felt around on the sand until she found the strap of her rucksack. She pulled it to her, relieved at how easily the heavy bag came. Using the pack to support her shaking limbs and uneven weight, she got to her knees. To her feet. Straightened her back. Lucy ran circles around her, panting.
“We have to find some cover. There will be more coming,” she told the dog.
Lucy growled. Move.
“All right, girl. Let’s go.”
Together, Rachel and Lucy made their way down the shoreline, following the river upstream. Rachel’s boots sloshed with water, her feet still swimming. The ankle strap rubbed uncomfortably against the tender skin of her calves. Blisters. She’d have hell to pay in blisters by the time she got her boots off.
Every inch of her hurt. In the past few hours, she’d been chased, bruised, cut, torn, smashed, and shot.
“But I’m not fucking stopping,” she muttered under her breath. She couldn’t stop, not now. Not after she’d seen Ruby running beside the river, yelling at her to swim. To fight back. She would continue. She would find a safe place to take refuge. She would heal, she would rest, and she would find out exactly what was going
on.
Then, she would find her parents and Cowboy, and she wouldn’t stop looking until she had them all wrapped up in her arms, tucked safe against her chest.
Rachel and Lucy followed the riverbank deeper into the untamed Alaskan wilderness, moving slowly and carefully until they came to an area where the water dropped into a fall twenty feet high. There was a route just off to her left that would allow them to pass down to the lower portion of the cliff.
“There’s got to be somewhere below we can rest,” Rachel said. This area was unfamiliar, deeper than she’d ever ventured before. But now was not the time to stop and admire the view. Not yet.
Rachel’s knee nearly gave out when they began their descent down a small, narrow, rocky path. Had she ever hurt like this before? If so, she couldn’t recall when. She’d broken bones, banged up limbs. She’d had a broken heart. But never had she endured all at once. The pain was often so bad, Rachel thought she would pass out, but even when her vision blurred and her body seemed to crumble, she stayed upright.
Blood ran from her shoulder, coursing down her arm in scarlet tendrils until a thin red sheen covered her skin. Fat drops fell from the tips of her fingers, but the flow seemed to have slowed. By the time she reached the bottom of the cliff, it was nearly a trickle, just enough to remind her she was still bleeding, still wounded.
There.
A small overhang jutted out over the bottom of the waterfall, where a rock shelf hung out just enough for her and Lucy to take shelter beneath.
“Come on, girl,” Rachel said, coaxing the dog toward the water. Cowboy loved water—rivers, pools, garden hoses—and would have run in without hesitation, but Lucy was more cautious, preferring to keep her footing on dry land.
Rachel inched her way beneath the overhang, her body so sore it had long gone numb, and Lucy followed. During the winter, the bottoms of Juneau’s glaciers were decorated with ice caves—majestic, stunning affairs the likes of which were nearly impossible to describe. Seeing them in person was like stepping into a frozen fairytale, assuming one had the gumption to hike across miles of frozen lake to find one. This small cover behind the waterfall must have been a marvel when coated in ice. Now, though, it was a shelf of rock tucked behind water, the fine mist spraying back just enough to catch the light and create a faint rainbow on the sheet of water. It was also hidden, and the rushing noise of the fall blotted out any other sound.