by Ella Storm
“Is it safe? Wouldn’t the air patrols see us?”
“Not as long as we stay close to the trees. Besides, they will find us eventually. The government will dig deeper and find out about this cabin once they are certain we’re not in the city. Let’s not think about that right now and just enjoy a beautiful day out in the open.”
He showed me the wild vegetable garden he planted from the samples Stephen gave him. The plants were scattered around so no one would guess there was a vegetable garden if you didn’t know what you were looking for.
We then strolled to the stream. I sat next to him and watched him dust off his fishing skills. Even though the peaceful water had a calming influence on me, I fought my anxiety at being outdoors.
“Before the ozone layer evaporated, I used to come fishing here with my grandfather. This place was our little piece of heaven on earth.” He was staring at the crystal-clear water, holding a spear he had fashioned with his hands. “My grandfather taught me to live off the land. He told me these skills would come in handy. I thought he was a crazy old man but look at me now.”
He gave me that lopsided smile of his. My heart squeezed in my chest and at that precise moment, I knew I had fallen in love with him.
He hesitated a moment then continued, “Helios, I’m hating myself for dragging you into this mess. There’s a manhunt for us with a shoot-to-kill order. They have no intention of bringing us in alive and if we fail… If we fail—”
I threw myself at him, knocking him to the ground, and silenced him with a kiss. His muscles were tight; his body rigid. I deepened the kiss and sensed the exact moment he relaxed. His hand held my head steady while he plundered my mouth. Insistent and needy, his tongue plunged deep, tangling and swirling with mine, fighting for control. The power of that one kiss entranced me. I felt his strength, his dominance and his passion pass from his tongue to mine and into my bloodstream. I felt rejuvenated with his passion, energy and determination.
He broke the kiss and whispered against my mouth, “The stick is twitching.” I was dazed, only half registering what he was saying. When I reached down to touch him, he seized my wrist.
“Yes, that one too. But I meant the fishing rod.” He chuckled and raised the stick he still held in his hand.
It was a long thin branch to which he had attached a string that he brought with him from the cabin. At the other end of the string, he had tied a worm he dug out of the garden to lure the fish in. I blushed and rolled off him.
Maverick laughed as he sprang into action. He stabbed at the heart of the trout and lifted his prize in the air. I was fascinated by his masculine dominance over the environment. He truly was a beautiful specimen.
He tied a fresh worm to the string and dropped it in the water, then handed me the spear. I looked at it as a foreign object. Without a word, he moved behind me and took hold of my hand holding the spear.
“The act of hunting can be a sensual and awakening experience.” He blew warm air on the back of my neck, causing my legs to tremble. “Feel the rhythm of the water and watch closely for any disturbance. A ripple tells a story. This unspoiled landscape is where we came from. Nature is a gift we have squandered.”
One hand closed over my dainty fingers holding the spear and the other slipped under my top and found its way into my bra to rub a nipple between two fingers. I closed my eyes and leaned my head against his shoulder. My nipple responded to his touch and hardened. I was more than ready to give in to the euphoria of his caress.
He pinched my nipple hard and my eyes flew open. “No, no. Keep your eyes on the stream, pay attention to any movement in the water.” His member stretched the fabric of his pants. It called to me. It was luring me like the worm lured the fish in the water.
“I never considered hunting an erotic sport.” I pressed my buttocks to him and wiggled. I heard his breath catch, and he pinched my nipple harder, sending a surge of desire through me.
“We are born with feral instincts. An animal becomes domesticated when we bring them into our homes. Let them out into the wild and they return to their feral tendencies.” His voice was rough. He held me tighter while humping me through our clothes. “The key to hunting is patience and plenty of time.”
My pulse was racing as we waited for a fish to bite. Our moans of pleasure were the only sounds punctuating the silence.
I saw the ripple he had mentioned, and before I realized it, he took hold of my hand and together we launched the spear into the water in one rapid motion. It came back with the first fish I had ever caught. It was an exhilarating moment made even better with his impressive endowment pressed up against me.
It was a beautiful, sunny day. The sun was warm and not blazing like a fire. The wind was fresh and not scorching like a breath from hell. The sky was a clear blue, and not the dusty, opaque, yellow sky we had in the city. Mother Nature healed itself without mankind’s interference.
The tree branches swept in the wind, waving in greeting as we made our way back to the cabin. I carried our lunch in a small basket we had found inside the rustic cabin, and Maverick was wiping our footsteps clean, using a branch to distort our comings and goings.
He halted abruptly, raising one finger to keep me quiet, and listened. I followed suit, trying to catch what he might have considered a threat. A few seconds later, a dog barked.
“They’re using bloodhounds to hunt us down.” Maverick grabbed my arm and rushed me into the cabin. “We have to make sure there are no clues we were here, then gather your things and I’ll grab our provisions.”
The dog sneezed. He had come across the pepper Maverick had littered the ground with to confuse his olfactory senses.
I scrambled to get things done. I covered the bed and kitchen table with the plastic, while Maverick pulled a bag full of dust from beneath the sink and powdered the plastic covers and the floor. Luckily, before we went out, Maverick had washed the dishes, stored them away and covered the window with the plastic so no one could see the inside of the cabin.
I followed Maverick’s lead, trying to remember if everything was in a place. He locked the cabin, and we bolted towards the path going into the forest. I heard growling and looked over my shoulder. A snarling dog stood right behind us, salivating with foam coming out of his mouth.
Chapter Eleven
It was a beast. The dog stood; eyes wide, ears flat, and a distinct vibrating growl emanating from deep within his chest.
Fear glued me to the spot. Every muscle in my body urged me to run for it, but a small voice made its way to the forefront of my chaotic reasoning and pointed out that contemplating outrunning a four-legged animal amounted to suicide.
The Doberman held his tail erect and rigid. His hairs bristled, and he watched me. I didn’t know much about dogs, but I knew enough not to challenge him with a direct stare. I lowered my gaze and took a cautious step back. He kept his stare locked on me, his ears pricked forward, and had one of his fore-legs doubled up, ready for the next step. My mind scrambled to find soothing words to pacify him, but my tongue had turned to cotton in my mouth, and uttering the smallest syllable at this instant seemed impossible.
My heart thudded against my rib cage. Blood rushed to my ears, and everything seemed to fade except for the dog. I took another tentative step backward. The beast let out a savage growl, curling his lips back to reveal sharp canine teeth.
“Hold still!” the whispered command came from behind me. “When I give you the signal, duck.”
I wanted to say, “no, I can’t move”, but before I could utter a word, he shouted, “Now!”
Just when the animal sprang into action, aiming for my neck, my body slammed to the ground. The dog landed on my chest, his paws pushing me down. I squeezed my eyes shut, not wanting to see myself die. I might have screamed, but couldn’t be certain. Both the Doberman and I sneezed. Then an agonizing wail pierced my ears. The dog lodged his head in my neck and whimpered.
Immediately, Maverick was there. He forced his arms
beneath my shoulders and pulled me out from under the dog. A moist substance trailed down my neck, and my hand flew up to put pressure on the wound to stop the flow of blood. There was no pain. I pressed harder, thinking the shock had numbed my senses. He pushed my hands away and examined my wound.
“No,” I panted, “I will bleed to death.”
“You are not injured.” His tone was razor-sharp.
He didn’t make any sense. I looked at my bloodied hands. Was he blind? And why hadn’t the beast torn me to pieces? Without another word, Maverick grabbed my wrist and hauled me behind him into the forest. The dog let out a mournful wail.
“What did you do?”
“I threw pepper in his face when he jumped to attack. I already had it in my backpack.”
But the blood? I turned my head just as the trees shielded us from view and my last glimpse was that of the yelping Doberman lying on his side with Maverick’s handmade fishing spear protruding from his eye.
I tripped and fell on my hands and knees. My stomach contracted violently. It was too late to hold down the bile that splattered across Maverick’s shoes.
He pulled me off the ground. His features were impassive, but I could see the unclenching of his jaws before he spoke. “I won’t apologize for what I did.” His tone was crisp.
Did he blame me or was he afraid of my opinion of him?
“We need to get as far as possible. I don’t know how many there are, but I only heard one dog. Now that he’s neutralized, we have a chance to get away.”
I nodded and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. He saved my life. But it was difficult to reconcile the man who brought me so much ecstasy with his hands with the man who drove a stick through an animal’s eye without blinking.
I did my best to keep up, smacking into branches and tripping a few times. I always found my footing before I fell. But when my heartbeat became erratic and stars danced in front of my eyes, I stopped and fell against a tree.
“Maverick…” I wheezed, bent over, holding onto my knees, trying to fill my burning lungs with much needed air. There was no way I could keep up the pace. I didn’t hear anyone behind us and hoped they had given up.
He stopped short and retraced his steps. “Just behind that boulder.” He pointed across the stream. “All we need to do is make it to the other side.”
I was about to shake my head, say I was unable to take another step forward, when a howl erupted in the peaceful forest, sending a wave of terror through me. Loud footsteps stomped the ground, breaking twigs and slashing at branches. Our pursuers weren’t trying to be discreet or catch us unaware. They wanted us to know they were coming.
I looked down at my feet. I wore the hiking boots my father gave me on my sixteenth birthday. We had watched a documentary on hiking in the Tibetan mountains; the vast plateau, the pristine springs and the snow-powdered Himalayan peaks made us fall in love with the scenery. After the documentary, I hurried to scribble ‘Hiking in Tibet’ on our bucket list. The soles of my boots dug into the soft soil, leaving behind a trail of deep footprints that said - this way!
Maverick’s face was an unreadable mask. I had a moment of panic he would abandon me. I was too slow. Too clumsy. Too weak. He’d be better off on his own. He reached for me, tucked me beneath his arm, slung my left arm over his shoulder and locked both his hands around my waist. He half-carried, half-dragged me down the path to the stream.
This stream bank differed from the sandy-beach bank by the cabin where we had lingered that very afternoon. This one had boulders on both sides of the bank and also rising out of the water. The stream looked to be about twenty yards in width, and its torrent was strong. Maverick crossed diagonally to navigate the current of the waist-high water. The rocky and slippery floor forced us to take slow, careful steps so as not to be carried away.
“You can run but you can’t hide.”
I snapped my head back. No one was there.
“I promise you a slow, painful death for what you did to my dog, you son of a bitch. But only after I make that bitch of yours scream with pleasure. She wouldn’t want you after having a real man.”
I noted how he used the singular pronoun. He was alone.
Maverick continued crossing, holding me by the waist with one hand and the backpack of provisions high above his head with the other. The taunts didn’t distract him or slow his pace. As soon as we reached the other side, he positioned me in front of a massive rock and shoved his shoulder beneath my buttocks. He pushed on his legs and lifted me up. My muscles felt like lead and finding my footing on the slippery surface was a challenge, but I clawed at the moss and lichen covering the rock, pulling it off as I rose inch by inch. I hoisted my body over the top, and before I could catch my breath, the backpack landed by my side. Too exhausted to stand or sit, I rolled on my stomach and watched Maverick take about ten steps back. He lunged forward to gain momentum, jumped on the smaller rock on his left, landed on the balls of his feet, launched off his right leg and leaped like a cat on the body of the massive boulder. He pushed himself to an upright position and climbed the rest of the way. At the top, he didn’t stand. He moved on his side, pulling me with one hand and catching hold of the backpack with the other, until we both slid off the rock.
I found myself sinking in a pit of mud. Before I understood what had just happened, he grabbed me by the collar of my jacket and dragged me into a crevice beneath the boulder where we blended with our environment. We stood unmoving, pressed against the smooth surface of the rock, submerged chin deep in thick mud, and waited.
The sloshing of heavy footsteps told us our hunter had crossed the stream. We couldn’t see him, but from the sounds of his panting, he stopped directly above us.
“Goddamn it!” he cursed.
From the top of the rock, the crevice wasn’t visible, and it was impossible to guess there was a mud pit just beneath the boulder for someone to sink into. It looked like the boulder rested on solid ground and there was nowhere to go except make a run for the forest. And I hadn’t left any tracks for him to follow.
“It’s me! They got away. No… No… Yeah, the coordinates were correct, but the son of a gun hurt Rex. I’m gonna kill him for that.” A few seconds of silence followed before he shouted, “I don’t care about that bitch of yours. You can have her once I’m done with her—” Another few seconds of silence. “Be very careful how you speak to me. Don’t think because I haven’t seen your face, I can’t find you. Hiding behind a computer can’t protect you from my long arms.” He let out a stream of expletives. After a minute of pacing, the sound of squeaking boots receded.
We didn’t dare move or make a sound. Evening fell, and the temperature dropped. The heavy mud provided some protection against the cold, but I couldn’t stay submerged for much longer. My limbs felt like jelly, and I had difficulty holding myself above the mud. My mouth was covered and I could barely breathe through my nose.
My vision blurred, and a black mass rose from the mud and swallowed my body. I passed out.
Chapter Twelve
The sting of a slap on my cheek shocked my mind awake.
“Helios, wake up.”
My eyes fluttered open and Maverick’s face vacillated in and out of my vision as if it were a dream.
Another sting. “Wake up!” The voice was insistent.
“I’m not sleeping!” I growled. “And don’t hit me again, you… you—”
He crushed me to him. I felt his stomach rumble with his quiet laughter of relief.
“Come on, my little mud princess. Let’s get you out of here before you truly pass out.”
“I didn’t.”
“Didn’t what?”
“Didn’t pass out.”
“Oh, no? I thou—”
“I was just resting my eyes. You made me run through half the forest. My eyes needed a bit of rest. That’s all.”
“Whatever you say, mud princess,” he chortled, unable to hide his amusement. He waddled to the edge of the pit a
nd clung to some moss to pull himself out. I followed him, irritated and determined to make it out on my own.
We hid between the rocks and tried to rinse off the mud. Around us, the clear water turned brown before the flow carried it away. It would have been a clue something was happening between the rocks if the dim dusk light didn’t offer a cover.
The rocks provided some protection against the elements, but not much. I almost wished to be back in the mud where it was warmer. But I wouldn’t complain.
“We can’t go back to the cabin,” Maverick said as if reading my mind. “I know a small cave where we can spend the night. It’s almost dark and I don’t want to risk getting lost in the forest looking for our way back to the city.”
We stayed on this side of the stream and penetrated the forest. Maverick stopped in front of a stack of boulders piled high, creating a raised surface. Two massive rocks leaned against each other, creating a tent-like shelter. We crawled through the narrow opening. In the middle of the cave, I could stand, though my head brushed the top of the cave. Maverick had to bend over, his head and shoulders leaning awkwardly to one side.
“This place seemed huge when I was a kid,” he grunted.
“Maybe it shrunk.” I suggested, flopping down on the hard earth.
“Is that sarcasm or irritation I’m detecting?” he laughed, then lowered himself to the ground next to me. “You’ve been brave, my darling.” The warmth of his touch against my cold cheek penetrated my skin and spread like tentacles until it enveloped my soul. I stared at him, taken aback by his gentleness.
“When you look at me with those emerald saucers in your face, I lose myself in their depth.” He brushed his lips against mine. “Let me get some food into you and keep you warm. I can see you’re struggling to keep your teeth from chattering.”
Using a Swiss Army knife, he opened two cans of vegetable soup that we drank straight up. We then shared a can of peaches we ate with our hands. I avoided looking at the mud beneath my nails as I ate.