She heard another branch snap and heavy breathing to her right. Another lurking form was coming through the woods towards her in the opposite direction. She stepped out of the light from the street lamp, but knew that it was probably too late. They had seen her, and there were at least two of them.
She turned toward the bus—still a couple of miles away and coming too slowly.
Why, oh why couldn’t you just let me be dead? Why couldn’t you just assume that I drowned? But she knew that being swept away under the ice of a raging river was not enough.
They needed her body, cold and lifeless, to be sure. And if not dead, they needed her alive.
The sound of footsteps and large bodies coming through the forest were getting louder. She thought about running, but knew that it would be no use. Her body was too cold and stiff to move quickly.
Her only hope was the bus. It was now less than a mile away, and she fidgeted nervously.
“Come on, come on …” she whispered.
The thin whisper of a silenced gunshot pierced the air, and the bullet whistled just inches from her head. She screamed and ducked, the bullet smashing into the trunk of a tree a few feet away, splinters of frozen wood bursting with a crack.
Had to move now. Mae shuffled toward the bus, forcing her body into an awkward and painful jog.
Another gunshot and the bullet skinned into her shoulder. She felt a thick oozing of warmth over her freezing skin. Two more gunshots hissed in the night as she jogged down the hill. Her atrophied muscles raged, but she could see the driver now. He was a big black man, a look of deep concentration splayed on his face as he drove through the falling snow.
She raised her arms and started running in the middle of the road, directly in front of the bus. For several very long seconds, it seemed as though the bus wouldn’t stop in time, that it would slam on its brakes at the last moment and slide right into her.
The driver’s eyes widened and she saw his body shift as his foot dropped on the brake peddle. The tires skidded slightly over a patch of black ice, but the bus slowed. She ran forward and toward the bus and slammed the open palm of her hand on the door.
The driver, scared and confused, opened the door, and she fell inside, scrambling up the wet steps into the bus.
“Go!” she shouted.
Three bullets smashed through the windshield, barely missing the driver and leaving behind tiny holes and vein-like cracks running several inches into the shatterproof glass. The bullets hit the roof of the bus, one of them lodging into the metal ceiling and the other two bouncing and ricocheting. Mae screamed, and the driver grunted loudly as he pulled the door closed in a hurry. He jammed on the accelerator, and the bus lurched forward. Eddie's lone figure stood just inside the tree line, his hulking shadow watching as the bus drove away. The driver also saw Eddie standing there, his rifle raised and smoking, and he did a double take at the bullet holes in the window.
"What the devil?" the driver shouted as the bus's speed climbed. He grabbed hold of his radio and screamed, “I’ve got some thugs shootin’ up my bus! I need cops out on route—”
“No!” she yelled, her voice cracking. “No police. Don’t call anyone.”
The driver froze, his mouth hanging open. He looked at the girl as if she were crazy.
And she was crazy, by the looks of it. Her hair was a mess with tangles of leaves and twigs and dirt, her clothes were wet and freezing to her body, and her cheeks pallid and cold. She looked like that girl who was raised with wolves, just barely re-entering civilization, but there was something more. Sorrow and dread had long ago washed away the innocence on her face. Her eyes pled with him as he held the radio close to his quivering lips, his finger still pressing the “call” button. He hesitated for a second longer, examining that sorrowful pleading in her eyes, then returned his radio to the cradle.
The driver grunted with a more-serious-than-death look on his face as he switched off his radio altogether. He looked up at the holes in his windshield and shook his head, pursing his lips together tightly and whistling.
Mae clamored to her feet, her skin tingling as the heater blasted warm air from the vents in the floor of the bus. She looked over the empty rows of seats and breathed a sigh of relief. At this time of night, and this far from the city, there were no other passengers. She turned back to the driver and saw that he was breathing fast and heavy, and soundlessly mouthing words that looked like a prayer. He closed his eyes for a second, shaking his head as if to drive away the fear, and at the same time, let his foot off the accelerator. The bus slowed quickly.
"Please don't stop the bus," she said. The driver jerked, startled, pounded his foot on the accelerator, and the bus roared forward.
She watched the place in the road where she'd stood only moments before, grow smaller and smaller in the back window, erased by the flurries of snow.
Always moving, she thought. Always running.
They would not be far behind.
Chapter Fourteen
Robert Morales burst through the trees right as Eddie fired his rifle into the bus's large front window. He cringed at the sight of the bullet holes in the glass and felt the boiling rage within him churn as he watched the bus disappear over the hill. On most days, his anger was a like a constant humming in his ears, a steady and purple throbbing in his gut, but now it was a thriving cauldron of bubbling mass. His ears were hot, and his fingers numb. Rage, the color of dried blood, edged his vision.
He tightened his grip on the handle of his .50 caliber Desert Eagle, flexing the muscles in his fingers and hand until they ached against the metal grip. The bus was gone, but he could still hear the engine cutting through the night, moving away from him and toward the city and the people and the safety in numbers.
Morales took a deep breath of the cold, winter air and swore as he exhaled through his nose in small billows of mist. He'd been waiting too long for a moment with this girl, and that moment was now botched. Since Miami, the girl and her mom been on the run, and since Miami he'd followed like a bloodhound. Morales was a finder, a tracker, a hunter, and yet despite the many people he'd found and taken as prey, Mae and her mother had evaded him every step of the way. Like a squirming pup, little Mae was now once again out of his reach.
Eddie.
Eddie had let her escape, and in the forest, he had once again let her slip through his fingers. The thick, crimson rage welled.
Morales tried not to think about the consequences of her escape, but still, the thoughts nagged at his brain. He wasn't afraid—no, it wasn’t fear he felt, he was much too important in the organization to feel much fear anymore—it was a sense of disquiet, that all he’d been working for these many months was coming unraveled at the seams. So much sacrifice and death had led him here, to cross paths with this girl. Not that he minded the death and sacrifice—it wasn't his sacrifice.
He thought about the body in the cabin and flexed his raw knuckles, feeling a small bit of relief from the anger.
He hadn't realized that he was holding his breath in those last few moments, but he began to feel dizzy and light. He pushed aside the purple and black thoughts, and exhaled slowly through his nostrils. When his lungs emptied, he inhaled slowly and methodically, concentrating on putting aside the mounting rage. The flood of oxygen to his body relaxed his tense muscles and he could feel the anger slowly subside. He focused on the smell of the winter night around him, the evergreen trees, the falling snow on the frozen asphalt.
Morales walked to the street lamp that stood near the bus stop, wondering how it had all gone so wrong. First in the cabin, then the woods, and now this. The girl had been two steps ahead of them for the entire night, and he didn't think that it was anything other than dumb luck. And the stupidity of his comrades.
He heard footsteps and chuffing behind him and he turned slowly. Despite everything he wanted to do, needed to do, to relieve the anxiety he felt, he turned with serene calmness, his breathing steady and his face placid. Two men appro
ached him from the woods, their breathing quick and heavy.
"You okay, boss?" Eddie said. Morales turned and studied him. Eddie's black clothes and slicked hair really pissed Morales off. Eddie was an enforcer for local methamphetamine dealers, and a good one at that. He was deadly, but he didn't appear to be any more dangerous than a run-of-the-mill neighbor walking his dog at twilight, just another blue collar shmoe trying to make it in this city. It was this unique combination of unremarkable ordinariness and lethality that drew Morales to him.
Oskar Svensson, on the other hand, looked more like a slick version of Frankenstein's monster. A transplant from Sweden, he had an exaggerated square jaw and a large, flat forehead. He was slightly more than six and a half feet tall, his head was completely bald, and he had scars that ran down his face from his forehead to his chin. Morales had often wondered about those scars and wanted to ask the big man about them, but was more than a little apprehensive to hear Oskar's response. He thought that the injury must have been severe, and he felt sorry for whatever, or whoever, had given Oskar the scars, as the end had surely come quickly for that person or thing. And despite the scars and the sheer size of the man, he had a quality about him that screamed class and refinement. Morales wouldn't be surprised to see Oskar beating a man to a pulp, then wiping the blood and broken teeth from his hands and sitting down for tea and biscuits with his mother.
When Morales had come upon Eddie, he was blabbering about the forest floating into the air. The forest had looked ravaged, but not floating, and it made Morales think of the destruction in Miami. For a moment, he'd felt a quickening of excitement, thinking she'd been crushed by the fallen trees and rocks, but they found no sign of her. It had taken them close to an hour to conclude that she'd fallen into the river that gushed nearby, and he was sure that the girl had died.
Out of some morbid curiosity, he'd dipped three fingers into the water, up to the second knuckle, and gasped at the temperature. He'd begun to chuckle then, imagining the pure torture of being fully submerged. The thought had filled him with a strange joy, the thought of that girl being tortured. He was sorry that he hadn't been able to inflict the pain on the girl himself, but he'd been happy that her death was not entirely without agony.
After concluding that she'd been swallowed by the river, Eddie had wanted to pack up their equipment in the cabin and return to the city. Morales refused, saying that they would need the girl's body. Eddie was angry, it was his sister's birthday, and he was missing the party. But both he and Oskar obeyed Morales' order to walk along the banks of the river and search for the body.
Oskar had found an area along the river where the snow had been disturbed. After a few more minutes of searching, he found tufts of blond hair that had snagged on a low hanging branch as well as tracks leading toward the county road. He'd called to the others in his thickly accented voice, and their search through the woods resumed.
Sometime later, Oskar had been the first to spot the girl, standing under a street lamp a couple hundred meters away. They'd started running then, and for a moment, until the bus had rumbled into view and the gunshots exploded in the wintery silence, Morales had thought that everything would be fixed, that they would catch the girl and make things right. He’d wanted to hurt her badly for the pain and frustrations she’d caused him. A little payback was in order, and until the bus rumbled into view, he’d allowed himself to get excited. But the bus and the gunshots that followed had dashed those thoughts to shards.
"Boss," Eddie said, nodding toward Morales' hands and bringing him back to the moment. "You still got blood on your hands. Maybe still from the girl's mother."
Morales looked down at his hands, saw dark streaks across his skin. He reminded himself to stay calm. Eddie was still chattering away, about something completely different now. The sound of his voice was grating on Morales' nerves.
Morales turned the Desert Eagle in his hands so he was holding the barrel. He held the gun out to Eddie, who stopped talking long enough to take the gun, his eyebrows cocked with confusion. It didn't take long, though, until Eddie started talking again.
"You see what bus she got on?" Eddie asked. "Looked like one going downtown, and if we hurry and get the cars, we might be able to catch up to it and take her down. And did you see what she was wearing? Some different clothes, blue sweater, looked like, or a hoodie. Sketchy girl, that one, coming out here with a change of clothes. Who would have thought?"
Eddie was addressing Oskar, and motioning with Morales' gun as he spoke. Oskar didn't say anything, but watched the gun move back and forth in front of him with narrowed eyes. He reached out and gently pushed Eddie's hand, and the gun, until the barrel was pointing at the ground.
"Careful you don't shoot," Oskar said, his voice low and thick with accent.
"Hey, man," Eddie said, looking hurt. "I'm not going to shoot you man, and besides, the safety's on, and I've held a gun before, ya lurch."
"Quiet," Morales said. Eddie looked like he was about to argue with Morales for a moment, but saw that his boss was in no mood for bickering. Morales took several steps to a nearby mound of snow, stooped down and gently rubbed the palms of his hands against the snow. The dark red, which looked black in the meager light, mixed with the white snow and made it look muddy. Morales took a handful of snow in his hands and worked it over the skin on the back of his hands as well, washing away the dried blood. He crossed back to Eddie and wiped his wet hands on the sleeve of his jacket, a curt smile on his lips.
"Thank you, Eddie," Morales said, holding his hand out for the gun. The rage he had felt earlier had melted away, and he took a deep breath, not to calm his nerves, but to enjoy the cold and invigorating air in his lungs, to savor the moment.
"Who fired the shots?" Morales said, his breath coming out in short bursts of mist in the frozen night air. Of course he knew the answer, but he wanted to teach a lesson. Above all, Morales considered himself a teacher. He felt the calmness wash over him, and the rage completely disappear. His thoughts were as cool and targeted as hardened metal.
"The shots?" Eddie asked, his forehead scrunched.
"The gun shots at the girl, at the bus," Morales said, his tone and expression placid.
"Yeah, I shot at the girl. 'S too bad I missed, though, coulda saved us a nice evening of hunting her down."
"The bus, Eddie, who shot the bus?" Morales seethed.
Realization clicked in Eddie's eyes, and he stared at his shuffling feet. It reminded Morales of a school boy who was caught pulling a girl's pigtails.
"I shot at the girl, yeah," Eddie's voice wavered, "and I'm sorry I missed too. I think if I'd gotten that shot off right, we wouldn't be in the hot pot we're in right now."
"No, Eddie," Morales said in a voice so calm, it might have been mistaken for one belonging to a priest who's just heard a confession and is about to list the steps of repentance.
"You made this particular hot pot a bit worse. Quite a bit worse."
"But boss—" Eddie started, his face flushed and his voice rising with defensiveness. Morales stopped him with a wave of his hand.
"What happens when the bus gets back to the city?" Morales asked in his priestly tone. "What happens when the bus driver pulls into his garage and his manager sees the gun shots? What do you think then? What happens when the driver moseys on down to the police station and files a report, which is something he'll have to do if he wants to keep his job? And then the police are going to be here, this close to the cabin, sniffing around, and I know you're not so stupid as to think they won't find something if they go looking."
"But the girl won't go to the police because of who she is, and what she is, and she's gotta tell the driver not to say anything—and if it does go through to the police …" Eddie hesitated, and then said, "well, you know."
Eddie gestured at Morales with a look that said, I know, and I'm pretty sure you know that I know, but I'm going to stop short of saying it.
"She ain't gotta do nothing,'" Morales said
, mimicking Eddie's accent, "and the bus driver could do anything he wants, as soon as that girl gets off his bus. And you can bet your best button, my friend Eddie, that the bus driver will not be taking the blame for getting his bus all shot up."
"This is Chicago, man, stuff happens all the time."
"I don't care what this is, besides the fact that this is my operation and we draw no attention to ourselves. Absolutely no attention, and that means we don't go shooting up buses."
Eddie opened his mouth to say something more, but thought better of it and stayed quiet. He looked at his shoes again and shivered. The adrenaline from the chase in the woods was wearing off, and the cold was setting in.
"I'm sorry," Eddie finally said. He looked up at Morales like a puppy dog, his head still bowed, but his wide eyes seeking approval. It warmed Morales' heart to see Eddie looking like a penitent child. Eddie was finally learning that to be a part of this organization meant no mistakes.
"Good," Morales said, "apology accepted."
He raised his Desert Eagle and pulled the trigger once. There was a soft, high-pitched whir as the bullet passed through the silencer, and then a thump as it struck Eddie in the chest. Eddie, that look of sincere contrition still in his eyes, spun around with the force of the shot, falling on his face in the snow.
Morales was struck by how quiet the night seemed, the snow falling silently from the dark sky. In his death, Eddie had finally learned.
"You still have the bags?" he asked Oskar, who'd barely batted an eye at his colleague's demise. The big man didn't say anything, but nodded and pulled a bundle from within his heavy coat. The bag had been intended for the girl's body, and it was a little shorter than Eddie's corpse, but it would do.
"Bag him up quick, before too much blood gets into the snow. No bodies, remember," Morales said. "No trace."
"No bodies," Oskar mumbled, and unzipped the bag.
Morales pulled his phone from an inside pocket of his coat and dialed a number. The connection took a few extra seconds because of the storm and their current location. The phone rang only twice, followed by a click as the operator on the other end of the call picked up.
The Snow Swept Trilogy Page 9