Total pages in book: 98
Estimated words: 90769 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 454(@200wpm)___ 363(@250wpm)___ 303(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90769 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 454(@200wpm)___ 363(@250wpm)___ 303(@300wpm)
He lifted me aboard the helicopter. The three guards backed away from Cal, then they boarded too and the door slid closed. The rotors started to turn, kicking up loose grass and whipping the flames from the cabin sideways. My stomach lurched as we rose into the sky. The last thing I saw was Alik pushing Cal to his knees and moving to stand behind him, ready to execute him as soon as the cabin was just a ruin. Cal looked at me, agony in his eyes. I’m sorry.
No! I thought desperately, no, it isn’t your fault! That was the worst part: I knew Cal and I knew his dying thought would be that he’d failed to protect me.
Then blackness descended and there was nothing.
59
Cal
THE SUN WAS RISING behind me, pushing back the darkness inch by inch. As it crept past me, it mixed with the false dawn in front of me, a roaring orange glow that had consumed the cabin and was slowly dying down, becoming a crackling scarlet fire among the blackened timbers. As I watched, the last of the roof beams collapsed inwards, taking some of the south wall with it.
I knew I should be feeling something. It had taken me a full year to build the place and outfit it. Months of chopping down trees, sanding wood and sealing cracks. More back-breaking trips to Marten Valley for supplies than I could count. Now, it was a ruin.
But I didn’t care. Because the second she’d left, it had stopped being a home and had gone back to being a house, and now I knew how empty that was. She was gone. I’d failed her.
“It is done,” said Alik. I heard him step back from me. Imagined him raising the gun.
“Don’t shoot my dog,” I said.
He hesitated. Then, “Have to.”
“Ralavich isn’t here,” I told him. “He’ll never know.”
Alik gave a bitter laugh. “You don’t know Ralavich. When I come back, he will ask helicopter pilot if he saw dog’s body.”
“Please,” I pressed. I wasn’t ashamed to beg. Not when it came to Rufus.
Another pause. “I make it quick,” Alik promised.
I closed my eyes. I’d lost both of them. The one companion I’d had for the last six years and the one woman who’d given me hope again. I felt like my heart had been ripped right out of me.
There was a sound, off to my left, barely perceptible. I only picked up on it because I’d spent so many years in these woods, waiting and listening. I knew the background creak of branches and rustle of leaves, I knew the birdsong and the chatter of the squirrels and chipmunks. And this sound didn’t belong. It was the sound of threads ripping.
I let my head hang a little lower, as if I was sagging in defeat, opened my eyes, and looked to my left. Through the trees, I saw tan and black fur. Rufus!
He must have fled to the trees when all the hunters came back to the smallholding. But he hadn’t left without his blanket, which he was dragging determinedly through the undergrowth in his teeth. Except it had gotten caught on some brambles and it was tearing as he pulled at it.
Rufus glanced to the side and saw me. The shirt dropped from his mouth.
Behind me, Alik racked the bolt on his assault rifle, putting one in the chamber.
Rufus shot forward, four powerful legs clawing at the ground.
The barrel of the gun pressed against the back of my head. “You want that I tell her anything?” asked Alik.
Rufus hurtled towards us. His paws barely seemed to touch the ground, now.
“Yeah,” I said. “Tell her to remind me to buy dog treats.”
At the last second, Alik heard Rufus approaching and spun to face him. But by that point, Rufus had leaped and Alik got eighty pounds of dog straight to the chest. He went down with Rufus on top of him, which both made him lose the assault rifle and knocked any remaining wind out of him.
My hands were still tied so getting to my feet wasn’t the easiest, but I struggled upright and kicked the assault rifle out of range of Alik’s hands. Then I squatted down, reached behind me and pulled the military-style knife from Alik’s belt, and used it to saw through the rope binding my hands.
Alik coughed, wheezed, and tried to struggle free. Rufus lowered his head and growled, his teeth an inch from Alik’s throat, and Alik reluctantly went limp.
“Good boy,” I said, ruffling Rufus’s fur. “Very good boy.”
There was a crash as part of the cabin’s wall collapsed. I glanced over at the ruins. Ralavich thought he’d destroyed my life but I hadn’t had a life here. I’d been surviving. Surviving isn’t living.
I felt the rage starting to build inside me. I’d had a shot at a real life, with someone so loving, so caring, she’d accepted me as I was. And Ralavich had taken her away.