Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 130955 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 655(@200wpm)___ 524(@250wpm)___ 437(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 130955 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 655(@200wpm)___ 524(@250wpm)___ 437(@300wpm)
“Walking around at night, intoxicated, with a loaded rifle? You could kill someone,” he said in Polish, but his speech betrayed him as someone raised beyond the border with Ukraine.
Radek stared up at him, desperate to de-escalate, and spoke as soon as the hold around his neck lessened. “I was just hunting a wolf. And I… I won’t tell anyone about the weed. I smoke myself. I’m a supporter of legalization!” But his Adam’s apple bobbed in panic under the massive paw of a hand.
“What weed?” the man asked, and his hand flexed against Radek’s throat, as if he were trying to make a point.
Radek was a hundred percent certain he could smell it all over the hut. “The… I mean… Maybe I’m just smelling it on myself.” He dared to smile.
“Yev?” the naked man started
The stranger holding Radek still pulled him out of the shed, into the light, where his face was finally revealed. The black hair brushing the man’s shoulders wasn’t enough to soften his somber features. His nose was somewhat flat and severe, his chin—pronounced and, like his cheeks, covered by a dark stubble. He was tall, strong enough to move Radek like a mannequin, and if he chose to break Radek’s neck, there would be more than enough places in the woods to hide a body so it would never be found.
“I’m the forest ranger here, and you broke the law,” Yev said sternly.
Radek stared at him, dumbfounded. “Say what?” He glanced back at the darkness inside, but the naked man didn’t follow them into the snow.
“You heard me. Do you have any documents on you?” Yev asked, still holding on to Radek’s arm, and the strength of his grip made Radek unwilling to struggle.
“N-no.” Radek glanced down his bare chest, which now felt painfully cold. “But I’m Radek Nowak, and I live in Dybukowo. I’m local. And a member of the Hunting Association.” The paperwork should be somewhere at home. Then again, his dad had been the one to pay for both their memberships, and he died two years back, so maybe Radek’s permit was out of date?
“You pointed the rifle at a person. The wolf is a protected species, and you’re drunk,” Yev said, dragging Radek along the shallow ravine, away from the dark little shed and the naked Ukrainian man.
“B-but it’s my birthday.” It wasn’t, but he’d try anything to slip out of this one. The earlier adrenaline was fading away, and he could feel the cold nipping at his skin.
And now, a complete stranger, who claimed to be a forest ranger despite obviously being a foreign drug smuggler, was dragging him farther away from the safety of his cabin, and the friends who’d let him go into the woods on his own.
Emil would have stopped him. Or gone with him, if Radek couldn’t be stopped.
“Shut up. I’m taking you to the police station. They’ll know what to do with you,” Yev said with more conviction as they passed through dense evergreens.
“What? The police? You cannot be serious! How would you even prove what I did or didn’t do, huh?” Radek tried pulling away, but it was like struggling with a bear. It infuriated him that he was so much weaker than this guy, and the hours spent on the treadmill now seemed like a waste of time. He should have done weight-lifting with Jan.
At least he wasn’t about to get killed over the supposed forest ranger’s little side business, or it would have already happened.
Yev sighed and pulled Radek through a row of juniper bushes, onto a narrow road entirely filled by the breadth of an old pickup truck in some dull green-brown color. “I’ll give them a statement. And that firearm surely has your fingerprints all over.”
This wasn’t going Radek’s way at all. He needed to think on his feet, and fast. “Ooor… we could forget all about it, and you could come over to my party? Lots of young, friendly single women there. I could introduce you as the man who saved me from a wolf. Let’s say you strangled it with your bare hands. Or would that be too much?”
Yev grumbled, dragged Radek to the passenger's side of the vehicle, and tossed him inside. “I’m not looking for a woman.”
“Dude, please, don’t be like this.” Radek slid right back out, but his foot slipped, and he landed in the snow. “Are you saying…? I mean no disrespect, but would you rather be introduced to a guy?” Radek glanced up at Yev in a whole new way when that idea wormed its way into his brain as he rolled to his knees. If Yev swung that way, they could definitely work something out.
The man stilled, and with that table turned, Radek took in his sturdy form, his muscular legs and broad shoulders hidden under a thick jacket, the somber features and bright eyes.