Chapter 53
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
ALENA
“Prosnut'sya. Prosnut'sya.”
A gentle pleading voice awakens me with a soft touch caressing my pounding forehead. My eyelids crack open to darkness and a lithe silhouette kneeling beside me. “Wake.” She speaks English. “Please. Wake.”
It takes me a minute or ten to crawl back to consciousness. “Where… where am I?”
“Shhh.” A slender finger presses my lips. “Quiet, Alena.”
My name, in a feminine Russian accent, sings of its origin. It’s beautiful. It’s…
“Sasha?” I whisper, trying to focus in the darkness, to move on what feels like a mattress. But, shit, I twist. My wrists are bound in front of me.
“Yes. Shhh. Please.” She kneels by my right side.
I glance left, and the light illuminating her nude skin is streaming in from the moon outside a window. An RV window. The words EMERGENCY EXIT clear and our hope.
She sees my excitement and whispers, “No escape.”
I turn, looking up at her. “Where is he? Sheremetev?”
With her finger to her lips, she whispers with a nod over her shoulder. “Vodka. Sleep. Shhh.”
“Can you…” I whisper too quietly, I fear. “Can you understand me? English?”
“Little,” she whispers back.
A little is all we need.
Using my strength, I pull myself up, sitting as my brain dive-bombs with whatever the hell Sheremetev drugged me with.
The last I remember, we had a crash victim strapped to a backboard, carrying her up the steep riverbank, bodies jostling, orders barked over the rescue chopper’s blades.
It was controlled chaos as I felt someone bump into me, then a sting, before I was suddenly dizzy, and the EMT’s face was a blur, leading me to… Where?
Where was I taken?
Where are we?
Oh my god, Loch.
I know he’s searching for us. Dad. Axel. All the kings and queens. Every bone in my body knows they will break a million to find us. But it doesn’t help if we’re a hundred miles away in the middle of nowhere.
And there’s a drunk predator outside a thin door with God only knows what sadistic plans for us.
“Sasha.” I point to the window. “Where?”
She shakes her head, her long, dark waves swaying. “Mountain.”
I kneel, demanding my eyes to focus, peering out of the window, and thanking Fate for the full moonlight. It glows over the white, peeling bark of a rare, mountain paper birch tree, feet away.
Like I don’t know my forest and my trees. Those grow only at high elevations, usually around rocky formations, mostly in Pisgah.
We didn’t go far.
“Escape,” I tell her as I glance down at the zip ties on my wrist.
Amateur. I smile. Dad taught me how to bust out of these years ago.
Using my teeth, I move the lock to the middle of my hands before I raise them high, and pull hard, yanking them down over my hips, snapping the plastic free.
Sasha’s eyes go wide, impressed.
I scan her body. The only thing she’s wearing is my mom’s bracelet gleaming on her wrist like a good omen. Sasha’s not bound, and I’m still in my uniform.
Snapping my shirt off, I hand it to her. One layer is better than none in the winter. “Dress,” I whisper as I turn to study the window.
These emergency ones at the back of campers, notoriously, ironically, get stuck. Not what you need in a fire, but if you kick it hard enough, it’s designed for escape.
I take Sasha’s hands to get her attention. “I kick.” I point to the window. “We jump.” I nod. “We run.”
But fear breaks her aqua eyes. Eyes matching Loch’s and almost making mine cry.
Sasha’s been held captive for so long, endured so much, the chains on her mind imprison her more than another promise of escape. I can’t imagine what Sheremetev did to her for the last one.
“Where?” She doubts the plan.
I swallow, knowing the power of these words. “Sasha’s mother. Your mother.”
How I have nightmares missing mine. How I’d crawl through hell’s fire to reunite with her. But she’s shining above, illuminating our escape.
“Mother?” Tears fill Sasha’s eyes.
“Yes.” I squeeze her hands. “And brothers. Sisters.” She’ll learn later about the queens.
She blinks, not believing for a moment. Hope has been such a risk for her. But then, she nods, lifting her chin. “Da. Mama.”
God, she looks so much like Nadine.
I see it now.
“Okay,” I tell her. “We. Fast.”
Pivoting, I lift the window’s red handles, thankful for my big, booted feet, my curvy, muscular legs, and all the power in my cake—Vale would be so proud. I use it to kick the window open.
It crashes to the ground while I scurry, jumping out, glad to be so tall. It’s not a long drop before I turn and urge Sasha, “Jump!”
A commotion bangs behind her. Scared, she glances over her shoulder, hesitating.
“Sasha! Your mama!” I beckon, arms up. “Jump!”
The word turns her back to me, trusting, believing. She leaps into my arms as I brace, catching her. She’s barefoot, but I’m strong and trained to rescue. Turning around, I crouch, pointing to my back. “On!”
She hops on my back just as a slurring voice barks, “Idi syuda, shlyukha! Idi syuda!”
I don’t know Russian, but I know a threat. And I know which way to run from it—south, down the mountain.
Running into the woods, Sasha hangs on to my back while I search the bark of a hemlock tree for moss. It grows on its north side, so I turn in the opposite direction.
Three gunshots blast through the night. It makes Sasha yelp, and my feet race faster than I’ve ever run. Guided by moonlight and Fate herself.
Minutes, an hour, I run, slicing through branches ripping at my skin, until we reach a clearing, and I look up, catching the looming silhouette of the ancient rock formation.
The Devil’s Courthouse.
I know exactly where we are.
Thirty miles from my cabin. Over rugged terrain, cliffs, and waterfalls. We won’t make it in the dark, under cover, and on foot. It’s too dangerous. So, I take a calculated risk.
Lowering Sasha to the ground, she shivers while I sweat. “Shh,” I tell her while I close my eyes and listen to the forest.
Over the whooshing of cold wind through trees, in a lull between gusts, is an occasional soft, synthetic hum. Engines around ancient mountains.
The Blue Ridge Parkway.
I turn in its direction. “Come.” I beckon Sasha to my back again.
“No.” She points at my sweating neck. “I walk.”
“Feet.” I point at hers. “Rocks. Snakes.” I hiss, making my point and shaking my head. “No.” I bend down for her. “Back.”
One day, I’ll tell her how her beastly twin is scared of snakes. How he squeals at the sight of them, and we’ll sit with their mom and have a good laugh.
But for now. “Please,” I beg her. And unlike her stubborn brothers, she listens.
It’s a rugged half-mile hike from the Devil’s Courthouse to the famous parkway. Easily, I find the trail. I know it, but once we’re by the roadside, I fear we’ll be too easily spotted if Sheremetev or one of his soldiers is combing the road, looking for us.
It’s a matter of time.
So, I hike outside the guardrail to the high roadway, ready to hide us in the sloping woods when a car approaches. It’s treacherous, but our only choice.
I walk for miles, and exhaustion starts to hit me. My lips are parched. Muscles aching. Feet throbbing. I’m only wearing a bra, pants, and boots, shivering in the cold. Just like Sasha. We’re pressed together, and fighting to stay warm.
In the distance, I see the headlights first. Then hear the car’s engine winding up the roadway. Darting into the canopy, I almost lose my footing, sliding down the steep, wooded ridge, plunging to our death.
Sasha screams, but I growl, “Not tonight, Satan,” grabbing a tree root as a lone, black SUV slowly crawls by.
Was that Sheremetev? Are we sitting ducks out here? What’s worse? The Bratva, or the bears hunting for us?
It’s moments like this that I want to give up.
“Fall seven times, Alena, and stand up eight.”
Mom’s words steel me.
Scrambling back to the edge of the road, I rise, jostling Sasha on my back.
Get to Loch. Get to Loch.
It’s my mandate for another mile before I hear more engines approaching. Tensing, I turn to hide us in the woods again, but then…
I’d know the throaty roar of that Ram truck’s V8 engine anywhere. It rumbles, nearing with the pipes of a Harley, winding around the bend.
Loch.
I’m crying relieved tears from my coronary, conniption, and a cunt attack all at the same time as I carry Sasha and trudge into the middle of the road.