Chapter 1 #2
I angle away from the river corridor, pushing through a dense thicket of alder that tears at my jacket and catches on the pack straps.
Thorns rake across my cheek, drawing blood that I taste when it reaches my lips.
Copper and salt and fear. My breath comes in ragged gasps, too loud in my own ears, broadcasting my location to anyone close enough to hear.
A branch snaps somewhere to my left. Close. Too close.
I freeze behind a thick spruce trunk, pressing my back against rough bark, trying to quiet my breathing even as my lungs scream for air.
Through the trees I catch movement. A man in tactical gear, rifle held ready, moving with the kind of careful deliberation that speaks of training and experience.
He's scanning the forest floor, reading signs I didn't know I was leaving.
He stops less than twenty yards away. Listening.
My heart hammers so hard I'm certain he can hear it.
The SD card in my pocket feels like it weighs a thousand pounds, evidence that could save those women or get me killed.
The man's head turns slowly, methodically covering every angle, and for one horrible moment his gaze sweeps right past my hiding place.
I don't breathe. Don't move. Don't exist.
He keys his radio. "Lost the trail at the thicket. She doubled back or went to ground."
"Keep moving. She can't have gone far."
The response crackles through, cold and certain, and the man moves on. East, away from me. But there are others. I heard at least four distinct voices, maybe more. They're spreading out, creating a net that will tighten until there's nowhere left to run.
I give him thirty seconds, counting heartbeats because my hands are shaking too badly to check my watch.
Then I move again, quieter now, trying to place my feet carefully despite the terror screaming at me to run flat out.
The forest opens into a rocky slope, loose scree and granite outcrops that make for treacherous footing but harder tracking.
I take it, boots sliding on loose stone, using my hands to steady myself when the angle gets too steep.
Pain shoots through my ankle when it rolls on unstable ground, sharp enough to make me gasp.
Not broken. Not sprained. Just tweaked enough to make every step after that one pulse with warning.
I ignore it. Push through it. Because stopping means dying and I'm not ready to die for seeing something I was never meant to see.
I've spent years studying how predators hunt.
The coordination. The strategy. The inevitable conclusion when prey makes a wrong turn or tires too soon.
Now I'm learning what the elk feels when wolves close in.
What the rabbit knows when the hawk's shadow crosses the ground.
The knowledge is visceral and immediate and utterly useless for changing the outcome.
My foot catches on a hidden root concealed beneath dead leaves and I go down hard, hands and knees slamming into unforgiving earth.
The impact drives air from my lungs and sends bright sparks of pain through my kneecaps.
For a moment I just kneel there, gasping, tasting blood from where I bit my tongue on impact.
My palms are scraped raw, embedded with dirt and small stones.
Everything hurts. Everything screams at me to stop, to rest, to give up because this is impossible.
But I hear them behind me. Closer than before. Converging.
I force myself up. Blood wells from my scraped palms but I barely register it, too focused on the sounds of pursuit. Boots on stone. Radio chatter. The mechanical efficiency of trained men working together to bring down prey that's already wounded and slowing.
I burst through the treeline into an unexpected clearing and my breath catches.
An airstrip materializes like salvation, crude but functional, carved from wilderness by someone who needed a place to land where official eyes wouldn't follow.
A small plane sits at the far end, single engine already running, propellers spinning in preparation for takeoff.
Hope flares in my chest, desperate and blinding.
Someone is here. Someone with a plane. Someone who can get me out, get the evidence out, get help for those women whose terror is burned into my memory.
I'm running toward it before logic can intervene, before I can question why there's a plane here at all or who might be piloting it.
The questions don't matter. Only escape.
My injured ankle screams with every stride, threatening to buckle, but I push through it.
The pack bounces violently against my shoulders.
Blood from my scraped palms smears the straps where I grip them for stability.
Everything hurts but none of it matters because that plane is my only chance and it's already moving.
The man in the cockpit turns at my approach, and even from this distance I can see how he assesses me.
Dark hair cut military-short, sharp features that might be handsome if they held any warmth at all, eyes that scan the treeline behind me with professional detachment.
He doesn't wave. Doesn't call out. Doesn't show any sign of welcome or concern.
Doesn't slow the plane's taxi toward takeoff position.
He sees me and dismisses me in the same glance.
"Wait!" My voice cracks, desperation stripping away any pretense of composure. "Please, wait!"
The plane doesn't slow. It accelerates, wheels bumping over uneven ground as it angles toward the runway. He's leaving. Actually leaving. I've gone from hunted to abandoned in heartbeats, and the unfairness of it mingles with terror to create a fury that drowns out exhaustion.
I push harder, legs screaming protest, lungs raw with cold air and exertion. Behind me, voices erupt from the treeline, shouts of discovery and pursuit. They've found me. They've seen me. And they're not giving up.
The door is right there, metal gleaming in morning light, close enough to touch if I can just reach it.
My fingers find the handle as the first shot cracks through the air, loud enough to make my ears ring and my body flinch instinctively.
Another shot follows immediately, close enough that I feel the air displacement as the bullet passes.
Instinct makes me duck but I don't let go of the handle, can't let go, because this is my only chance and I'm not dying here in the dirt with evidence in my pocket and those women's faces burned into my memory.
His eyes meet mine through the cockpit window.
Ice-blue and flat. Not warm. Not welcoming.
Assessing me like a problem he doesn't want, a complication that will cost him more than he's willing to pay.
For a frozen moment I think he'll shake me off, let me fall away as the plane gains speed, leave me to whatever fate waits in the hands of the men with guns.
I've seen that calculation before in predators deciding whether prey is worth the effort of the kill.
"In. Now."
His voice cuts through the engine noise and my panic with equal efficiency, cold command that allows no argument. The door beside me swings open, and I'm hauling myself up even as another bullet pings off metal somewhere behind me, the sharp ring of impact vibrating through the airframe.
My arms burn with effort as I drag myself into the plane's cabin.
Physics becomes enemy, gravity pulling me down while forward momentum tries to throw me off.
The plane is accelerating, already moving too fast for this to be safe or easy.
My boots scrabble for purchase on the doorframe, fingers aching where they grip the handle with a desperation that whites out every other sensation.
The pack catches on the door latch and for a horrible second I think I'll be stuck, half in and half out, an easy target pinned against metal while men with rifles close the distance and take their time with their aim.
I can hear them shouting now, coordinating, voices sharp with the frustration of prey that's about to escape.
Then the strap tears free with a sound like ripping fabric and I'm tumbling into the cabin of the plane, landing hard on the floor between seats with an impact that drives air from my lungs and sends fresh pain through already bruised ribs.
The door slams shut. Someone's hand on it.
His hand. Then he's back in the pilot's seat and we're accelerating hard enough to press me against the floor, unable to rise.
The plane lurches, acceleration pressing me backward. Through the window I catch glimpses of men running from the treeline, weapons raised, faces twisted with fury. One more shot rings out, then another, but we're moving too fast now, lifting, separating from earth and danger.
I'm gasping on the floor of a stranger's plane, hands still bleeding from my fall in the forest, heart trying to beat its way out of my chest. The SD card in my pocket feels heavier than it should.
Evidence and death warrant both. And the man in the pilot's seat hasn't looked back, hasn't acknowledged my presence beyond that single brutal command.
Hasn't asked if I'm hurt or why I was running or what the hell just happened back there.
His hands are steady on the controls as we climb, utterly calm while I'm still shaking with adrenaline and terror.
Those ice-blue eyes scan the instruments with the same flat assessment he gave me on the ground, and I realize with creeping dread that I don't know if I've been saved or simply caught by a different kind of predator.
Below us, the wilderness recedes into a patchwork of green and white, the research cabin I called home for months becoming just another speck in the vast Alaskan interior.
Behind us, armed men fade into the treeline, swallowed by the same forest that nearly swallowed me.
And ahead lies only sky and the unknown intentions of the man who told me to get in his plane but hasn't asked a single question about why I was running or what I'm running from.
I've traded one danger for another, swapped armed men in the forest for this stranger at the controls. The men with guns wanted me dead. This pilot looked at me like unwanted cargo that might cost more than it's worth.
He still hasn't asked my name. Hasn't asked why they were shooting at me or what I'm running from.
His silence feels like a predator deciding whether to devour me now or save me for later.
And I'm trapped in a metal box at several thousand feet with a man who flies into wilderness airstrips for reasons I'm terrified to discover.