Chapter 12
A nia didn’t know how long she and Sanders had marched in the darkness. “How do we know if we’re going in the right direction?” she asked out loud for the umpteenth time.
He just squeezed her fingers and urged her forward.
She hated to say she was getting damn tired, but the truth was, she was getting damn tired. She wasn’t sure how much farther she could go in the darkness like this. Yet she also knew she could go as long as she needed to because the alternative was to give up and to become a part of her father’s twisted world once again. She was not prepared to do that.
When Sanders finally came to a stop, she bumped into him, only to have him grab her and whisper, “ Shh .”
Immediately her senses came alive, as she looked around to see what had caused him to stop, and right there in front of them was a farmhouse, but it looked deserted. Or did it? She wasn’t sure which this one would be. She didn’t want anybody to get hurt or to get a jump on them. Yet they needed to get out of here, before they were caught.
As she watched, a vehicle drove up in the darkness and parked alongside the farmhouse in the driveway. Nobody from the house came out, and the driver of the vehicle didn’t move. “Crap,” she murmured. “I presume he’s there for us.”
“That would be my take on it,” Sanders agreed softly. “I’m not getting any message, no indication that it’s Riff, so presumably it’s somebody else.” Sanders held her back, gently pulling her farther into the shadows. “It could be him, or he might not be aware that we’re already here,” he murmured.
“But he would say something to us,” she noted, her tone strong with conviction.
He smiled at her. “Riff probably would.”
“Absolutely he would,” she muttered, sliding farther back into the shadows yet again. “Regardless I don’t trust it.”
“Okay, good enough. Let’s go up to the next farm then.” She started shivering again. He wrapped an arm around her and asked, “Do you want my coat?”
“No,” she said, staring at the vehicle. “I want him to go away and to leave us the car.” Sanders almost chuckled at that, and she smiled up at him. “I sound like a two-year-old.”
“Not at all. You sound like a woman who’s been taken to the edge of her endurance and is being held there with no release in sight. But we’re working on it, I promise.”
“Seems that we’ve been working on it for a very long time now,” she murmured, as she gave herself a headshake. “There I go with the pouty two-year-old routine again, and I’m really not, so let’s just go. If it won’t work at this house, we’ll go on up to the next one. But wait.… What’s to stop him from coming up to the next one too?”
“I imagine he will go from here to the next one,” he admitted honestly. “If I were hunting somebody, that’s what I would do. I would have a man at each spot where they could be found. And one of your father’s goons already told us that others are out there. So, we can either stay here and wait for him to leave, or go on to the next house to warm up. We just need to watch out for other men.”
“I really don’t want to go inside,” she replied. “What if innocent people are in there?”
“Maybe there are, and maybe they would welcome a guest or three,” he whispered, “but also there’s a chance that the house is completely empty.”
“I wonder if we have any way to tell ahead of time,” she murmured, staring at it.
“You mean, like some sonar reading to see if anybody’s in there, like a heat signature? That would be cool gift too.”
“I don’t know.” She raised her hands in frustration. “But, if nobody is there, we could go in and rest for a bit.”
“Yet if somebody is already looking for us and has stopped here, what’s to stop others from coming too?”
“Oh, damn, you’re right,” she murmured. “Let’s keep going.”
Just then his phone vibrated. He pulled it out, read the text. “It’s Riff, asking where we are.”
“It’s him, over in that car?” she asked excitedly, turning back to look at it.
“No, I don’t think it is.” And, rather than texting back, Sanders called Riff quickly. She listened with half an ear, as she watched the vehicle in front of her. It was obvious that it wasn’t Riff, as the conversation developed a little further.
“He’s one house up,” Sanders noted, when he put away his phone. “He’s looking for us, and we’re to keep going along this fence line.”
“Good enough.” She suddenly wanted to get as far away from that vehicle as she could. “I don’t like anything about the way it’s just sitting there, almost as if it’s waiting for us.”
“He was probably hoping we would make that mistake,” he murmured. “But come on, let’s go.” Then he quickly pulled her back into the shadows.
Moving swiftly in the darkness, with Sanders half carrying her, they came out of the brush at the next property, with her gasping for air.
“Sorry, but I wanted to ensure that we got away from that vehicle and hopefully find Riff, all before the vehicle got here to check out this location.”
“Sanders, we can’t outrun cars,” she muttered in frustration.
“Wasn’t planning on it,” he murmured, as he pointed up ahead. “I would say that’s Riff.”
“Yeah, but how do we know for sure? Just because it’s a vehicle at the second house, for all we know they have put several people in various different locations.”
“You’re right about that. Give me a minute. I’m calling him.” He quickly phoned, and Riff answered almost instantly. “We’re looking at a vehicle right now, but we can’t tell if it’s you or not.”
“Flashing my lights for you,” he replied calmly, and just then the vehicle in front of them flashed.
“Oh, thank God,” she whispered, as they moved swiftly toward him. Just as they got there, another vehicle—hidden around the side of an outbuilding—turned on its lights and raced toward them.
“Shit,” she said, bolting for Riff’s car. They were inside and on the road within seconds, but the other vehicle was right on their tail. “That didn’t go so well,” she cried out, turning to look at the vehicle behind her. “I see just one man, the driver, and I bet he’s pissed. Yet he was probably almost gleeful as he chased them. He’s having way too much fun,” she muttered.
“We followed a logical course of action, and that’s the problem,” Riff noted. “We needed to get you across the border, and, in that, we have succeeded.”
She twisted and looked at him. “Seriously?”
“Yes, you are no longer in Estonia.”
“Wow, who knew. Yet he’s not acting like it’s making a bit of difference to him.”
“No, he isn’t, which is also a bit of a concern because it should, unless he’s been authorized by your father to take action on this side of the boundary as well.”
“I would think so,” she muttered, scrubbing her face. “My father has a very long reach.”
“I’m sure he does, but, as it turns out, so do we,” Riff added, with quiet encouragement. “Besides, we can lose this guy.”
“And then what?” she asked. “Lose the next one and another one, then another one after that?”
“Unless you can convince them not to follow us or to find a way to stop them from coming after us, that’s quite possibly the immediate future we have to look at,” Riff admitted. “Once we get you over to Terk’s place, you’ll be much safer. But I can’t guarantee that you’ll be safe forever.”
“No, nobody can do that.” She sat back and sent another message to the man who had been tracking them. Well, what did you decide?
The voice in her head was angry. You shouldn’t have put thoughts like that in my head , he cried out.
It just depends on if you want to be the hero in this instance.
He hesitated.
You know you can do it. If you tell my father that you had contact with me, that you checked me out, and that absolutely no energy came from my system, I’m sure he would believe you. Particularly since we’re leaving for good.
But if I brought you back in and if we captured Sanders again, I’m sure I would end up being the one in charge anyway .
Maybe, but for how long? You know what he wants from me, and, if I give it to him, you know full well you’ll be nothing but second fiddle to somebody else, just a footnote in his life, as he works with me instead.
He gave a scream of outrage.
See? You know I’m right , she declared, brutally pushing home the point. All you have to do is tell my father that I don’t have that energy anymore. That I don’t have that ability .
And yet apparently you do because look at you. You’ve contacted me again , he wailed, his voice barely containing what she could only assume was fury.
Maybe , she agreed, or maybe you could explain that by saying how you tracked my failing energy in order to try and find us, but you don’t have to tell him that I contacted you , she explained. You can make it sound like you’re the one who made the contact. I’m just trying to help you out because, if I get brought in,… I’ll let him know that you’re completely useless and that I can do a much better job .
He swore.
And you know I can , she said. And I’ve just proven it. However, I don’t want anything to do with my father or this life of his. That is your deal, if you want it. It’s not for me .
Yet it could be , he murmured. You know that it could be, and you could become his favorite .
I should have been his favorite anyway just because I’m his daughter. I should have been his favorite family member , Ania said bitterly. Not his famous trick pony. That is something I don’t need or want. You are welcome to have that coveted position . When he hesitated, she continued. Think about it. It could be the only way to save your skin, as we escape .
You won’t escape , he declared.
She had to wonder what that was about. If you need to, use it to save your own skin. This isn’t worth dying over .
Not everybody has a choice about leaving .
For the first time, she heard that note of consideration in his tone. No. But I am leaving, and I’m determined to survive. I don’t want to take anybody else with us in terms of hurting them , she pointed out. That’s not what we’re about. I just want my peace and quiet. I want a chance to live without being a prisoner , she murmured. In your case you have a chance now to be somebody. You might as well take it. You might as well soften your position and do something to make your life a little easier.
What if your father finds out? He will know that I did something.
How? You just tell him right now that the drugs must have damaged me, and it looks like I’ve lost whatever abilities I might have had. Then you can tell him how you checked on me a couple times down the road and still found nothing.
I wonder , he murmured.
You and I both know that the time to do this is now. Just send him a message and tell him that you’ve been trying to track us, but you’re not getting anything from me or Sanders anymore. As if the drugs have finally worn off, taking our supposed abilities with it, and nothing you can do about it. And that’s what you need to understand. There isn’t anything you can do about it, and this won’t end well. I’ll do whatever it takes to survive and not be his pawn for the rest of my life. Whatever it takes.
And, with that, she once again cut the connection and sagged back, tired and worn out. She called out to the front seat, “Damn, I’m exhausted. Is it supposed to do that?”
“Do what?” Riff asked.
She quickly explained what she’d just done.
Riff stared at her through the rearview mirror. “There are techniques you can learn,” he told her. “The energy is all around you. It’s a matter of understanding how to utilize it better, so it doesn’t drain you. The fact that you’re doing what you’re doing is awesome. Just don’t overexert yourself, so definitely stop doing it now,” he suggested, with a laugh. “We’ll need every bit of strength we can muster just to get out of here.”
“And we still have somebody behind us.”
“Yep, but not for long.” As he quickly pulled onto a main highway, the early morning traffic was just picking up, and commuters were all around them. By quickly changing lanes and cutting through traffic, Riff had already managed to put several vehicles between them.
She turned around a little bit later and asked, “Did you lose him?”
“I think so,” Riff replied, a quiet note of satisfaction in his tone. “I definitely think so.”
She laughed. “And, if not, you’re bound and determined that he won’t come back again, aren’t you?”
“Hey, we don’t want to see him again,” he muttered. “We don’t want to see any of them again, to be honest.”
“No, I sure don’t.” She twisted around once again to have a look. “I really don’t see him back there anymore.”
“Good, because we have a long drive ahead of us.”
“ Great . That airplane sure would have been nice.”
“It would have, but we have to ensure that we’re free and clear before we take anybody else into a dangerous situation,” he stated calmly. “So, sit back and relax, and, with any luck, we’ll be out of this in no time.”
Splat!
That was all they heard, as the vehicle’s back window shattered all over Ania.