12. Jack ‘J’
12
JACK ‘J’
J hears the noise before it turns into an immediate threat.
He’s in the middle of changing his shirt when he hears the creature approach from behind the tent, grunting and pacing through the trees, caught out in the storm much like he was with Sara.
If only she’d stayed in the tent for another five minutes, they could have continued to wait out the storm without incident, tolerating each other from separate corners. But J had quickly realized that nothing was simple where this girl was concerned. After all, she’d managed to fall off two cliffs in a five-minute window, an almost impossible ratio.
He hears her scream, hears the animal stamp its foot, and, when he unzips the tent and sticks his head into the elements, he sees why.
Sara’s having a face-off with the largest moose he’s ever seen out on these trails.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” he says, groaning and wondering why the hell she’s still standing there when the animal’s stomping its hooves and generally displaying every sign that it’s about to charge. Yet Sara remains frozen to the spot, probably scared out of her mind. Unfortunately, the moose doesn’t speak human; all it knows is that it’s being challenged to a duel by a tiny person who won’t back down.
“Move Sara!” J yells from the tent, pointing into the dark. “Get to the trees.”
She could run a few paces to the left and be out of the line of danger in seconds.
She doesn’t even flinch however, because she’s not listening. Rooted to the spot by fear and inexperience.
The animal performs a final warning stomp before J has to take matters into his own hands. The moose grunts, smacking its lips together and snorting before charging her at full speed.
“Ah fuck.” With only seconds to react before this girl is mowed down by fifteen hundred pounds of brute force—a tackle from a linebacker would be less catastrophic—J leaps from the tent.
The sound of Sara screaming could shatter glass.
“Jack! It’s going to kill me! I’m going to die!”
Barefoot and shirtless, he sprints across the wet earth, barreling into the night to reach her just as the beast is about to make contact with her tiny frame. He wraps a strong arm around her waist, crushing her to his chest and breathing a relieved, “I got you” into her hair. He dives out of the way just in time, tumbling to the forest floor, taking Sara with him. Her fingers sink into his arms as they roll toward the safety of the nearest tree.
“I got you.” The words slip out again as he feels the danger slip away.
It’s the danger that gives him the adrenaline rush. It’s the thing he craves most in the world, the thing he can never get quite enough of. That feeling of risk.
It’s only after the moose stalks off into the distance and Sara lies on top of his chest, her rushed breaths hot on his cheeks and her wet hair dripping onto his face, that he allows a stray thought to enter his mind.
The storm, the radio dead zones, the animals on the trail , the whole hiking expedition. Each one, time and again, gave him that desired rush, there was no doubt about it.
Somehow, it all felt heightened tonight, like a surge in a fuse box, a charged battery, an engine ready to rip up a track.
Tonight, the energy around him vibrated at a different frequency. Like he’s finally getting something he’d sought from the trails but never quite received. A different type of adrenaline rush altogether.
He puts it down to the storm, he hasn’t been in one this bad for years. Yes. Probably just the storm.
Yet when he feels Sara’s fingers bite into his biceps, thrill shocking through his entire body, he knows the adrenaline pumping through his system has very little to do with mother nature.