Райан Уэстфилд - Finding Shelter

“She is,” said Sadie. “But she’s also kind. And forgiving.”

“Bullshit. I don’t believe that for a second.”

Sadie was shocked by the tone of the woman’s voice. It sounded harsh. Very harsh.

“What are you going to do with me, then?” said Sadie.

“I haven’t decided yet. Might be easier to get rid of the evidence. Terry’s been wrong plenty of times before.”

Get rid of the evidence?

Sadie knew what that meant.

“You can’t kill me,” she said. “I know you have a daughter my age. How would you feel if this happened to her?”

“That’s what I’m trying to stop from happening.”

“My mom would never do anything like that…”

“That’s what you think now. But you’re not an adult. When you’re an adult, you’ll understand. Sometimes you have to do terrible things. Even when you don’t want to.”

The woman was turning away from Sadie, and before her face fully turned, Sadie saw tears running slowly down her cheek. The tears caught the daylight in a strange way, seeming to sparkle.

Then the woman marched out, her footsteps heavy and hard. The door slammed behind her, and Sadie was left alone, with her head and jaw hurting, with her limbs hurting, with the horrible paint smell overwhelming her completely.

There wasn’t time to explain it. Good thing John knew her well enough to know that there was a method to her madness. He knew that if she told him they were doing it one way, there was a very good reason for it.

Now, Georgia herself didn’t know exactly what that reason was.

In fact, Georgia knew well enough, rationally, that shooting dead one of the men wouldn’t do them any favors.

Better to just run for it before shooting. Even if she and John both got off good shots, there were still six men standing. And probably more in the truck.

She was going off a hunch. A gut feeling. Instinct that had come from months of this kind of stuff. Her brain had become good at analyzing and dealing with these kinds of situations, the way that a concert cellist might slowly develop an innate sense for when to play loud and when to play softly.

Her mind was evolving. Becoming the mind of a warrior. Or at least someone who survived. Because, sometimes, staying to fight wasn’t going to lead to survival.

Georgia knew she was right. She knew her gut feeling was right. And maybe it was good that John would believe her right away, without explanation, because if she’d explained it, maybe he wouldn’t have wanted to risk his life based on a hunch.

It was a lot to ask of him.

But they were always asking a lot from one another.

He was already risking his life, trying to find Georgia’s daughter.

Georgia readied her rifle. The scope was against her eye, pressed against her face. It felt good. Familiar. She knew what she was doing.

Her finger was on the trigger.

The man’s head was in her scope.

Why were the men acting the way they were? It was strange behavior. Hadn’t they spotted them?

Georgia couldn’t worry about that now. She had to go with her gut on this one. There was too much information to process rationally.

Max would have had one approach. And Georgia had hers.

Neither was necessarily right.

The time was now.

Georgia squeezed the trigger.

The rifle kicked.

The man’s head exploded inwards. His body sunk to the ground, falling rapidly.

Georgia’s ears rang. She put the scope aside. Somehow, she knew it wasn’t going to work for a second one. She knew it intuitively, just getting a sense of the men and who they were and how they moved.

Georgia knew that they’d be fast in responding.

She was already on her feet, the gun in one hand. Ready to run.

John was already off. Running. Several paces ahead of her.

Good. Just the way she wanted it.

A bullet slammed into a thin branch near her, the branch exploding on impact, shattering. A gun discharged, the sound echoing out.

Georgia was running. Sprinting. Following John through the trees.

She didn’t turn around. She didn’t listen for footsteps. She could barely hear anyway, over the roar in her ears.

John ran fast. Faster than she’d seen him run in a long, long time.

She managed to keep up with him.

Her breathing was heavy and ragged. She was sweating intensely. She felt the burn in her legs. She felt the pain in her knees. She felt the pain on the bottoms of her feet as her boots slammed into the earth.

She kept her arms pumping at her sides as best she could. The rifle slammed into her side, and into the back of her leg. Painful. Not too bad though. Nothing she couldn’t deal with.

Finally, she couldn’t take it anymore. She had to turn around. And she did.

There was no one there. She saw no one.

It made sense. If she’d been able to see them, she’d probably already be dead. That didn’t make much sense. But in a way, it did. If they’d followed her closely, they’d have been in range to kill her. It wouldn’t have been hard.

For some reason, the men had perhaps retreated. Or decided not to pursue. Maybe they were carrying something valuable in that truck. Maybe they were spooked, seeing one of their men die instantly like that.

Who knew? It didn’t matter.

John hadn’t turned around. He didn’t know the deal. He was still running.

That was good. They shouldn’t count their eggs before they hatched. They didn’t want any false victories. Better to get a good distance away before resting.

Georgia saw it before she heard it.

John’s head suddenly bobbed up and then down.

He let out a yelp. A noise of fear. A guttural sort of noise. An unintentional sort of noise.

He’d lost his balance or was in the process of losing his balance.

In another situation, it would have been almost funny. It looked as if he had suddenly decided to pull off a dance maneuver, as if he’d decided to bob his head like a chicken.

It looked like a stunt. Like a gag.

But it wasn’t.

His boot must have gotten caught on something. Or his leg must have given out. Or he’d simply lost his balance for no reason at all.

Mere seconds later, he was flying through the air forward, as if he were taking an intentional dive into the dirt.

Georgia missed the next part. It all happened too fast. A tumble of limbs. A collision with the ground.

The next thing Georgia knew, John was on the ground. Face down.

He was grunting in pain.

Georgia stopped suddenly, threw her hands out to stabilize herself, so as not to run over John.

She looked down at him. Struggling to take in what she saw.

His right leg was clearly broken. The femur had snapped in two. The break allowed for an odd, impossible angle.

It shouldn’t have looked like that.

Shit.

It was a bad break. A really bad one.

Georgia glanced behind her, turning her head. There was no one there. But that didn’t mean they weren’t coming.

Georgia ducked down, her hand moving carefully over John’s leg.

The bone had broken through the skin.

It looked horrible.

Georgia had seen pictures before, but she’d never seen it in person. It looked worse than she could have imagined.

Blood and bone. Broken skin. Not a pretty sight.

John was, admirably, trying to keep his noises of intense pain to a minimum.

“Is it bad?” he managed to say, his voice barely audible over grunts of pain.

“It’s bad, John.”

“They’re going to be coming. Leave me.”

“You know I’m not doing that.”

“You’ve got to. Think of Sadie. You’re not going to find her if you’re dead.”