Summer Lane - State of Emergency

“Let me get you some food and drinks,” the woman says. “And by the way, my name’s Tasha.”

I smile.

“Thank you, Tasha.”

Neither Chris nor I offer up our names. Now that we’re on Omega radar, it’d probably be better to keep that little nugget of information to ourselves.

“Can you feel your fingers?” Chris asks, firelight casting shadows across his face.

“They haven’t fallen off and defrosted yet, if that’s what you mean,” I smirk. “They’re a little numb, yeah.”

He frowns, clasping my hands together. Then he starts rubbing them. The friction starts getting them warm. It also starts to bring back my sense of touch. Good thing, too. I could never play another round of cellphone ping-pong with frozen fingers.

“I don’t trust her,” Chris says after a long silence. His voice is so quiet that I can barely hear him. “She’s fishing for information.”

“We just walked into her restaurant,” I reply. “She’s naturally going to be curious.”

“No. Something’s off,” he insists. “Don’t tell her anything she doesn’t need to know. Agreed?”

I give him a mock Boy Scout salute.

“You have my word, captain,” I grin.

By the time Tasha comes back with food and drinks we’re both pretty well thawed out. She gives us a plate of steaming meat and soup, along with some hot tea. When I ask Chris what kind of meat it is, he tells me that I don’t want to know, so I shouldn’t ask. Whatever. I don’t really care. It’s kind of tough, with a strange flavor that I’ve never tasted in meat before. That’s when I realize that this is probably wild deer meat…or even bear meat. Gross.

Thankfully, I don’t have this revelation until after I’ve eaten.

Chris and I scoot back against the wall, close enough to the fire to enjoy its heat. The people that are scattered around the restaurant are just as silent and suspicious as we are, so they don’t bother us.

“You make yourselves at home,” Tasha says, cleaning up the trays.

“Thank you so much,” I reply. “This is so nice of you.”

She smiles.

“I’m glad to be appreciated.”

She disappears to who-knows-where. I press my head against Chris’s shoulder and he wraps his arm around me. “Warm at last?” he asks, smiling against my hair.

“Totally,” I reply. “But we’ll have to get cold again tomorrow.”

“Remember what I told you about thinking warm thoughts?”

“Yeah. Space heaters and stuff.”

“You’re not thinking warm thoughts.”

I roll my eyes. “Fine, sorry. Fuzzy socks, bathrobes, electric blankets, soft boots. All that jazz. There. I feel warm.”

“You only feel warm because I’m touching you,” he says, flashing one of his devilish grins. “Wouldn’t you agree?”

“No. I’d say that it’s because we’re sitting next to a fireplace with the potential to heat a five hundred pound teakettle.” I press my nose against his chest, not wanting to admit that yes , I tend to forget about temperature issues when he’s got his arms around me.

“Goodnight,” he whispers, kissing my forehead. “Think you can handle the heat all night?”

I slap his arm.

“Yeah. I think I can,” I grumble, to his total amusement. His cheerful laughter is the last thing I hear before I doze off.

It sucks to be shaken out of a deep sleep.

That’s what happens to me at about four in the morning. The fire is still burning strong. I’m slumped across Chris at a weird angle. I rub my stiff neck before I look around the room, trying to figure out what woke me up. I heard a sound, hadn’t I? Why else would I wake up? Maybe Chris was snoring.

No. He never snored. That I knew of, anyway.

“…Yes, I’m sure. Positive.”

Ah, voices. It was voices I heard. I close my eyes and concentrate on listening, mildly interested in the conversation. It sounds like Tasha talking to a couple of men. How a lone female in the middle of the wilderness has the guts to run a restaurant with a bunch of wild men in it I’ll never know.

“They were here a few days ago, looking for them,” Tasha says, her voice rough. “The reward was pretty big, the way they told it.”

I lick my lips, fists clenching around Chris’s shirt.

“Chris,” I whisper, nudging his chin with my head. “Wake up.”

He stirs, squeezing me tighter. Such a dude.

“Chris!” I snap. “I think we were just compromised.”

He opens his eyes, blinking off the fuzziness of sleep.

“What?”

“Shh. Listen.”

He peers at the ceiling, straining to hear what I’m hearing.

“…A man and a woman. They didn’t give me their names, but they fit the descriptions. And the picture that was on his military ID is definitely that man with her.”

Chris’s whole body tenses up, but you wouldn’t know he was ticked off by the expression on his face: calm, cool, confident. Totally unconcerned. While I just stare at him like a scared bunny rabbit. “What do we do?” I hiss.

“We get out of here.”

As quietly as I can, I crawl forward and pull my jacket off the mantle. It’s warm and dry. I shrug it on and button it up, putting on my gloves. Chris does the same, only he looks way stealthier than me when he does. Like a cat. I’m more like a clumsy puppy.

“They’re in the kitchen,” he whispers. “We can get out the front door.”

I nod, afraid to speak. Tasha’s voice is joined by a couple more male voices, sending chills down my spine. They’re talking about us. There’s no doubt about that. What are the chances I would wake up and hear them discussing our doom?

Dirty rat Tasha. Her deer meat was probably poisoned, for all I know.

I give myself a brief heart attack considering this, then realize that if it had been poisoned we probably would have been dead a long time ago.

Chris and I walk across the floor, silent. Everybody else here is still sound asleep. I wrap my fingers around the doorknob, locking eyes with Chris. He nods, which means I can go ahead and open it.

I do. We get the door open, blistering cold air slamming into my face like a brick wall of ice. It seems like some kind of storm has hit outside.

Perfect timing , I think. Thanks a lot, Jack Frost.

But that’s before I remember that the door is squeaky . It makes a loud, screeching noise as we swing it open. I freeze, holding my breath. Like pretending I didn’t hear anything will make everybody else ignore the sound, too.

No dice.

Right on cue, Tasha rushes out of the kitchen. Her happy face is gone, replaced by an angry one. A few men come out of the kitchen behind her, and as soon as their eyes fall on us, we all stop and stare at each other.

“Hey, guys,” I say weakly. “Just checking the weather.” I hold my hand over the threshold, immediately getting plastered with snow. “Yup. It’s definitely cold outside.”

I force a smile.

“Kill them,” Tasha says, deadpan. Like it’s totally normal to tell your crazed male friends to murder people. “It’s dead or alive.”

“Screw you,” Chris replies, mock bowing.

He grabs my arm and we run outside, Tasha’s little cronies hot on our heels. As soon as we hit the outdoors I’m almost blinded by flurries of snow and ice swirling through the air. The wind is whipping, the snow is deeper than ever, and it’s all I can do to hang onto Chris’s hand for dear life.

It’s so dark that I can barely see my hand in front of my face. Chris seems to have some sense of direction, though. As Tasha’s buddies run after us, I count four male bodies in hot pursuit.

“Omega’s put out a reward for us?” I gasp, noticing that we’re running uphill. Through trees. We’re plunging into the forest, in the middle of the night, in a blizzard. Probably not a smart idea, but it’s either this or get killed by a bunch of maniacs. “How can we be that important to them?”