Summer Lane - State of Emergency

“I think we just made them mad,” Chris replies, halfway dragging me up the hill. “That official — the one that hit you — Keller, doesn’t strike me as the type of person to forgive and forget.”

“Moron,” I pant.

But pretty soon I have no energy to pant at all, because Tasha’s Crappy Crew is gaining us. I can’t see them, but I can hear their heavy footsteps — and their explicit swearing every time one of them stumbles.

Chris’s hand on my arm keeps me from running headfirst into a Redwood tree. I wonder vaguely if he has some kind of super night vision that I don’t know about when I trip on some kind of rock. On the other hand, it could be a stick, but who cares? The end product is going to be the same either way.

I pitch forward and land on my hands and knees. Cold snow soaks through my gloves. “Cassidy, get up,” Chris breathes, turning around to help me.

“Look out!” I warn.

One of the guys slams into his side, sending them both down the hill in a tumble of arms and legs. I struggle to my feet, only able to listen to the struggle. Between the darkness and the storm I’m pretty much blind.

“Gotcha!”

Another dude steps out from behind a tree, nothing but a black shadow. I take a step back, terrified, and wish I’d have had the common sense to grab some kind of a weapon before we bolted out of the restaurant.

Wait.

I stick my hand under my jacket, feeling for my belt. Yes! The knife that Jeff gave me is snug against my skin, sheathed in a leather case. I’d completely forgotten about it. I pull it out, holding it in front of my like a spear.

“I’ll kill you,” I warn, even though I know it’s not true. “Back off.”

The shadow man releases a deep, creepy laugh.

“You might as well give up,” he says. “I’m going to kill you either way. You’re worth a lot of money.”

He lunges. Instead of standing my ground and fighting, I take a few steps backwards and dance away from him. He swipes at me again, and I twist my body to stay out of his reach. In broad daylight that wouldn’t be possible, but in the dark storm it’s not hard for him to miscalculate distance.

My luck can’t hold out forever, though. I end up diving to the ground when he gets to close, scrambling away on my hands and knees. He grabs my leg and drags me backwards — classic horror movie style. I gasp and kick upwards, hoping my foot connects with something. It doesn’t.

Fighting in real life is nothing like the movies , I think absently.

But that’s right before he pins me to the ground, hovering over me. He’s just close enough for me to see his dirty face streaked with grime. “You’re annoying,” he mutters.

I kick and bite and squirm under his weight but it’s no good. He weighs a lot more than I do and he’s not going anywhere. I’m so going to die. My brain flips into overdrive at the thought. I start fighting even harder.

At that moment I feel him shift his arm, which means he’s no longer pinning down mine . He’s gripping something. A knife? I freak out. Jeff’s knife is still in my hand, but it’s turned away from my body, stuck underneath my enemy’s weight. I thrust forward with my knees enough to relieve the pressure for just a second. Long enough for me to move the knife up and jam it as hard as I can into his bicep.

He screams. I do, too. I kick him off me, never taking my hand of Jeff’s knife, and start running away. Something wet and warm slicks over my hand, making me gag. It’s blood. What else would it be? Coffee?

“Chris?!” I yell, the wind whipping my hair around my face. “Chris!”

I can’t see anything, hear anything, or feel anything except the cold. I bump into a tree and wrap my arms around it, giving a whole new meaning to the phrase, “hug a tree if you get lost.”

“Chris,” I whimper, becoming a bunny rabbit once again.

Well, a bunny rabbit with stabbing capabilities, but still…

I sink to the ground and huddle up against the tree, shielding myself from the snow cutting into my exposed skin. Who would have thought that that white fluffy stuff I’d seen on TV all my life could be so brutal?

Lucky for me, I have the common sense to quit screaming out Chris’s name so nobody else can find me and try to shove a knife in my throat. I just keep low to the ground, stay still and listen. There’s definitely some kind of background noise going on — voices, lots of yelling. I know Chris is close, but I just can’t see him. It’s frustrating beyond all belief.

Crunch, crunch .

I tense up as footsteps crash close by. Closer. Closer. There’s a bush a few feet away from me. It starts shaking. Apparently somebody is walking through it. Crack . There goes a branch. More footsteps. Then I see the shadow of the same guy that tackled me a minute ago with the knife. I can tell from his heavy breathing.

Wrapped in a dark coat and hat, I remain motionless on the ground, holding my breath. He can’t see me. It’s like being stuck in one of those scary movies where the monster is a few inches away from you and you know that the second you let yourself breathe, you’re screwed.

So I try not to breathe. The seconds tick by, seeming like eternity. I’m turning red like a balloon so I try to eek in a little bit of oxygen. In the process I end up sounding like somebody choking to death.

It only takes a second for my crazed attacker to pinpoint the direction of my breathing. He takes a few steps towards me, moving with all the grace of an elephant. I slide backwards, crawling inside some kind of scratchy shrub. I put my hands behind my neck and curl up, concentrating on being still.

Be one with the shrub , I think, remembering a yoga course I once took.

A few minutes tick by. Pretty soon my leg muscles are screaming at me for being in such a tight, tense position without moving. I ignore them and keep covered by the bush for long time. I have no idea how much time passes before I hear footsteps again, more cautious than the previous pair.

I pray to God that whoever it is won’t walk into my bush and trip over my head. That could be detrimental to my “avoid being killed” strategy. The footsteps come closer, but by this time the storm is whipping the wind so wild that I can’t tell which direction they’re coming from. It also hurts to open my eyes, because when I do, I’m hit with a million tiny snowflakes. It’s like being cut on the eyeball.

Gross and painful. A double whammy.

“Cassidy…?”

His voice is a faint whisper, but I hear it. I scramble to my feet, knocking branches and snow out of my way as I stumble around in the dark. “Chris! Where are you? I can’t see.”

“Here. Shhh. Don’t yell.” Chris’s voice is much closer. I whirl around, smacking into his chest nose-first.

“Ouch!” I hold my nose between my hands. “That was unnecessarily painful.”

“Take my hand,” Chris says, feeling for my arm. “Are you hurt?”

“No. How long have I been hiding under that stupid shrub?”

“You hid under a shrub?” An unusually powerful gust of wind howls through the trees. “Never mind. Just follow me.”

I hang onto his hand, but because we’re both wearing thick gloves, it’s easy to lose a grip. I decide to take no chances. Instead, I basically stick my hand through his belt so it’s almost impossible to let go of him. Of course, if he takes a step off a cliff, then we’re both pretty much doomed.

We hike along, uphill, before I finally yell,

“Where are we going? We’re lost, aren’t we?”

“No!” Chris sounds disturbed.

“Then where are we going? Because we’re going to freeze to death!”

We practically have to scream at each other to be heard.