State of Emergency (Book) (23 page)

            The first thing that hits me is the fantastic, mouth-watering scent. It’s got to be the most beautiful thing I’ve ever smelled. If smells were beautiful, that is.

            It’s basically a big cabin with hardwood floors, tables and chairs, and a whole bunch of lamps hanging from the ceiling, lighting the place up. There are also quite a few people hanging around. Most of them look like they’ve either been starved to death or recently escaped from prison.

            I can’t decide if I’m relieved or ready to fend people off with a chair.

            “Come in, come
in
.” A sweet, motherly voice pops out of the silence behind us. We turn, seeing an older woman with a green and tan uniform on. “You look freezing to death! Come on over here by the fire.”

            I stare at her in confusion, wondering why she’s being so friendly, and follow her across the room towards a fireplace. It’s a huge one, giving off enough heat to slow cook a few pizzas. I sit on the edge of the mantle and hold out my hands, loving the pure warmth it gives off.

            “Where did you come from?” the woman asks, tossing a wet towel over her shoulder. Just like a waitress. “What’s your story?”

            I swallow, exchanging a look with Chris. His face is expressionless as he shrugs off his jacket, revealing a long sleeve wool shirt. I stare for second, because
man
, does he make even the ugliest clothes look hot.

            “We’re from the city,” Chris replies, his lips curving into a smile.

            He doesn’t offer any more information. Wise.

            “What is this place?” I ask, turning the interrogation on Waitress Woman.

            “It
was
my business,” she replies, sighing. “But ever since everything happened…well, I’ve just been using it as long as I can to help out people traveling through here. There’s nothing else in these hills, and I can’t get down the mountain very well during the dead of winter. Besides, with the stories I’ve been hearing, it’s safer up here anyway.”

            I nod.

            “That’s for sure.”

            She raises an eyebrow.

            “If you’re from the city, what are you doing up here?” she asks.

            “We’re looking for my brother,” Chris says, lying like a pro. “He was camping up here when the pulse hit.”

            “I’m sorry,” she says, softening. “But the chances of finding him are slim, honey.”

            “I know.” Chris suddenly turns his attention away from her and starts unbuttoning my jacket. He helps me out of it, pulling my gloves off. My fingers are red, maybe frostbitten.

            “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?”
            “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!”