17

GEORGIA

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.”

“Who says I’m going to be dead?”

“If you stay there with me, you’re going to be,” said John. “I don’t want my last act to be to get you killed along with myself. This is my fault. My mistake. I’ll take the consequences.”

“What would Cynthia think of that? If I get back to camp and you’re not there. I’ll tell her that I left you to rot on the ground with a broken leg? I’ll tell her that I didn’t lift a finger to help you. And you think she’ll be OK with all that?”

“We’ve talked about it. She’ll understand.”

“You’ve talked about it? I don’t know what she told you, but let me tell you, there’s no way she’s going to be OK if you don’t come back.”

“She knows the risks of this lifestyle . We have an understanding.”

“You may think you do. You may think you’ve accepted the consequences of being in a relationship. You may think that you’re ready to lose her, and that she’s prepared to lose you, but that’s not the case. It’s really not. So I’m not leaving you here. It doesn’t matter what you say, so save your breath. We’re getting out of here together, or we’re not getting out of here at all.”

“You… don’t…” John spoke haltingly, grunting through the pain.

“Save your energy,” said Georgia. “I’m going to get us out of here.”

John just grunted. Georgia didn’t know if he’d decided to listen to her and shut up, or if the pain had just gotten too great for him to talk.

Georgia’s hands were on her rifle. She was looking around, putting her eye to the scope, taking it away. Trying to scout the whole area.

If the men were coming, they’d come soon.

If they came, the best-case scenario was that it was five men against one woman.

Georgia suddenly spotted John’s rifle on the ground.

Crouching, she made her way over to it. Grabbed it from where it had fallen.

“Here,” she whispered, stretching out her hand, holding the rifle so that John could grab it.

She didn’t know if he’d be able to shoot.

He probably didn’t either.

No point in talking about it much.

He’d shoot if he could.

And if he couldn’t, then he wouldn’t.

It seemed as if the only thing Georgia could hear was her heartbeat.

She stared into the distance, waiting for the men. Watching for them. Everything seemed to turn blurry as her thoughts turned towards her daughter.

Where was Sadie now? Would she ever find her?

The chances were slim that Sadie was alive. And even slimmer that Georgia would ever get to her, whether she was dead or alive.

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