Deadfall

  “You’re the one who’s lying to yourself,” Rafe calls out. “You’re running out of time. They know about the room in your apartment, about the hunts.”

  “Wishful thinking.” He laughs. “But if you are right, even more reason for me to enjoy myself tonight. To experience the thrill of the hunt. You two will play with me, won’t you?”

  Rafe presses his back to the tree, grasping your hand. You scan the forest to the south. Thick underbrush, dense clusters of trees. There is no obvious place to go. You should be able to outrun him, but it’s a risk. He might start firing through the woods.

  “We heard you’re the most skilled hunter,” you lie. “That you’ve killed every target you ever had.”

  “I’ve been hunting forty years.”

  “Head start, then. Five minutes,” you say, trying to keep your voice even. If you have anything over him, it’s that you understand the way his mind works. “It’s why you moved the hunt from the island to the cities, isn’t it? If it’s too easy, it’s not fun.”

  He pauses. In the darkness of the woods, you can almost feel him smile. “Two minutes, not five. It begins now.”

  You take off beside Rafe, your arms pumping, your breaths evening out. Adrenaline takes over as you hurtle through the woods. Two minutes will get you a quarter of a mile. Two more will get you a half. Your stomach is empty, your body tired, but you push yourself to run faster.

  Rafe pulls out front, jumping rocks and tree roots, moving through the sharp brush, acting as your guide. As the moon crosses the sky, it feels like you’ve been running for hours, but you’re probably only a few miles south. You leap over a fallen tree, and your foot lands on uneven ground, your right ankle twisting beneath you. Pain shoots up your leg.

  “What, what happened?” Rafe stops when he hears you collapse. You clutch your ankle, massaging it, hoping the pain will pass.

  “I twisted it.”

  Rafe pulls you to stand. “We can’t stop Lena, we can’t. . . .”

  You start to move, but every time your foot lands the pain returns. You don’t have a choice, though. You have to keep moving, you have to keep going. He is right behind you, coming through the trees.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  THE SUN IS a silent relief, the air much warmer than the night before. You couldn’t have slept long. Your body feels heavy, your legs sore from the miles you covered in the dark. Every muscle aches, but your mind is alert, awake.

  Rafe is beside you. You brush the thin layer of dead leaves off him—the covering you placed over yourselves while you slept. “We have to go,” you say. “Time’s up.”

  You made a spear this morning, a sharp piece of rock tethered to a broken branch. You used a long strip of denim from your jeans, wrapping it over and around, tying it tight. The blade is blunter than you would’ve liked, but with enough force it could break the skin.

  Rafe sits up, wiping the sleep from his eyes. “How’s your ankle?”

  “Good enough.” It’s half true. You took a strip of fabric from your sweatshirt and tied it around your foot to stop the swelling, but it’s still throbbing.

  “How long do we have?”

  “Until it’s unbearable?” you ask. “I’m not sure. I shouldn’t have run on it last night.”

  “We didn’t have a choice.”

  You nod, knowing you need time that you don’t have. Three days to stay off it, at least. You can make it another ten miles today, if you’re lucky, but it will be slow and grueling. And if he catches up . . . you don’t know if you can outrun him like this.

  “I think we have to corner him,” you say, “wait for him. One of us has to draw him out. I can pretend to be injured—that won’t be hard. When he’s close, we disarm him.”

  Rafe shakes his head. “I’m not using you as bait. It’s too dangerous.”

  You pull yourself to your feet. As soon as you put your full weight on your ankle you feel a sharp, shooting pang. You draw in a breath, trying to steel yourself against it.

  Rafe sees the pain on your face. It’s mirrored in his own. “Maybe you’re right,” he says reluctantly, standing to help you. “We can’t run like this.”

  “We’re miles south of where we started. Ten, maybe eleven. He has to know which direction we headed. He must’ve taken the night to set up camp, otherwise he would’ve passed us already.”

  “We have a lead, then.” Rafe nods. “Now we just need to find the spot.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  “YOU’RE SURE YOU’RE okay here?”

  “As okay as I can be.” You’re at the bottom of a steep rock bed, the drop twenty feet down. You’ll wait here while Rafe hides in the woods.

  “I don’t think you need to put on much of an act,” Rafe says. “He’s probably already tracking us here. Just draw him out.”

  “Light on the melodramatics. Check.” It’s a lame attempt at a joke. You have the strong, sudden urge to see Rafe smile. He gives you a half smirk, his lips drawing to the side.

  “We corner him, and it’s over. I get his gun and it’s over.”

  “Let’s hope.”

  “If we get out of here—”

  “You mean when. When we get out of here.”

  That makes him smile. He brings his hands to your face, his thumbs brushing over your cheekbones. “We made it out once. We made it back to each other. We’ll do it again.”

  “I wish we didn’t have to.”

  “Yeah, me too.” He pulls you close to him, and you bury your face in his chest, breathing in the musty smell of his sweatshirt. Finally it feels the way it did in your dreams—easy, immediate. There’s no hesitation as you tip your head back, letting his lips touch down on yours.

  He is kneeling by the edge of the ocean, washing the dirt from his face. He pushes his hands through his hair and rubs fistfuls of sand against his skin, scrubbing off the grime.

  “What are you looking at?” He smiles.

  “Nothing.”

  “I like to think I’m a little more than nothing.”

  “You are a little more than nothing. . . .” But you can’t tell him what he means to you. What does he mean to you? You cannot be in love with this person. You don’t even know him.

  “Am I something?” He laughs.

  “Stop fishing.”

  He stands, the water running off him. He still has a patch of wet sand on his right arm, just below his bicep.

  “You are something, Lena,” he says. “You’re everything.”

  He reaches out, brushing a wet strand of hair away from your face. It’s the first time he’s touched you. It’s the first time anyone has touched you since you were dropped here. You close your eyes, letting him run his fingers down your cheek. They brush over your lips.

  He leans in, pressing his mouth to yours. His hands are in your hair. You fall back, onto the sand, as he spreads out beside you.

  When you pull away you’re dizzy, the memory still so fresh. You can’t help but smile.

  “What?”

  “More and more is coming back.”

  “I’m not going to say I told you so.”

  “You told me so.”

  “Which one?”

  “A good one.”

  “My favorite is the morning with those birds. Did you get there yet?”

  “No . . .”

  “I’m jealous. You have something to look forward to.”

  That makes you smile. Rafe turns back to the forest. He points to a tree halfway up the bank. “I’ll be waiting there. He should follow the tracks right to you. . . . I left prints in the mud less than a hundred yards back. It should look like we had to cut through the brush and down to the bank.”

  “You broke a few branches as you went through?”

  Rafe nods, pointing back over his shoulder. “The trail stops just over there. When he comes past, I’ll jump down, right behind him. I should be able to surprise him.”

  “I’ll make sure he’s distracted.”

  You kiss him
once more, and then he turns away, climbing the steep rocks, the spear in one hand.

  You sit with your bad leg out in front of you. The makeshift bandage has held, but the ankle is still swollen. You keep your foot in your sneaker, knowing that if you take it off you won’t be able to get it back on.

  You can’t see Rafe in the tree. He’s climbed high enough to be hidden by leaf cover. You can’t tell how much time has passed, if it’s been one hour or two. Cross should be closer now, if he’s heading south, following the tracks. You listen to the forest.

  After a while you hear the snap and crunch of the undergrowth. The slow, steady steps of someone moving toward you. You push closer to the boulder beside you, knowing you don’t have much time before he gets close enough to shoot. You pull your bad leg into you. Then you kneel, ready to start up the incline once Rafe spots him.

  You hear the thud of feet hitting the ground. You stand, running up the bank. Ten yards from the tree, Cross holds both his hands in the air, the rifle pointing skyward. Rafe is right in front of him, the spear aimed beneath Cross’s chin.

  “All right,” Cross says. “I’m not moving. I’m not doing anything.”

  “You’ve done enough,” Rafe says.

  “Drop the gun,” you call out.

  You go toward them, your eyes on Cross as he sets the rifle down, the end of it pointing away from you. Rafe orders him to take three steps back, and he does. When he’s out of reach of the rifle you grab it and spin it around, aiming it at his chest. The spear is right below his throat.

  Your gaze meets Rafe’s. He stands on the other side of Cross, clutching the spear. There’s nowhere for Cross to go, no way for him to run.

  “It’s over,” you say. “Get on the ground.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  CROSS KEEPS HIS arms in the air. He closes his eyes as he kneels, lowering himself down.

  “Clever,” he says. “Very clever.”

  You look down the end of the rifle, arm steady. Rafe steps to the side, still holding the spear. The forest is quiet, still.

  “I’ve learned a lot from you these past weeks,” Cross says as he lowers his face to the dirt. Strangely, he is smiling, which makes your stomach turn. “Seeing you together. Two is always better than one, isn’t that right?”

  Then you hear the shot.

  You look down, wondering if you accidentally fired the rifle, but it is still by your side, your finger on the trigger. You look up just as Rafe drops to his knees. His hand goes to his chest, where a bullet has buried itself, a patch of red spreading just below his collarbone. He pushes down on it with his hand but he can’t stop the bleeding.

  You spin around. The other hunter is twenty yards off, half hidden by a tree. You fire three shots, hitting him once in the shoulder, then again in the leg. When you turn back Cross is up, running in the opposite direction.

  You aim, you fire. The shot hits a tree trunk to the right of him. You aim again, firing twice in succession, but he’s already disappeared through the woods.

  “We have to get out of here.” You turn to Rafe. He is still pressing his hand to the wound, his chest heaving. “Come on, just a little bit farther. Just out of sight.”

  You put an arm under his good side, carrying as much of his weight as you can, and move to the nearest tree. He sinks down against the trunk, slumping forward.

  You pull off your sweatshirt, pressing the cloth to his skin. “I just have to put pressure on it. It’s all right, you’re going to be all right.”

  You’re lying—you know you’re lying—but you want to believe it yourself. It seems too unreal. This isn’t how it was supposed to happen. You weren’t supposed to lose him here, not like this.

  “Where did he come from?” Rafe says, grabbing your hand. “I didn’t see him. I never saw him pass.”

  His breaths are low and uneven. He doesn’t look at you. Instead his eyes are on the ground. Then he looks at your hands covering his chest. “I just didn’t see him,” he repeats.

  “I didn’t either. We couldn’t have known.”

  When you look back down his fingers are pale. He’s shaking. His hand falls to his side. Your palm is still on his chest, pressing uselessly on the wound.

  As his breaths get slower, raspier, you let go. You take his head in your hands, landing kisses along his forehead, on his cheeks. “I’m here, Rafe.” You stroke his hair away from his face, hold his chin in your hands. “I’m here, I’m here. . . .”

  You press your lips against his, not wanting to pull away.

  He is already gone.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  NOTHING IN YOU hurts anymore. There is no pain, no exhaustion. Just a cold, empty feeling, as if your chest has been hollowed out.

  He killed Rafe. Rafe is dead.

  You repeat it to yourself as you move through the woods, the rifle at your side. Rafe is dead, Rafe is dead. It doesn’t feel real. Your hands are covered in dried blood. Your shirt is stained a brownish red. You had to leave his body there, no matter how much you wanted to stay. Staying there would have meant dying, and you could almost hear Rafe urging you not to stop, to keep going.

  You saw the second hunter fall after you shot him. There’s no way he’s kept up with Cross, that they’re still hunting as a team. He’d be too much of a liability. Cross would’ve left him behind.

  The rifle is heavy in your hand. You want Rafe to be here now, to tell you what to do. How can you tell yourself you’re not like them? How can you keep going, pretending there’s another way to end this? It’s you or Cross now. Only one of you can get out of here alive.

  The wind changes direction, pulling strands of hair from your ponytail, whipping them across your face. You listen to the sound of branches bending, the hush of dry leaves as they tumble across the ground. There’s something else beyond it, something familiar—a quiet bubbling. The sound of running water.

  You circle back, sensing that the stream lies somewhere to the west of you. You scan the trees to the north, making sure nothing is off. It was impossible to decipher in the dark, but it didn’t seem like Cross was carrying supplies. The jacket he wore was a dark blue, maybe black. He’ll be easier to spot if he’s still wearing it. The forest is a vast expanse of browns and greens.

  Just ahead, the ground slopes down to the bank. You slow your pace, moving behind the trees to stay out of sight. The river is about six feet across, a little wider downstream. It’s deep, with large rocks breaking the surface, white water rushing up around them.

  You move toward the bank, using the thick, winding tree roots to steady yourself as you climb down. You kneel, letting the cold water rush over your hands. You flick the mud from beneath your fingernails and rub the blood from your skin. Then you set the gun on your lap and dip one hand in, cupping it to collect a few sips of water.

  It feels so good to drink the crisp, cool drops, the dry, dusty feeling in your mouth finally gone. You can feel the first sip as it goes down, waking your insides. It makes you all the more aware of how empty your stomach is.

  You are reaching for another sip when you notice the silence. The woods are still. No background sounds—no birds above or squirrels cutting across the dirt. Just the low gurgling of the water as it rushes by.

  He’s here, somewhere. You can feel him watching you. You try to act like you haven’t realized, letting your hair fall in front of your face so he can’t see your eyes. It takes a few seconds of scanning the trees before you spot him. He’s thirty feet to the right, above you, just a small sliver of black behind a tree.

  He’s taken the other hunter’s gun. You can see it silhouetted at his side. You pretend to clean your hands, scrubbing your fingers, but still keep your eyes on him. When he raises the gun to aim you plunge headfirst into the water. You break the surface as he fires the first shot.

  The water is deeper than you thought, the current stronger. The world underneath the surface is a rush of greenish blue. You try to hold on to the rifle, but it keeps slippi
ng from your grasp. The river is already taking you downstream, pulling at your arms and legs.

  Your shoulder collides with something, and there is sharp, shooting pain. You tumble over the side of the rock and the rifle is gone, lost somewhere in the water. There’s no thinking about how and when to come up for air. You are deep below the surface and then you are not.

  When you finally get a breath you see him, kneeling by a tree above the bank. He tries to keep aim, but the current is pulling you too fast. The second shot hits a boulder several yards behind you. You’re moving farther away, turning as the stream does, pulled behind a cluster of rocks.

  You take in as much air as you can and submerge yourself deep under the surface, where you can’t be seen.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  IN MINUTES YOU are downstream, out of sight. But the water is deeper here, and there are more rocks. Your left arm knocks into one beneath the surface and it takes a few moments for you to register the pain, you’re so numb from the cold water.

  Up ahead, a branch stretches over the shore. As the river curves you reach out, catching it, your palms burning as they scrape against the bark. You hold tight as the water pulls your legs downstream. It takes all the strength you have to move hand over hand, climbing the branch to where the water is shallower, until you can get your footing against the rocky bank.

  You crawl onto the shore, regaining your breath. The woods to the north are still quiet. How far did the current take you? It couldn’t have been more than five minutes in the water, maybe ten, but you feel miles from where you started.

  The river took you to the west, curving away from your original path. Cross is likely to stay along the bank to look for signs of where you left the stream. Your sweatshirt is soaked. It will leave a clear, wet path in the dirt. Even if you stripped off the jeans and shirt you’d have to carry them with you—you can’t afford to part with any of your clothes with another cold night coming on.