State of Emergency

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 ru

“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 ru

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 co

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 a

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 pi

He screams. I do, too. I kick him off me, never taking my hand of Jeff’s knife, and start ru

“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 bu

Well, a bu

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.