Page 63 of Deadfall

Hours, or maybe days later—frigid water splashed over my naked body as I lay on the stones. The dim flickering shadows the lanterns cast hid the ghosts that lurked in the corners. I don’t know how many times I’d come in and out of my nightmares. Even though I knew none of it was real, it still shattered my composure. I’d spent years on the walls I’d built, and it all had been torn to shreds like they were nothing but tissue paper.

I thought I was still sobbing, but the tremors that wracked my body could have been for any number of reasons. I curled in on myself and buried my face in my arms. There were people in the room, but I couldn’t hear what they said.

Was this even real?

A boot nudged me, lightly at first, then harder. A dark rage gripped me and I reacted without thought. I lunged for whoever it was, my vision blurred from tears, water and clammy sweat. Two lethal hits of my fists stole his breath away. I attacked him like the demons in my mind demanded and with no weapon in reach, I clamped my jaw shut on his carotid instead.

I ripped his life from him like a wild animal. Predatory instinct warred with the rage and grief of a disconnected reality, and any semblance of control over myself was gone. Copper assaulted my senses as the man’s life blood flooded my mouth. My ears rang, and stopped me from hearing what was being yelled, but shouts echoed around the space enough that I felt them vibrate through me. Additional hands grabbed me, but a low growl made them retreat. Until the painful lock of electricity once more sent my mind careening back into blackness, and everything fell away.

She waited so long to be saved

that the silence grew claws,

and when she finally understood

nobody was coming,

she rose from her own grief

like something even fear could not keep.

STEVE DE’LANO GARCIA

30

EMERSYN

Eight Years Ago - Age 18

After being isolated in the wilderness, the sights and sounds as I entered the town were overwhelming. Leaving the cabin had been harder than I anticipated. I’d given so much of myself to that forest—blood, sweat, tears—it felt like home. I’d grown up among those trees and not only had I found myself, I’d found a father figure in the stoic Russian.

I buried Sacha in the back field under the tree he’d first taught me to shoot at. Then, I spent the two weeks that followed cleaning up the cabin and getting it ready to abandon. I burned the bodies, boarded up the windows, and plotted my exit strategy that involved a long multi-day hike to the nearest town.

Fang whined. He seemed equally nervous to be among people and stuck close to my leg. Despite being a small town, there was enough car and foot traffic to put me on edge, and I couldn’t blend in very well with a wolf-dog at my side. I quickly found a pay phone and dialed the number Sacha gave me.

“Yeah?” A gruff voice answered on the first ring.

“Um, I need a ride,” I said awkwardly.

“Who is this?”

“I was told to say the word ‘sanctuary’ and you’d take me wherever I needed to go.”

There was a long pause. So long, I thought he’d maybe hung up.

“Hello?”

“What’s your location?”

I told him the street I was on and before I could even finish the sentence the line went dead. I pulled my hood up and waited in the shadows, my nerves at an all time high as I scanned the street for threats. Fang grew restless and wandered off in a nearby lot to chase squirrels. I kept a close eye on him, but even he grew bored of that and eventually found his way back to my side and took a nap.

An hour later, a pickup truck pulled up to the curb and the window rolled down. A man in his early thirties gazed at me over aviators. He was wearing a long-sleeve green henley, with a backward baseball cap. His eyes dropped to Fang, and he pursed his lips.

“The mutt goes in the back,” the man snapped.

I helped Fang into the bed of the truck and climbed into the passenger seat. The moment I slammed the door, I shoved my back against it and pulled my gun low and concealed at my hip.

“Code word,” I said.