Читать книгу The Capture - Tom Isbell, Tom Isbell - Страница 11

THE AIR IS MOIST and heavy, and Hope’s breath frosts with each exhalation.

Cat’s does too, as he walks beside her.

They glide through the damp, dark woods, easing around trees, stepping over stones, hurrying away from camp—the pale light of the moon their only illumination. Hope’s heart beats with a kind of feverish anticipation, and every so often Cat’s arm brushes against her own. A cadence of crickets accompanies their every step.

They’re not more than a mile from camp when they hear the creak of a branch. The sound is unmistakable, and they freeze. Something’s out there.

Someone is out there.

Cat doesn’t need to motion her to stay silent; she knows the drill. She was brought up in the woods. She and her dad and Faith were on the run for ten years. She knows what it is to go from hunter to prey.

As Cat reaches into his quiver and nocks an arrow, Hope readies the grip on her spear and finds the balance point. They stand there, poised to strike, their breathing shallow. There are footsteps now, scuffing through twigs and leaves. The snap of a stick.

“Don’t move!” Hope shouts.

The figure stops in place.

Hope and Cat approach from different sides, weapons poised, ready to cast their spear and arrow. The lone figure stands there, hands raised.

It’s Book.

“What the hell,” Hope says, and Cat rolls his eyes. They each release their grip on their weapons. “You coulda gotten yourself killed.”

“I didn’t know it was dangerous to follow your friends,” Book says.

“It is if it’s the middle of the night and your friends don’t know you’re following them.”

Book doesn’t respond, and Hope realizes he’s waiting for an explanation. She has no intention of giving one.

Cat’s gaze shifts uncomfortably between the two. He slips the arrow back into the quiver and lowers his bow.

“See you back at camp,” he mutters, disappearing into the woods, swallowed by the black. Hope turns to Book.

“So you are stalking me!” she says.

“Not stalking. Following.”

“Forgive me for not seeing the difference.”

“The difference is you lied to me. The difference is you said you went to the woods alone.”

“That was last night, and who says I wasn’t alone?”

“Were you?”

Hope averts her eyes. She wants to lie again … but she can’t. “No,” she says beneath her breath.

Book takes a step back as though he’s been punched. “That’s why I followed you—to see what you were up to.”

“And what’d you find out?”

“You tell me.”

Their eyes lock. Again, it seems that Book is expecting an explanation. Again, she doesn’t give one.

“Look,” he says, “you can do whatever you like with whoever you want—”

“We weren’t doing anything.”

“—but don’t tell me one thing and do something else. Don’t—”

He stops himself midsentence, but Hope knows exactly what he was going to say. Don’t kiss me one moment and then ignore me the next.

She wants to respond—wants to tell him everything—but she doesn’t know how, and before she knows it, the silence stretches to something long and awkward and painfully uncomfortable. When she does open her mouth to speak, she’s interrupted by a sound—something mechanical. A growling engine.

Hope and Book immediately slip into hunter mode. They crouch low to the forest floor and bend their ears to the sound, determining direction, speed, object. Hope takes off first, Book right on her heels—two runners skirting the darkened landscape like ghosts.

Alder thickets slow them to a crawl, the thick brush tugging at their clothes. The sound grows louder, and suddenly it’s doubled. Not just one engine, but two.

They reach the edge of the thicket and stop. A pair of headlights carves tiny holes in the dark, snaking around a bend. And from the other direction: another set of headlights. The vehicles are headed right for each other on the same small road. Even in the black night, it’s possible to see the plumes of gravel that follow.

Hope realizes she hasn’t seen actual cars outside camp since the day she and Faith were captured.

Faith. Which makes her think of Dad. And Mom.

She shakes her head and grips the spear. Her fingers shine white.

The two vehicles slow, then come to a grinding stop. Book and Hope share a grim look.

The headlights of each illuminate the other vehicle, and Hope sees they’re both Humvees. Pure military. Car doors open and slam, the hollow sound echoing toward them.

Feet crunch on gravel, and for the first time Hope can make out two figures walking toward each other. When they step forward and headlights wreathe their silhouettes, Hope gives an audible gasp. She recognizes those silhouettes—she’d know them anywhere. The woman with the ankle-length coat draped around her shoulders; the obese man waddling forward.

Chancellor Maddox and Dr. Gallingham.

They meet between their vehicles, too far away for Hope and Book to hear the conversation. Dr. Gallingham deposits a gleaming steel box on the ground. It’s cubical in shape, and the metal glimmers in the light. He undoes a series of clasps, reaches into the bowels of the box, and removes … something. His body blocks Hope’s view and she can’t see. Whatever the object is, it makes an impression on Chancellor Maddox. Her beauty-queen smile flashes white, cutting through the dark like a sharp knife.

What could it possibly be? Hope wonders, darkness clouding her thoughts.

Whatever the answer, Gallingham returns it to the bottom of the box, fastens and reattaches all the clasps, and presents the steel box itself to the chancellor like a Wise Man presenting frankincense or myrrh.

Chancellor Maddox takes it, walks back to her vehicle, and climbs inside. Both Humvees return in the direction from which they came, the sound of gravel crunching beneath the tires growing more and more faint until, at last, the night returns to silence.