CHAPTER 1

Tayja

I am running. Running faster than I've ever run before, my feet pounding the ground so hard that at any moment, I ought to lift off the ground and take flight. Screams are stuck in my throat, terror blinding me to the wicked branches tearing at my clothes and holding me back, keeping me trapped on the ground. I am being chased by the figure from my nightmares. The figure from my reality. I'm about to break free, about to return to the skies when a loud BANG explodes behind me. Now I am falling, falling, falling into a deep dark hole. A hand seizes my throat and suddenly everything is black, nothingness, nonexistent, null. Is this what it feels like to die? Is this how they felt?

~~~

A blinding light greets me the next time I dare to open my eyes. Brilliant whiteness overpowers my vision and I close my eyes to block out the intense glare. My brain is muddled and dim, my thoughts as viscous as crystallizing honey. My head feels like it weighs three times too much and the weight might pull me over backward. My skin is hot, but I'm shivering. I feel like death incarnate. The light from the other side of my eyelids dims significantly. I open my eyes again to see a figure standing above me with no face. I hear myself screaming as I lose consciousness again.

~~~

My eyes drift open slowly, my head still hazy. I have no memory of where I am. I'm not entirely sure who or what I am. I don't really care, either. But I feel like I should.

I'm staring at something off to my left side. A variegated brown blur, indistinct but for the darker streaks running through it. I blink a few times and with a stabbing pain as my eyes focus, the murky shape becomes the wall of a rustic log cabin. My head spins as my eyes drift upward, searching for relief from the razor-sharp clarity. The ceiling is a void of darkness. My eyes slide closed as I feel the vacuum above sucking my body up, up, into the void and I succumb to the blackness.

March 26

This time I wake slowly, awareness dawning so gradually that by the time I realize I'm staring at a lamp, I don't know if it's been twenty seconds or two hours. My head feels clear at last, but I am overwhelmingly tired. I have vague memories of waking here before and feeling sick.

But where is here ? I don't know this place. Dread begins to creep into my body, making me dizzy with fear and scaring away tiredness for a moment. I mentally pull myself together and take stock of the situation, something I know I've had to do before to survive. My eyes dart around the room, taking in as much information as they can. I seem to be in a cabin. I am lying in a warm bed nestled between the silkiest sheets I've ever touched. A window to my left reveals that darkness has enveloped the cabin. Did I see light from this window before? Snow is stuck to the glass panes, peering in at me. A snowy evergreen branch slaps the window, the sight of it sparking something in me.

The memory of running suddenly hits and sends me curling up into myself with a familiar terror. They are chasing me. I am being hunted. They won't stop until I'm dead too.

My body is shivering in fear when I remember the new plan to keep me safe. I'm moving to Alaska. A plane took me from Seattle to Fairbanks, I slept in a motel room just down the road from the airport, and I remember the helicopter we took the next morning. But I can't remember anything after the helicopter. The memory of running resurges, but I tamp it down. I dream about running in terror most nights. That was just another dream.

I look at the cabin around me. I must be in the safehouse Johnston was taking me to. The memory of Johnston, my handler, smiling kindly at me while reassuring me that he'd protect me at all costs makes me feel just a little bit calmer. I seize that thought like a drowning girl. I just need to convince myself that I'm safe, that Johnston is on the other side of the door in the corner with that light coming under it - with that shadow in the middle - it must be Johnston, coming to check on me. Everything is fine.

My carefully crafted reality shatters when the door opens and the man who walks in is not Johnston. Terror comes flooding back when the man and I make eye contact. He freezes and takes a step back. He's wearing a plaid, long-sleeved shirt and a black ski mask over his face. This is almost cartoonish. I survived so long, knowing the faces of the men who almost murdered me, only now to be killed by a man in a ski mask. Are they trying to play with me before they kill me? I clutch at the sheets in front of me, my only defense.

"So you're awake, then." His voice is gruff, raspy, and sounds strained. He coughs. Even if I try to respond, the terror constricting my throat won't allow any sound to pass through. He must notice my fear, because he quickly adds, "I'm not going to hurt you. You're safe. No one can find you here."

I feel my brow furrowing. I don't understand. Nice, safe people don't wear ski masks when they come to talk to you. But his voice doesn't sound like either of the two that haunt my dreams.

My survival technique kicks in again. I create my own version of reality and convince myself it's true. Everything is fine. This is normal. He works with Johnston. This man is here to help you. Everything is fine.

Clinging to my last threads of security, I timidly ask, "Where's Johnston?"

He pauses. "Who?"

I pull the blankets closer as my facade crumbles. Where am I? Who is this man? Where is Johnston? Why would he tell me that no one can find me here? Is that a threat?

Waking up in a strange place with gaps in my memory is disturbing enough without a masked man making vaguely threatening statements. The fact that he somehow knows I'm hiding from someone is even more suspicious.

The spiraling terror of a panic attack threatens. I can't let it take control of me now. I have to stay here, present. I have to get answers. I have to be OK. Everything is fine, everything is fine.

"How do you know someone is looking for me?" I ask, my voice little more than a squeak.

"You talked while you were delirious."

"Delirious?"

"You've been very sick. I didn't think you'd make it."

"How did I get here?"

"I found you in the woods, half-frozen to death. You had a gash on your temple. I think you may have hit your head pretty hard."

He found me in the woods? My last memory is of riding in the helicopter. How did I come to be in the woods? I want to ask, but I doubt he knows.

"Do you remember how you got there?" he asks.

I shake my head and continue to eye him. He has turned to face me, but his right side is angled away. I can only see his left eye. I can't tell if the ski mask is blocking the other eye or if something else is covering it. He holds a makeshift wooden tray that looks more like a spare plank than a real tray. On the tray is a glass of water and a bowl. I notice he is holding the tray oddly, only with his left hand. His right is tucked up against his midsection, the hand encased in a glove. The knuckles on his left hand gripping the tray are turning white. With his facial expressions hidden from me, his death grip is the first indication I've seen that he is nervous too. That strikes me as odd. Why would he be nervous around me? I pose no threat to him. He looks away from me and coughs again, the items on the tray rattling dangerously. He looks down, then back to me.

"Are you hungry? I have broth."

I nod, realizing that I am famished. My stomach growls immediately. He walks forward and I frown slightly. He has a noticeable limp. His right leg seems much weaker than his left. He sets the tray on the bed next to me and pauses, looking away quickly when he sees my expression.

"Do you need help? With the broth, I mean."

I release the sheets I've been clinging to and sit up, reaching for the bowl. I freeze when I see the sleeve of the shirt I'm wearing. I am not wearing my own clothes. This is a man's shirt.

"These aren't my clothes."

I look up at him in horror. He gives no indication that he's heard me.

"Did - did you change my clothes?" I ask breathlessly.

He glances back up at me. "Yes," he says, his rough voice sounding careful, "because the clothes you were wearing were wet and freezing. But I didn't, umm," he stops, exuding discomfort. "I was respectful." I continue to stare at him, feeling my face heat and my ears burn. His left eye looks away from me, his right obscured by the ski mask, which is sewn shut over the right eye. Is the entire right side of his body damaged? He steps back and clears his throat. "You think you can manage on your own?"

"Yes," I say.

"Good. I'll be out there. If you need anything," he adds almost as an afterthought, already limping quickly from the room as though he'd been eagerly awaiting the chance to leave it.

After finishing the meal, I consider the man who delivered it. He didn't murder me on the spot, which is either a good sign or a really really bad sign. For the sake of my sanity, I'm going to choose to believe this is a good thing. Why is he wearing that mask? It freaks me out. What happened to him that caused such damage to his right side? Suddenly a thought pops into my mind. Perhaps he'd had a debilitating stroke. That could certainly cause loss of function throughout one half of the body. It would also explain the mask if he was unable to control half of his face and particularly ashamed of it.

But I don't think I've ever heard of anyone under fifty having a stroke. I'd been assuming he was a younger guy, but I don't suppose I have any evidence to back that up. His voice sounded so rough, it could certainly belong to an older man. He didn't act or speak in a way that suggested he was young. Or old. Well, there was that line about being respectful. Perhaps he's an awkward but well-meaning old man, his body ravaged by a stroke and his face embarrassingly paralyzed. It's a thought that brings me a modicum of peace. Everything is fine.

March 27

I wake up again, still feeling weak, exhausted, and entirely uncertain what time it is or even what day it is. The tray with my empty soup bowl is gone and has been replaced with a glass of water and a sandwich. The gentle, caring nature my host seems to possess reaffirms my hope that he's just a feeble old man.

I glance at the window and see that it's dark still. Or dark again? How long has it been since I last woke? I eat the sandwich, another indication that a significant amount of time has passed. I frown and try to think. What happened during the many gaps in my memory? How long has it been since I rode in that helicopter, looking out over snowy fields and forests? The imagery reminds me of the ski trip we took last winter.

Sadness pours over me at the memory. My mother. My father. My sister. We had such a good time then, a bunch of desert dwellers gawking at snow and trying to avoid crashing into it face first. I'll never go on another ski trip with my family. All of them are gone. The memory of their deaths hits me and this time I can't force it out of my mind. I grab the pillow next to me and sob into it, trying to muffle the sound. My whole family is gone and I've been sent to hide in Alaska. Far, far away from my home. I'll never tell my mom stories about college again. Dad will never again tell me how proud he is of me for moving away to pursue my dreams, even though I was scared. My sister will never tell me about the boy she likes and how he danced every dance with her at the spring formal. My family is gone and I can never get them back. I cry silently until I feel numb and the tears don't come anymore.

~~~

When I wake up next, the sky outside is dark. Is there ever any light in this place? I feel drained, emotionally and physically. I don't want to get out of bed for the rest of eternity. My growling stomach, however, has other ideas. I'm so hungry, I feel like I'm about to vomit. Or pass out. Or do both at the same time. I quietly slip out of the bed and wander to the other side of the room, padding across the floor on thick socks that must belong to him. I realize that during our first meeting, I never caught his name. The bedroom door is open and leads to a larger room with a small kitchen on one side and a living room on the other. A couch in the living room side faces a window opposite the bedroom. Through this window, I can see the forest outside and some stars in the night sky. It's a beautiful sight.

A green flash catches my eye and I duck, thinking someone has found me. From my lower vantage point, I have a better view of the sky and the source of the green light. I gasp quietly and pad over to the window, mouth open. It's the Northern Lights. I've never seen them in person before. I hadn't thought this view could be more beautiful a moment ago, but I was sorely mistaken. I watch the dancing lights in the sky. Shades of green and purple flicker and sway slowly in the night sky, backlit by more stars than I've ever seen before. The sight is breathtaking. I don't know how long I've been standing there when my stomach rumbles again, reminding me why I ventured out of the bedroom. Reluctantly, I return to the kitchen and pull on the handle of the refrigerator. It opens with an unhappy screech and the light flicks on, blinding me for a moment. I hear a scuffling sound behind me and spin. A dark shape is sitting on the couch, jamming a ski mask on his head. I jump, letting out a little squeaking sound, and back into the counter. In the darkness, I hadn't even noticed him there.