Logan wastes no time jumping out, both hands on his pistol, aiming it at the man’s head.
“ Step back!” he screams.
I jump out, too.
The man slowly raises his arms, looking dazed as he takes several steps back.
“ Don’t shoot!” the man pleads. “Please! I’m just like you! I need help. Please. You can’t leave me here to die. I’m starving. I haven’t eaten in days. Let me come with you. Please. Please!”
His voice is cracking, and I see the anguish on his face. I know how he feels. Not long ago, I was just like him, scrounging to get by with every meal here in the mountains. I am hardly much better now.
“ Here, take this!” the man says, taking off his bow and quiver of arrows. “It’s yours! I mean no harm!”
“ Move slowly,” Logan cautions, still suspicious.
The man reaches out gingerly and hands out the weapon.
“ Brooke, you get it,” Logan says.
I step forward, grab the bow and arrows, and throw them in the back of the truck.
“ See,” the man says, breaking into a smile. “I’m no threat. I just want to join you. Please. You can’t leave me here to die.”
Slowly, Logan relaxes his guard and lowers his gun just a bit. But he still keeps an eye trained on the man.
“ Sorry,” Logan says. “We can’t have another mouth to feed.”
“ Wait!” I yell at Logan. “You’re not the only one here. You don’t make all the decisions.” I turn to the man. “What’s your name?” I ask. “Where are you from?”
He looks at me desperately.
“ My name is Rupert,” he says. “I’ve survived up here for two years. I’ve seen you and your sister before. When the slaverunners took her, I tried to help. I’m the one that chopped down that tree!”
My heart breaks as he says this. He’s the one that tried to help us. I can’t just leave him here. It’s not right.
“ We have to take him,” I say to Logan. “We can find room for one more.”
“ You don’t know him,” Logan replies. “Besides, we don’t have the food.”
“ I can hunt,” the man says. “I’ve got the bow and arrow.”
“ Much good it’s doing you up here,” Logan says.
“ Please,” Rupert says. “I can help. Please. I don’t want any of your food.”
“ We’re taking him,” I say to Logan.
“ No we’re not,” he says back. “You don’t know this man. You don’t know anything about him.”
“ I barely know anything about you,” I say to Logan, my anger hardening. I hate how he can be so cynical, so guarded. “You’re not the only one who has the right to live.”
“ If you take him, you jeopardize all of us,” he says. “Not just you. Your sister, too.”
“ There are three of us here last I checked,” comes Bree’s voice.
I turn and see she’s jumped out of the truck and stands behind us.
“ And that means we’re a democracy. And my vote counts. And I vote we take him. We can’t just leave him here to die.”
Logan shakes his head, looking disgusted. Without another word, his jaw hardening, he turns and jumps back into the truck.
The man looks at me with a huge smile, his face crumpling in a thousand wrinkles.
“ Thank you,” he whispers. “I don’t know how to thank you.”
“ Just move, before he changes his mind,” I say as we turn back to the truck.
As Rupert approaches the door, Logan says, “You’re not sitting upfront. Get in the back of the pickup.”
Before I can argue, Rupert happily jumps into the back of pickup. Bree jumps in, as do I, and we take off.
It is a nerve-racking remainder of the ride back to the river. As we go, the skies darkening, I constantly watching the sunset, bleeding red through the clouds. It’s getting colder out by the second, and the snow is hardening even as we drive, turning to ice in some places, and making driving more precarious. The gas gauge is dropping, flashing red, and though we only have a mile or so to go, I feel as if we’re fighting for every inch. I also feel how on-edge Logan is about our new passenger. It is just one more unknown. One more mouth to feed.
I silently will the truck to keep going, the sky to stay light, the snow not to harden as I step on the gas. Just when I think we’ll never get there, we round the bend, and I see our turnoff. I turn hard onto the narrow country lane, sloping down towards the river, willing the truck to make it. The boat, I know, is only a couple hundred yards away.
We round another bend, and as we do, my heart floods with relief as I see the boat. It is still there, bobbing in the water, and I see Ben standing there, looking nervous, watching the horizon for our approach.
“ Our boat!” Bree yells excitedly.
This road is even more bumpy as we accelerate downhill. But we’re going to make it. My heart floods with relief.
Yet as I’m watching the horizon, in the distance I spot something that makes my heart drop. I can’t believe it. Logan must see it at the same time.
“ Goddamit,” he whispers.
In the distance, on the Hudson, is a slaverunner boat-a large, sleek, black motorboat, racing towards us. It is twice the size of ours, and I’m sure, much better equipped. Making matters worse, I spot another boat behind that, even farther back.
Logan was right. They were much closer than I’d thought.
I slam on the brakes and we skid to a stop about ten yards from the shoreline. I throw it into park, open the door, and jump out, getting ready to race for the boat.
Suddenly, something is very wrong. I feel my breathing cut off as I feel an arm wrap tight around my throat; then I feel myself being dragged backwards. I am losing air, seeing stars, and I don’t understand what’s happening. Have the slaverunners ambushed us?
“ Don’t move,” hisses a voice in my ear.
I feel something sharp and cold against my throat, and realize it’s a knife.
It is then that I realize what has happened: Rupert. The stranger. He has ambushed me.
T H R E E
“Lower your weapon!” Rupert screams. “Now!”
Logan stands a few feet away, pistol raised, aiming it right past my head. He holds it in place, and I can see him deliberating whether to take a head shot on this man. I see he wants to, but he’s worried about hitting me.
I realize now how stupid I was to pick up this person. Logan had been right all along. I should have listened. Rupert was just using us all along, wanting to take our boat and food and supplies and have it all to himself. He is completely desperate. I realize in a flash that he will surely kill me. I have no doubt about it.
“ Take the shot!” I scream out to Logan. “Do it!”
I trust Logan-I know he is a great shot. But Rupert holds me tight, and I see Logan wavering, unsure. It is in that moment that I see in Logan’s eyes how scared he is of losing me. He does care, after all. He really does.
Slowly, Logan holds out his gun with an open palm, then gently places it down in the snow. My heart sinks.
“ Let her go!” he commands.
“ The food!” Rupert yells back, his breath hot in my ears. “Those sacks! Bring them to me! Now!”
Logan slowly walks to the back of the truck, reaches in, takes out the four heavy sacks, and walks towards the man.
“ Place them on the ground!” Rupert yells. “Slowly!”
Slowly, Logan places them down the ground.
