Article 5

he must be with the rancher; he was too well dressed to belong to the couple. He was hiding, terrified, watching as the thief aimed a gun at his father.

My breath froze its rapid assault to my lungs, and without thinking I jerked out from under Chase’s grasp to crawl toward the boy’s hiding spot, ten feet to our right.

“Ember!” Chase hissed.

The gunman’s voice hitched before us. “Yeah, sure, I had a house once, too. A house and a job and a car. Two cars! And now I can’t even feed my family!” I could hear the thief crying now. His desperation was ramping up. Both Chase and I tensed in response.

The boy sobbed loudly. The thief spun in our direction.

“What’s that? You got someone else out there? Who’s there?”

“No one!” the rancher said forcefully. “It’s just us.”

“I heard someone!” He began stomping toward us.

I froze. My knuckles sank into a damp patch of leaves. The boy was still five feet away, but he’d seen me now. He was covering his mouth with both hands. His face sparkled with tears.

I moved one trembling finger to my lips, desperately trying to shush him. Why hadn’t we backed up like Chase had wanted to?

The deliberate crackling of undergrowth snapped me out of my trance. For a brief second I caught Chase’s eyes and recognized the soldier’s hardened stare. Then, to my shock, he dropped the pack and stood to his full height. He had never looked more formidable.

“Who the hell are you?” yelled the thief, aiming the gun right at Chase’s chest.

My head reeled. What is he doing? I tried to grab Chase’s ankle so that I might still pull him back and make him see reason, but it was too late. He was covering for the child, I realized. Showing himself before the gunman started shooting at random into the forest. The prospect of Chase being harmed crushed me with powerlessness.

“Hey, easy. Put the gun down,” I heard Chase order calmly. The thief hesitated and backed up several steps.

“Who are you?”

“A traveler, just like you. Damn cold, isn’t it? That’s the worst part, I think. The cold. Listen, I know you’re hungry. I’ve got some extra food I’ll share with you tonight, and we’ll think of a plan, all right?”

“Back off!”

The rancher’s eyes were darting between the two armed men, then toward the woods, where his son was hiding. The evening air bristled with static.

“Please Eddie!” bawled the thief’s wife. “Please, let’s go!”

The man brought both of his hands to his head. The barrel of the gun pressed lengthwise against his temple.

He’s going to shoot himself, I thought, horrified.

“Look, I’m putting my gun down, okay?” said Chase. “You put yours down, too, and we’ll get you some food.” I watched in shock as Chase bent to lower his gun. Negotiations had been part of his training, but was this right? He was about to be defenseless!

A crack in the bushes a few feet away refocused my attention.

The boy was leaving his hiding place.

“Hey kid!” I whispered. “Get down!”

He didn’t listen. He seemed to think that Chase had defused the situation.

“Dad!” The boy began running toward the rancher, whose surprised expression lapsed into terror. He dropped the bat.

The thief swore, startled, and jerked the silver handgun toward the boy charging out of the bushes.

“Ember, STOP!” roared Chase.

I hadn’t until that moment realized that I’d stood as well, and that my feet were running, too. Toward the boy. I was closer than the father. I could stop him first. Those were my only thoughts.

Crack! The shot was fired the moment the kid and I collided. We tumbled into the grass in a heave of expelled breath and tangled limbs.

“Ronnie!” The rancher flung me to the side as he desperately clutched his young son’s body, searching for injury. My eyes ran over him as well. The jeans and sweatshirt were mud stained, and his innocent face was white with shock. Still, he had not been shot, and I felt no pain apart from getting the wind knocked out of me, which only left…

“Chase!” I was on my feet at once, sprinting over the patches of damp grass and puddles toward the two men on the ground. It took me a full second to see that they were both struggling. Neither, at least so far, had been fatally injured.

As I rounded the dead cow it became clear to me that Chase was winning. He outweighed his opponent by fifty pounds and had youth and training to his advantage. The woman had attacked him too, though, and was flung to the side, sobbing miserably. Somehow, both guns were lying on the ground.

My eyes found Chase’s first, as it was closest. I scooped it up quickly, forgetting about safeties and chambers, and pointed it at the jumbled mass of blood-stained clothing that rolled frantically over the earth.

My hands trembled. I couldn’t shoot one without risk of hitting both.

“Stop!” I shouted.

Chase elbowed the thief savagely in the face. The man clawed at Chase’s wounded arm, and Chase hissed in pain.

Something changed inside me then. A bolt, straight down my spine. The blood ran hot and fast through my veins. My vision narrowed into compressed slits, and over it descended a red veil. Suddenly, I didn’t care how pitiful this stranger was or how hungry.

This had to stop. Now.

I raised the gun upward, toward the sky, and pulled the trigger. A loud pop slammed through my eardrums. The metal recoiled, sending a vicious kick through my wrist, down my forearm. I yelped, and the gun fell from my numb hand to the ground. My mind went absurdly but peacefully silent.

Chase lunged to a stand, shoulders heaving. All the calm negotiating had been stripped from his face to reveal the ferocity beneath. His eyes searched wildly for the source of the shot and came to rest on me.

The woman helped her husband to a stand. His mouth and nose were a mess of blood and dirt. They fled into the woods without another word.

I stared after them, feeling suddenly displaced, like a hammer with no nail. What do I do now? Everything had happened so fast and had ended just as abruptly.

When I turned around, Chase was coming toward me. His gait told me that he was furious before he ever opened his mouth.

I couldn’t think clearly. My ears were ringing from the shot, and my mind buzzed with the fleeting remnants of rage. Tears blurred my vision. The fear, momentarily paused, returned with full force, and in this frantic, baffled state I ran to him, and leapt into his arms.

He seemed surprised at first but soon was squeezing back.

“It’s all right,” he soothed. “No one’s hurt. You’re okay.”

His words sliced through me, and for the first time since he’d taken me from school, I knew the truth about us: I could not be okay if he was not okay. Pain, nightmares, fighting—all of it aside—he was a part of me.

“Don’t do that again! Not ever again!” I told him.

“I should say the same to you,” he said. I could feel his breath, warm on my neck.

“Promise me!” I demanded.

“I… I promise.”

“I can’t lose you.”

In that moment, I didn’t care about getting to South Carolina. I meant that I needed him. The way he had been. The way he still could be if he never let go. I don’t know what made me say it, but in that moment I had no regrets.

He hesitated, then pulled me even closer, so that I could barely breathe. My feet no longer touched the