The wild hog stared at me. I stared back.
Shit.
I’d never got into a punch-up with a pig before, and I didn’t particularly want to start now. Did they attack humans? Remind me to insist on a proper briefing next time I decided to schlep through a forest at night.
I risked a glance sideways. Ridley’s hands were empty. No weapon that I could see. Black came forward, darting the last few metres in case Ridley moved. But he didn’t.
With the main threat neutralised, I fired a warning shot into the ground at the hog’s feet. If Beth and Rune were still alive, I didn’t want to kill them with a stray bullet. The beast turned tail and ran, hurtling through the undergrowth and vanishing into the darkness.
Phew. Crisis averted.
Black checked Ridley’s pulse. “He’s still breathing.”
Unceremoniously, he flipped the motherfucker onto his front and pressed on the back of his head with one boot. Ridley woke up a bit, gurgling into the puddle, but he didn’t seem to have the strength to fight back properly.
“We’ve found Ridley,” I informed everyone not present.
“Alive?” Alaric asked.
“Just a minute…” Ridley had stopped moving, and this time when Black felt for a pulse, he smiled. “No.”
“What about Beth and Rune?”
Pale was on the move again already, and this time we had one significant advantage. It didn’t matter how much noise we made.
“Beth? Rune? Are you there?”
CHAPTER 50 - BETHANY
PERHAPS WE SHOULD have stayed in the cellar after all. Rune was drowsy, my ankle had swollen to the size of a melon, and even if we could have kept walking, the rain clouds had covered up the stars and we had no idea which way to go. And it was cold. Freezing. I was soaked through, and my teeth wouldn’t stop chattering. I hugged Rune tighter as we curled against the base of a gnarled old tree.
“Stay awake,” I whispered to her. “Just a little longer.”
“I’m so…so tired.”
We needed a miracle now. More than once, I’d almost drifted off, and I knew that if I fell asleep, I’d never wake up. If we died out here, would anyone even find our bodies? Or would we get eaten by one of the creatures that we could hear moving around in the forest?
Bang.
I’d been on the verge of passing out, but the gunshot jolted me back to life. Somebody was far too close for comfort. Ridley?
Rune let out a quiet sob. “Is it him?”
Please, no.
Although maybe a quick death would be preferable to a long, drawn-out demise.
“I don’t know, but who else would be shooting out here?”
“We need to run again.”
I tried to get up and almost passed out from the pain. Rune hauled on my arm, and I clawed my way up the tree bark. One step, and fire burned through my leg.
“I-I don’t think I can even walk. What if we hide instead?”
“He’ll find us.”
Rune suddenly stiffened, and her fingers dug into my arm.
“What?” I whispered. “What is it?”
“I heard something. Shh.”
And then I heard it too. The sweetest sound in the world, drifting from a distance on the chilly breeze. A woman’s voice, and it was shouting my name.
“Beth? Are you there? Rune?”
“Over here!” Rune yelled. “We’re over here.”
I never thought I’d be glad to see four gun-toting commandos running in my direction, but how things had changed. Wait a second… Was that… Was that Emmy?
“Are you okay? Are you injured? You’ll have to excuse the make-up.”
I burst into tears.
“I need food,” Rune said, staying remarkably composed. “I’m diabetic. And I need insulin, too. Beth’s hurt her ankle.”
“We’ve got glucose gel, raisins, and injectable glucagon as well as insulin. Beth, let’s get some painkillers into you. Are you allergic to anything?”
“Assholes.”
“Don’t think there’s any of those left around here.”
“Eric Ridley… He was chasing us.”
“He’s no longer a problem.”
“He’s dead?”
She nodded. “We found him lying in the woods. Not quite sure what happened to him, to be honest.”
“About four hundred units of insulin,” Rune said.
Emmy looked at her with newfound respect. “You did that?”
“She’s so very brave,” I said.
“Do you want a job?” Emmy pressed a hand to her ear. “Ouch. Okay, Alaric says I’m not allowed to offer you a job.”
“He’s there?” I asked. “Alaric’s there?”
“Yup. He was backstop in case Ridley went in the other direction. You’ll just feel a little prick now.”
For some reason, a vision of Piers popped into my head, and I quickly shook it away.
“Can I talk to him?”
Emmy removed her headset and passed it over. “The earpieces are custom-made, so they won’t fit properly, but if you hold it close, you should be able to hear, okay? It’s an open channel, so don’t get too slushy.”
I pressed it to my ears with both hands. “Alaric?”
“Fuck, it’s good to hear your voice.”
“I’m sorry for all this trouble.”
“Sweetheart, it’s me who should be apologising. I’m the one who got you into this situation.”
“It wasn’t you. It was that madman. And it’s your friends who are here to help us, to save us… Uh, how are we going to get out of here? I can’t walk.”
“We’re going to carry you,” Emmy told me.
Somebody tucked a foil blanket around my shoulders, and I clutched it tightly around myself. Then lights came on, illuminating the whole sorry scene.
“Carry me? But it’s miles. I think.”
“Let us worry about that. Rune, will you be able to walk out of here once you’ve had some food? Or do you need a ride as well?”
“I can walk.”
Half an hour later, I was hallucinating nicely from the morphine as Emmy helped me to lie down on the stretcher the men had made out of two saplings and several ponchos. They wrapped another poncho over the top, and everything got to me—the drugs, the relief at being rescued, four days with hardly any sleep—and I basically passed out. The last thing
