He abruptly rose from the chair and moved to the door.
“I want my sister…please.”
He stilled on the doorstep, the door cracked so the cold air entered the cabin. “That’s not going to happen.”
“I’ll do anything. I’ll scrub toilets. I’ll do laundry. Whatever you want. But please, just let us stay in the same cabin.”
“That’s not up to me—”
“I don’t believe you.”
He continued to glance outside, like he didn’t want to see the pained look on my face that matched my voice.
“Please…I know you aren’t like the others.”
Silence passed as he looked out into the cold. “You couldn’t be more wrong about that.”
8
Magnus
Three days were spent digging in the snow.
My legs were so sore, I could barely walk.
Magnus must have known how tired I was because he continued to bring me extra things, like a mug of hot chocolate, a couple cookies, and even a notebook with a pen…as if he knew I liked to write.
When those shoveling days were over, I was actually relieved to get back to normalcy, back to the boring job in the clearing.
I didn’t look at the woman hanging from the noose. It was different now, because I knew what she’d looked like when she was alive. There was no snow beneath her because it had been shoveled away. A wooden cross had been placed there, like one of her friends had done something to pay homage to her life.
But I never looked directly at her.
I would never get used to the executions, regardless of what Bethany said.
Even if years passed, my feelings would never change.
Somehow, I’d escape from there and tell the police everything. I’d watch the murderer’s trial, and then his imprisonment after he was convicted. I’d make him pay for what he did to the poor women who were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Bethany ate across from me. “That was your sister?”
I nodded.
“You’re the first pair to be brought here…that I know of.”
I didn’t mention the story, because it made my sister look bad. Right now, we needed to survive, and having as many allies as possible was the way to accomplish that. “Yeah.”
“She’s taking it pretty hard. Cindy is with her in the cabin, says it’s been rough.”
“I know.”
“I’m sorry. That must be difficult. That’s one thing I’m grateful for…being in here alone.”
“Who did you leave behind?” I whispered.
She was quiet for a while, shoveling the food into her mouth with her eyes down. “My daughter.”
My eyes fell when I heard those words. “I’m sorry…”
“I’m sure she’s with her grandmother, but…” Emotion caught in her throat, and she stopped talking.
A guard passed, and we kept our eyes on our food.
“I’m going to get out of here. And then I’m going to burn this place to the ground.”
“It’s fun to fantasize…”
“No. I’m going to do it.” I pulled the piece of metal from the snow out of my pocket and opened my palm so she could see it. It was a thin shard of metal, having broken off from the hinge of the busted crate. I returned it to my pocket.
She stilled for a second before she continued to eat. “What are you going to do with that?”
It was too small to be used as a weapon. It was too small to fight off wolves in the wild. But it could do one thing. “Magnus gave me a pen—”
“He told you his name?”
“Yes. Do they not do that?”
She shook her head.
I continued. “I think I can use both to pick the lock to my cabin.”
She stopped to stare at me, so surprised that she didn’t express her interest or disdain. “Then what? You’ll never make it out there alone, in the dark… And who knows if you really heard that bell. It was in the middle of a storm, so the sound could have carried from anywhere. You might not even have the right direction.”
The wind could have been blowing from several directions, so wherever its origin, it might be so far away that I had no chance of making it there at all, and I might be going in the opposite direction of the sound. But I held on to the fact that I’d heard it, that it was somewhere out there. “I’m going to explore the camp and see if I can steal some equipment. Maybe a map, a gun, some food and water to survive, flares if they have them…”
Bethany was still in shock.
“Just do some prep work before I run for it. I still have to get my sister too…”
“If you can make this work, you’ll have to leave her behind.”
“Why?”
“Because not everyone in that cabin is loyal to your cause. They could snitch.”
That disgusted me. “Even if that means they could be liberated?”
She nodded. “You’ll have to leave her, and if you make it…come back for her.”
I couldn’t leave my sister behind. We left together—we survived together.
“But I think it’s a bad idea, because you’ll probably get caught.”
“Do they have guards out at night?”
“I have no idea, but I would assume so. If you get caught, you’ll be the next victim of the Red Snow.”
I suddenly lost my appetite.
“And if that happens, what will your sister do then?”
I didn’t want my sister to see my lifeless body hanging there for a week. I didn’t want her to live with the memory of my murder. “I know, but I have to try. Because if I don’t try, then every woman will die here. They have drugs drop out of planes in the fucking sky. They know what they’re doing, and they’re never going to get caught by law enforcement or intelligence agencies. No one is coming for us, Bethany.”
She dropped her gaze.
“We’ll be filed as missing persons, and the police will assume we’ve been trafficked…which is brilliant. They’re completely on the wrong track. These guys did that on purpose. They have women working in the camp because men are strong enough to
