A deer scoots off into the distance at the latest stop, and I keep moving along the path. The trees are thinning, and it looks as though there is a small clearing ahead. I must be a mile into the woods, and my eyes have almost adjusted to the darkness enough that, when I get into the lightly wooded area, the starlight above me seems to light up the night like streetlamps.
Dark heavy shadows are cast by the tall, thick trees, but huge patches of white snow covering untouched grass carpet the area, and I look for footprints. Light, tiny flakes are still falling from above. The first really heavy snow of the year started just hours ago, and I am surprised to see it sticking already. Xavier would be so excited. He would want to make…
Angels.
I shudder, pulling my thick coat tighter around me, hoping not to freeze before I find them. My eyes keep scanning the white powder and finally I see something. On the other side of the clearing, something depresses into the snow, creating a print that I can see as I run toward it. It’s a footprint, and it’s some distance from another one, further toward the edge of the trees. As if someone was in mid stride when she encountered the fallen snow for the first time.
I take a few more steps, following the footprint’s direction, and I hear the snap of a twig behind me. I freeze in place. It’s probably a deer, but it could be something else. It could be Professor Harris.
I turn just in time to catch a glimpse of a brown blur tackling into me. We land hard in the snow, and I try to scramble out from under when an elbow cracks me in the side of the skull. It hurts, but I keep moving, shifting my hips to maneuver out from under the body. I can recognize the cologne. It’s his.
His hand claws at my neck, trying to wrap his fingers around it, and I clasp onto his wrist and shift hard. I slam my head forward with everything I can muster, and I hear it landing hard in his jaw. He groans in frustration and pain. His grip lessens for just long enough that I roll to my right, wrapping his arm in the process and forcing him in a hammerlock.
I try to yank up, pulling his arm so far that it tears his shoulder. It wouldn’t necessarily end the fight, but it would be enough to give me the upper hand and let me get some breathing room. Unfortunately, he rolls with me and I can’t get the leverage. Instead, I bail and get space between us. It’s better than the close quarters, since I don’t know if he has a knife or anything. At a distance, I can always turn and run if I need to.
Not that I am going to.
I am on my knees before he is, and I dropkick him hard in the ribs. I can hear the wind get sucked out of him as he rolls over in pain and scrambles to his knees again. I take a deep breath and run forward, laying in another kick to his ribs. But just as I land it, his arm wraps around my ankle and he yanks me hard, twisting my leg and making me land directly on my knee.
Searing pain shoots through my knee, and I cry out. I’ve felt that pain before. It’s an old injury I had years before, when I was still a kid. A tear in the meniscus. It’s debilitating and extraordinarily painful. I roll away as far as I can, clutching at my knee.
I hear him spit where he sits, and I roll to my good knee, trying to see if there is any way I’m not as hurt as I think I am. I have my backup plan, but I don’t want to use it. I know where it will go. I have to try to bring him in alive and breathing and conscious. That’s the only way I will be able to find Julia.
“Not as good as you thought, are you Emma?” he grunts, spitting blood into the white snow. It glistens where it lands and bubbles, creating perfect little balls of plasma. “Can’t even beat an old man.”
I try to stand, but a branch under the snow catches the tip of my foot and pulls on the leg with the hurt knee. It hurts like hell, and I crumple back down. Before I know it, Les is on me, smashing my ribs with a kick and then turning slightly and hitting me in the throat and jaw with another. I roll over, gasping for breath.
Everything hurts. My knee is on fire. My ribs feel cracked on one side. The wind is knocked out of me and as I wheeze it back in, my ribs compress, and everything starts all over, hurting again. I set my jaw shut because I’m afraid if I open it, he’ll just kick it shut again and break my teeth. I crawl away slowly, and I hear him calmly walking behind me, his boots crunching on the new-fallen snow. Occasionally he spits and blows his nose. I look over my shoulder to see a fat wad of red goo shoot out of his nostril and onto the ground. I must have landed a pretty good shot there, because it looks broken.
“Do you have any idea,” he starts, his voice a low grumble, “how angry you made me? You wouldn’t just go away. You had to keep interfering and interfering and interfering. Everyone else just thought she simply ran away, but you, you kept sticking your nose into
