Russo Saga Collection

by Nicolina Martin

  Now.

  When I turn, Christian is sitting up. His gaze is dulled, and he looks exhausted.

  “How is she?” He stands and walks over to the crib.

  I lift a limp Cecilia and shake my head at Christian as I carry her to the kitchen to get her some lemonade. She needs water and sugar.

  “Are you hungry, honey?”

  Cecilia shakes her head. I throw Christian a pleading glance and he nods. He understands. We have a new wordless communication we’ve never had before. In the midst of the numbing worry, it warms my chest.

  I busy myself with Cece while Christian packs everything we think is necessary. The most well-dressed will be our daughter. I don’t have any decent boots, neither does Christian, and his elegant, expensive-looking coat isn’t exactly made for outdoor activities. We grunt orders to each other throughout the morning: remember to take this, don’t forget that, open that cabinet, pull that out… short, efficient words, working together like a team.

  She’s awake but limp, doesn’t say much, refuses to eat but drinks a little. She scares me to death.

  Christian sees my concern and our preparations speed up.

  He rummages around in every little corner of my house, finding everything that could be useful, while I make some breakfast for us. I pack a few sandwiches for the trip too. We eat standing, wolfing down as much as we can manage, the heavy lump in my stomach doesn’t allow me more than one sandwich.

  “How far is it to Sprague, Kerry?”

  “It’s about an hour from Middlebro. If the roads have been cleared.”

  “I hope to fuckin’ God they have,” he mutters. “All right, it took what, thirty-forty minutes to drive here, so we’ll be in Sprague in less than two hours. I parked half an hour’s walk down the road. I should be back in forty. We’ll be at the hospital in two and a half, three hours.” He takes in my agonized expression. “Breathe. We’ve got this. It’ll be all right.”

  “Okay. Thanks.” I try to find comfort in his assurances as I bandage my left ankle with strips torn from my last clean sheet while he does the same with his left knee. The sight would have been laughable if it hadn’t been so serious. I’m nervous about how the roads look. I’m afraid for Cece, and I’m worried about what will happen between Christian and me once we get back to town.

  I’ll cross that bridge when we get there.

  I glance out the window. A thin layer of snow has covered everything during the night. With the sun up, it glitters beautifully. It’s calm. Some trees have fallen during the storm, but it doesn’t look too bad.

  Christian lingers in the doorway. His eyes dart between me and Cecilia. “I’ll be back as soon as I can, Kerry.” Concern is etched on his face.

  “Be careful,” I say as the door slams shut.

  Christian

  The outside world is quiet, so different from a couple of nights ago when I chased through the woods in the roaring storm to catch up with a fleeing Kerry. I walk with a limp, slipping on icy patches as I veer across the treacherous snow-covered front yard and then hit the road. I keep up a good pace, haunted by Cecilia’s dulled gaze. The knee is manageable for the first fifteen minutes, then it begins to pound. At first, it’s just a distant discomfort, but my heart speeds up at the mere thought that it’s gonna get worse.

  It gets worse.

  I count the minutes until I should be at my car and can sit down and just drive back up and get my ladies.

  I stop flat at the sight of a large tree that has fallen across the road, and in front of it a rusty, blue pick-up truck, it’s engine compartment and front window smashed in. The same one I followed from the hotel, through the woods in the storm some nights ago. Ray. What the fuck?

  I walk up to the truck, clear a little hole in the frost and look into it, seeing no one. Where the fuck is he? I try the door, but it’s locked. I use my sleeve to wipe off the window better. Maybe there’s something in there I can use? I see part of a shotgun, a pair of gloves, and a lot of used paper tissues. On the flatbed lies a shovel and some neatly folded ropes. I can’t think of anything I can do with either of them, so I move on, still puzzled over the disappearance of the man.

  I freeze, a horrible thought striking me. I recognize this part of the road all too well. It’s fucking right where I parked my car. This isn’t happening! Fighting the twigs, rocks and roots, I plough through the terrain around the tree, I make my way to the other side, praying to a deity that has never listened to me that the road will be clear.

  It isn’t. My heart drops to my feet. The huge crown of the tree has fallen onto the side road, blocking it off. There’s not a chance in hell I can get past it.

  I unlock the car and almost fall into the driver’s seat, sweaty and spent, at a loss as to what to do now. My bag lies next to me, filled with useless items meant for another kind of life. A gun. Shirts and pants, a couple of suit jackets, a second pair of black, neatly polished shoes. My phone.

  After several attempts, I manage to start a very reluctant engine to get some warmth back. Shaking everything out of the bag, I take the gun and put it in the side pocket of my pants after making sure it’s secured, pull off my ruined shoes and put on the undamaged ones. I dismiss the rest of the stuff. I have better clothes on, and I can’t bother with the weight, walking all the way back.

  The phone is dead. I put it in the charger, but I’ll have to recharge it fully at Kerry’s and we can call for help. Well, she can call for help. I’ll have to think of something else, because I don’t want to be seen again. I’ve never left this amount of traces behind me. People who have seen me several times, a whole house full of my fingerprints and DNA. I’m used to being a shadow, of staying under the radar and my spine crawls with the knowledge that I’ve made myself vulnerable.

  I look around me, at the blocked road. If I’d had a chainsaw… But I’ve never dismembered anyone I’ve killed, I’ve never even dreamt of it, and I haven’t had any reason to pack one when I go on a mission.

  Twitching back to the present, I realize I can’t sit here. I turn off the engine, grab the phone and charger and heave my aching body out of the car as my heart sinks. Staring at the key, I wonder if there’s even a point to bringing it, but then I shrug and pocket it.

  It takes more than thirty minutes to get back, and I’m sweating profusely as I enter Kerry’s front yard. I stop flat at the sight. To my right lies an oblong pile of snow. A thick, human-sized, snow-covered pile. All my senses sharpen as I walk up to it.

  It’s our missing pick-up owner. Guess the filthy little grocery store is closing. I grab his shoulder and turn him. He’s frozen stiff, like a massive lollipop. Well, that’s that. It’s not hard to guess what happened. He left us, nearly got crushed under the tree, turned back… Then I don’t know. A thirty-minute walk killed him? Heart attack? I have no fucking idea.

  Bad luck. But he wouldn’t have had better luck if he’d have made it back to us. I’m really fucking happy he didn’t.

  I sigh and turn toward the house. The phone has come to life, low on battery, but at least it works. It hasn’t found a network, though, and it fills me with dread that slowly turns to anger. I don’t do dread; I don’t like the feeling.

  Kerry

  It’s the longest wait of my life. I rock back and forth as I cradle Cece in my arms, staring at the clock every second minute. When forty minutes have passed, closing in on fifty, I am nauseous with worry. Finally there are steps outside, almost an hour and a half after he left. I carefully put Cecilia down on the couch and dart up to open the door, but Christian rips it open and then slams it closed, his eyes dark and his face a mask of fury.

  “What happened?” Anxiety creeps through my body like a tingling spreading from my chest, radiating through my limbs. “What happened?” I repeat, breathless with worry when he doesn’t answer.

  “No car,” he grits out.

  I shake my head, I don’t understand. I don’t want to understand. “Why?”

  “Because there’
s no way in hell to get it past the fucking fallen tree!” he roars, making me jolt.

  I look at him in despair, my mind a jumbled mess.

  “It gets even better.”

  “What?”

  “I found Ray’s pick-up.”

  I don’t answer, dread rising in me with the ominous feeling that I won’t like what’s coming next.

  “Whe—”

  “It’s under the fucking tree! Well, part of it. And your friend is lying dead outside.”

  He shoves his hands through his hair, his ski cap falling to the floor.

  “What?” I have to sit down as nausea rises in me. My head spins and I close my eyes. “What happened? What do we do?”

  “Where does the side road lead to?”

  “Just to an abandoned house. It’s a dead end.”

  “Fuck!” His voice has a dark edge to it that sends flutters through my stomach. “Is there no fucking signal out here?” He holds up a phone, pulls a charger out of his pocket and puts it in a socket next to the living room window, then he turns, waiting for my answer.

  I chew on my bottom lip. I don’t want to answer. I don’t want to prove to him what a fuck-up I’ve been.

  “When—” he growls, “did you lose your fucking mind? You have a brain. I know it. How the fuck did you choose this dump?”

  Tears flood my eyes as I look at a sleeping Cecilia. “Can we please not fight?” My voice is hoarse, barely carrying the words.

  Christian tightens his lips into a thin line, making my heart jolt. He looks like he’ll lash out any second, but then he suddenly sounds all business. He snatches up his cap off the floor and puts it on his head. “Well… either we wait—”

  “Wait? Wait for what?”

  “—or we walk.”

  I stare emptily in front of me. Instead of seeing the living room, I see the forest, the upwards and downwards slopes, the rocks and the trees. “It’s… it’s probably a four-hour walk,” I whisper, “or more. Oh God.”

  “There’s no fucking God,” he snarls, his face grim. “All right, so we walk.” He picks up his phone. “We gotta wait a little. At some fucking point along the way we gotta be able to call for help.”

  I sink down next to our daughter, bone tired. Christian disappears to the bathroom for a while, and then comes back to sit on her other side, his eyes softening as he looks at Cecilia. We don’t speak for a long while, only her coughs break the silence.

  Finally he gets up and grabs the phone. “Seventy-five percent. It’ll do. Got everything you need?”

  I give the room a once-over. “Yeah, I think so.”

  “That’s not good enough.”

  “Yes. We’ve got everything. Let’s do this.”

  “After you, then.”

  I pull on my jacket and my boots, pick up our sleeping daughter and look up at him. He’s holding the door for me and the little breathing package in a red checkered blanket in my arms.

  “Thanks,” I say and take the first step out on the porch. The sky is clear, the light wind nips at my cheeks. I shudder and look up at him. “Let’s go.”

  “Yeah.” He lets the door slam shut with a very final sound.

  I glance once behind me, wondering if I’ll ever return to this place, and then we both turn toward the blinding whiteness.

  Christian tilts his head. “Lead the way.”

  The ground is slippery and in my rubber boots, walking becomes a nightmare after a mere few steps. I gasp as I see a dark form lying a few yards to the side. His fur hat has fallen off, and his thick overcoat warms no one. Tears well up in my eyes.

  “What do you think happened?” My throat constricts as I’m overwhelmed by sadness. He was such a kind man.

  “I have no idea.” Christian stops, and looks between me and Ray, then he walks up to him and pinches the coat. “Fuck.”

  “What?”

  “I just had a thought. But they’re just as frozen stiff as he is.”

  I back up a step. “You wanted to use his clothes? That’s disgusting!”

  “He’s got no use for them.” Christian grabs a boot and fights to get it off him without succeeding. “Fuck! It’s stuck like glue!” he roars and drops the leg.

  I want to vomit at the sight, and even more at the dull thud when Ray’s leg hits the ground. Christian is a person I’ll never understand fully, that I’ll never want to understand fully.

  “Can we please just move on?” I ask faintly.

  I swear I hear a near-feral growl from the huge man by my side, and it sends a wave of shivers down my spine. We take off down the road. After ten minutes, I have to stop and catch my breath. My heart slams in my chest and my ankle pounds.

  “Christian. It’s far. Four hours is at a normal pace. We’re not looking at four hours.”

  “I know,” he says through gritted teeth.

  “It’s gonna take us all day.” I nod toward the woods. “There’s a shorter route through there, we’ll have to walk across the mountain, but it’ll take us half the time. The road goes all the way around.”

  He squints and studies the tree line. “Are you sure?”

  I nod.

  “Let’s go then.” Lifting Cece out of my arms, he nods in the direction I pointed out. “After you, my dear.”

  It’s not easy. The road was easy, this is insane. I have trekked here a lot, during spring, summer and autumn. Autumn is my favorite season. The beauty in the decay, and the slowing down of everything that lives, soothes me somehow. But that’s during snow-free seasons. This is different. We stumble and slip over rocks, roots, and branches. The sun and light are our friends, but it doesn’t warm the air anymore. It helps me with direction, though.

  And it goes up, up, up. It doesn’t take long until I’m flustered, and soon there’s a thin sheen of sweat on both our faces. Christian carries Cece the most. He’s stronger.

  “Stop,” I pant. “I have to stop. My ankle… and I… have no… breath.” I sink down on a flat rock, not giving a fuck if my butt will get cold and wet.

  “You can’t sit there for long or you’ll catch a cold.”

  “I have to sit, or a cold will be the least of my worries,” I pant and slump forward, my arms resting on my knees. My heart pounds hard and everything aches.

  “We left the road an hour ago. How much further?” he asks and stomps to keep his warmth.

  I shake my head and gesture to my chest. I can’t talk. Not yet.

  He hands me our little, sick baby and for the hundredth time this morning, I check her pulse, her breathing and her color. Her cheeks are rosy, but it could be the cold. Maybe she’s breathing a little calmer. Just as I look at her, her round, brown eyes open and her pained gaze shoots straight into my heart.

  “Hey, tiger,” I whisper.

  Christian comes and sits himself next to me. “How is she?”

  “I’m not sure. How are you feeling, honey?”

  “Wate,” she rasps, and then her gaze searches our surroundings. “Snow?”

  I dig in my backpack and pull out the bottle, placing it at her lips. “Yes, sweetie, we’re taking you to the doctor.”

  “Ai—ai,” she says and lays a little gloved hand against her chest.

  Her pain transfers to me. I hurt when she hurts. Tears well up in my eyes. “I know, honey.”

  “Kis?” she whispers. I widen my eyes in surprise. My gaze darts to him and I am stunned by the transformation. It’s as if he’s been lit up from somewhere deep within. And it’s just… beautiful.

  “He’s here, Cecilia.” I hold her up so she can see him. And then I say it. “It’s not ‘Chris’, honey. He’s your dad. Christian is your dad.”

  I can’t look at him after that, the need to leave him alone with the moment too overwhelming. He reaches for her and she grabs his hand as she coughs. Then she smiles and her eyes flutter half shut.

  Christian frees himself from her hold, and as I glance at him, I see his face has once again become an unreadable mask. “It’s time to
move on.”

  “Do you want to hold her,” I ask shyly.

  The corners of his mouth suddenly pull up and his eyes turn warmer. “Absolutely.” He hugs her to his chest, and we start moving again. The steep slope gets to both of us and nothing is said for a long time.

  “When does it even out? How much is left?” he pants and hands me our daughter who has fallen asleep again, blissfully unaware of her parents’ struggle.

  “Soon, I think. It should be an hour left at most.” I hoist her higher, changing the grip. She’s already too heavy for me and I’ve only walked a few steps with her this time. “On top of the mountain it’ll even out for a while before it starts descending.”

  “When we get up there, we need to make a real stop, Ker. Drink and eat.”

  I nod, my chest too tight, gasping for air.

  And we continue our trek.

  Chapter 8

  Christian

  I keep checking my cell compulsively, but so far, no signal. I’m seriously concerned for us all. Kerry is exhausted. My knee hurts so bad I want to puke. Cecilia worries me like fucking hell. The chilly air nips at our skin, and we’re moving constantly. Half a day has passed since we woke up this morning, and she sleeps and sleeps. That can’t be good.

  It feels right that we are doing something, and that we’re not only sitting passively, but on the other hand I’m wondering if we aren’t committing suicide. We reach the plateau and the walk gets a lot easier once we don’t have to walk up, up, up and fucking up.

  ‘Kis?’ She asked for me. Well… she’ll forget about me as easily. ‘Christian is your dad.’

  I’ll never forget her.

  Kerry glances at me and inhales. Then she shakes her head and remains silent.

  “What?” I say, happy for any distraction.

  She inhales again. “Why did you keep looking for—” She snaps her mouth closed and then adds quickly, “Never mind.”

  I glance at her and then back at the cold, white wetness as I sigh inwardly at the decisions I’ve made. “You have to admit it, Kerry. We had something; you know we did. It was there.” I want to touch her so badly. My hand hovers in the air close to hers, but I can’t.