She spun around, reaching for a slick railing to prevent herself from falling. The rig worker was running at her with speed and grace that bespoke a life lived on frozen catwalks.
She ran for the stairs, half falling, half sliding down them until she slammed into the snow. The footsteps were audible behind her as the roughneck shattered the ice coating the steps and generated a dull ring that seemed impossibly loud.
Tripping over her bulky boots, Jenna pushed herself to her feet and sprinted back the way she’d come. The glare of the lights made her feel as if she were beneath one of the magnifying glasses that had so fascinated her as a child.
“Stop, goddamnit!”
The door of a trailer to her right opened and she saw a man wearing only a pair of greasy jeans peer out and then disappear for a moment before reappearing with a pair of boots in hand. He jumped to the ground and began pulling the boots on while yelling back through the open door.
She didn’t look back, already certain that the man following her was gaining. She’d covered so many cold, hard miles that night and her legs just wouldn’t respond. Or maybe it was more than that. Maybe somewhere deep inside, she wanted to be caught.
With an audible grunt, the man dived toward her, slapping the back of her foot and sending her face-first into the hard-packed snow.
Their slide was stopped abruptly by a stack of tires, and by that time, the man had a hand tangled in her pant leg. She flipped on her back and kicked weakly at him, sinking a boot through his thick beard and miraculously connecting with his chin.
She wasn’t strong enough to hurt a man his size, but she did force him to let go and use both hands to ward off the second kick he was expecting. Instead, she pushed herself to her feet and started running again, struggling for traction and gripping a rusty snowcat for balance. The shouts audible from behind probably came from two or three men, but her mind multiplied them into an angry mob, and finally her legs responded. Her balance returned and she could feel the bitter cold of the air against her face as her speed increased.
She was almost to the snow bank when a figure stepped out from behind a pile of scrap and pointed a gun at her. She tried to stop, but her momentum carried her forward, bringing her so close as to make her impossible to miss. At that moment, though, she realized the gun wasn’t aimed at her, but past her.
“Jonas, no!”
She threw herself forward, managing to deflect the German’s arm just as he fired. The crack of the pistol was followed by a loud ricochet and not the soft thud she imagined a bullet impacting flesh would make.
When she looked back, the man chasing her was skidding on his back in the snow, trying to reverse himself. A moment later, he was running toward the relative safety of the rig along with the men who had spilled out of the trailers.
“Are you crazy?” she said, shoving Jonas back hard enough to nearly send him sprawling into the metal debris behind him. “You could have killed someone!”
He didn’t answer, instead grabbing her by the back of the neck and dragging her toward the wilderness they’d come from.
© 2007 - Reprinted with permission by Vanguard Press
