I take off my boots and jump into the freezing water, cursing and swimming madly for the canoe. I stuff our things into it, but I don’t even get into it, I just turn and swim it back. I pull it up onto shore and urge Kiro in.
I should really be keeping him still, but we have to get the fuck out.
This might be a shit plan, but it’s my plan, and I’m not second-guessing it. I get in and shove us off.
I take a quick look downstream—none of my Styrofoam vessels are around, none caught on the rocks or reeds. Hopefully that’s what’s making the signal. Hopefully the mob guys will follow it and not us.
Okay.
I start paddling upstream, keeping to the shady west side of the shore. It will be dark soon.
Kiro’s watching me. He’s trying to focus. “Ann,” he says. “Was I out?”
“A little. How do you feel?”
He doesn’t answer. Just squints around.
“Kiro? Tell me how you feel.”
“Dizzy,” he says. “Like a hammer is inside my brain.”
A bullet graze can be a serious head trauma. “What else? How’s your eyesight? Move your feet.”
He complies.
“Looks like systems online. But you probably have a hell of a concussion.”
He grasps the sides of the canoe, squinting around. “Where are we?”
“I don’t know. But being that I’m a way faster paddler than you are, we may be all the way to Canada. Possibly Alaska. What do you think?”
Nothing. I need to get him talking, get a sense of how he is.
“What do you think?” I ask.
“I think you’re a good mate.”
I keep us going, around one bend and then another. I go for an hour, getting him to answer stupid little questions. He’s not sitting up and not insisting on paddling. Not great signs.
An hour into our trip, he growls.
“What?”
“They’re coming. Hunting. Helicopters.” I don’t hear anything, but it doesn’t mean they’re not there. Kiro sits up and grabs the other paddle. “Hurry—” He points at a swath of brown way off across the waterway.
“What?”
“We can hide there.”
We paddle like hell for the spot. He maneuvers the canoe under a fallen tree at the river’s edge and ties it up between the branches. It’s great cover.
“What are you going to do?”
He climbs out, using the rotting branches as a bridge to the shore. He slips a few times—I can’t tell whether it’s the instability of the branches or his dizziness. When he gets to shore, he straightens, sways a bit, and then reaches out to hold onto a tree. Definitely dizzy. It’s not good—it could be something with his inner ear. But then he withdraws his hand from the tree and takes a few more steps. He’s stable. Or maybe it’s willpower.
He comes back to the canoe. “We’ll sleep here until light,” he says.
I snuggle him into the blankets and stretch out by him. I poke his ribs. “Hey.”