Chapter 6
Ashley
I REMEMBERED A RESEARCH trip in the South Pacific when a tropical cyclone had come up without warning. My team and I hadn’t had a chance to escape before it made landfall, and we’d hunkered down as best we could. When the storm finally descended, the noise had been unlike anything I’d ever experienced. The roar of it had sounded like jet planes taking off, the trees and driving rain lashing the sides of the research station like a constant drumbeat.
That storm and its noise had scared me. And when the research had ended and I’d returned to Oakland, I’d retreated home to the quiet of my parents’ coastal ranch house and not left again for a week.
Gunfire was entirely different than the sound of the cyclone. The storm of bullets going on outside ricocheted off the metal siding of the building and around my head until it was all I could see and hear, the only thing in my mind. My thoughts were nonexistent, and only instinct remained—the instinct to get out, away from the danger, and run as far away as fast as possible.
Except I had nowhere to go.
A large man stood in the doorway, the light behind him throwing his body into shadow so only his outline was visible. Then the door swung shut, the reaction to his action of kicking it in, cutting the light again. From what I could see from under the table, he was dressed in black from head to toe. A mask over his head concealed his face and revealed only his eyes and mouth, which was curled into a snarl.
As long as I lived, I wouldn’t forget those eyes—black, cold, malevolent. If the guns weren’t an indication, by his look alone I knew he had come to kill me.
Like it would offer some protection, I shrunk further back against the leg of the table. It had been the wrong thing to do because the movement caught the man’s eye, and his head snapped toward me. He stalked across the room, but stopped before he reached the table, his movement replaced with a string of angry, shouted words. I couldn’t understand what he was yelling at me—I knew basic Russian and Japanese, but this was neither.
His arm flapped again, and, screaming, he took a step closer, gesturing to the floor beside the table. When I didn’t respond, he shouted the word and repeated the gesture. I scrambled out from under the table, hot, wild panic surging through me, tightening my chest until I could barely breathe, until my thoughts were one massive, frenetic jumble, and I was relying on the pure will to survive.
The man had been huge from my vantage point crouched near the floor, but even standing in front of him, he was massive—he almost looked like a bear come to life. And like a bear, I was sure he would rip me apart. Except he had a machine gun slung over one shoulder, a handgun in his other hand, and he was gesturing wildly with it while still screaming at me.
“I don’t know what you’re saying,” I cried, desperate for a way to calm him down or tell him I wasn’t a threat.
Would it matter in the end?
The man in black gesticulated wildly at the equipment and papers sprawled over the table, yelling what sounded like rapid-fire questions.
“It’s just equipment—” My voice shook, tears of terror squeezing my voice until it was rough and airy. “Science equipment. I’m a marine biologist. I work in the water.” I waved frantically at the equipment and then toward the beach and ocean beyond.
The words didn’t mollify the man, who started shouting once more until my entire body shook, tears flowing freely down my face. Again, he waved his gun at the equipment, then at me, then back at the beach, shouting what sounded like question after question, demanding, full of rage, petrifying.
“Please, please don’t kill me,” I begged, backing step by step away from him. “I’m just here for research. That’s all.”
I had no idea what he wanted, what to say, or how to mollify him or escape.
From the corner of my eye, I saw a crack of light and realized it was from the shower room. Could I somehow get across the room and in there? Could I barricade myself in it? Or pry apart the flimsy wall and escape that way?
When I looked back, the man was standing watching me, and I realized there was no way I’d be able to escape. If he didn’t shoot me on the way there with the gun in his hand, he could just hit me with his machine gun through the wall. And even if that didn’t work, I doubted, despite his size, I could outrun him. He was very clearly a career soldier, and there was no way I could best anyone like that in speed, distance, or physicality.
And I could still hear bursts of gunfire outside. I had no idea what I would be running into, who was out there, what was out there, or which direction I would have to go for safety.
If any was to be found.
“Please let me go,” I begged again, my lip trembling, my vision blurring. I picked up my laptop from the tabletop and shoved it at him. “If you want my research, it’s here. It’s all here. Take it all.”
The man didn’t respond, just let forth a tirade of angry words forced out from between gritted teeth. Then he stilled, his eyes narrowing just as his hand moved.
Terror shot through me, then adrenaline, and time seemed to slow. I saw his arm come up, the gun aimed towards me, his finger on the trigger. My self-preservation kicked in, and I managed to bring my laptop up and duck, curling in on myself, just as the loud report of his gun exploded into the room. I felt the impact of the bullet, the way the piece of machinery jerked in my hands like someone was trying to grab it away from me, painful reverberations moving up my arms as the computer exploded.
I screamed again, hands coming up to cover my head and face from the shrapnel, but too late. A shard of metal glanced off my forehead, the pain, sharp and burning, blinding me for a moment.
Stumbling back against the table, I saw the man, mouth once more drawn into a snarl. But the world was warped, my vision blurry and spinning, the pain in my head expanding and contracting like someone had my head in a vice, enough to make my stomach queasy. I could feel blood pouring down the side of my face, hot and sticky, running down my neck and pooling at the collar of my shirt.
The world jerked to the side, then righted, and the man in black was aiming at me again. I didn’t have enough time to scream, though my lungs were already filling, and I knew I would die. Here, now, in this place. My mother would be distraught, my brothers angry, and no one would ever know what had happened to me.
I felt frozen, unable to do anything but stand there, staring at the gun, waiting for the moment the bullet would enter my chest or my head or my stomach. All I could do was wait for the pain, wait to feel my blood pouring from me, wait for it to steal my breath until I couldn’t breathe anymore and my life drained away. Until I was only terror, hot and terrible and breathless.
A loud bang echoed through the room again, and I flinched, thinking it was a bullet for half a heartbeat. But light hit my eyes behind my eyelids—the bang had been the door flying open again.