“Why would she go for a walk?”
I think about that for a second, which is all it takes to come up with the obvious answer. “To get a drink. Remember. We told her about the village.”
“But it’s above the snow line. She’ll freeze if she tries to get there tonight. Or she’ll get eaten. Did we not give her the orientation? Did we not tell her about the fucking tigers?”
“No. We didn’t. She pushed you in the river and we forgot all about orientation. We’ve been trying to keep up with her this entire time.”
“For fuck’s sake,” Jason curses. He’s staring at me with an annoyed expression bordering on the stunned. “How can one person be this much fucking trouble?”
“She doesn’t seem to care what happens to her,” I say. “It’s almost like she wants to get hurt, or she thinks she can’t get hurt.”
“She’s going to learn otherwise up there,” he says.
As we talk, we’re gathering supplies for a rescue. There’s a chance that she’s already seriously hurt. The village is located high on the mountain, built as a sort of mountain pass fortress. It’s a strategic location, not a vacation destination.
I am angry at her. Furious. With all the bullshit she’s pulled since she got here, I shouldn’t be surprised. But this is going a step too far. Being a brat, sneaking liquor, swimming defiantly, fine. But going up into the mountains in light clothing at night basically reflects a death wish.
“What’s wrong with her?” I growl the question as we set out.
“You know exactly what’s wrong with her. No fucking discipline. No common sense. No understanding that anything bad can happen to her. She’s like a goddamn baby.”
Jason is also angry. It’s hard not to be. She seemed to have common sense, to be someone who knew how to take care of themselves or at least not make outright suicidal decisions out here in the wild. There is no reason whatsoever to go up a mountain to a village you’ve been told is ‘somewhere’. It is madness. It’s stupid. Aslin’s not stupid. Or at least, I had hoped she wasn’t. I thought she was smart. I’m disappointed in her, and I’m scared that we’re already too late. If the weather turns bad up there, with what she was wearing…
“This terrain creeps me the fuck out,” Jason curses. We both have good reason to be wary of rocky mountain passes in low light. Past experience has taught us they’re bad places to be pinned down, and worse places to be pulled out of.
Years ago…
Jason and I are moving up the side of a mountain on a cool night. It’s a relief from the relentless heat of the day. There’s a target we need to reach a few miles up, and we’re making good progress.
Thwip.
I hear a whisper, and then I feel an ache propelling me toward the side of the mountain. Being shot is less dramatic than people think it is. I collapse, grabbing above my knee. There’s a sniper somewhere on the opposing range, tucked into the shadows, sending missives of death toward me with near devastating accuracy.
Being hit is always a shock. You know it can happen, but it’s still very strange when it does happen. My leg is warm and doesn’t want to work. I don’t know if he hit bone, but the amount of blood I’m trying to staunch tells me he at least nicked an artery.
Another bullet ricochets off a nearby rock. Two shots. A trained sniper would move at this point, but he’s local and there’s very little chance of returning fire accurately. He can sit there and take shots for as long as it takes to kill me.
Jason’s by my side before I utter a word. He drags me behind a rock and tourniquets my leg. He works fast, and he says very little. He and I are close to strangers, two soldiers chosen because we have prior experience in this kind of operation. He saves my life in seconds.
BOOM!
A bullet makes very little noise. An RPG makes a fuckton of sound. It throws up dust and dirt and turns small stones into shrapnel. The rock we’re hiding behind has developed a deep crack. It won’t withstand another hit. These guys have gotten very good with their stolen weaponry, looted from abandoned camps and turned against its makers.
Jason looks at me and smirks. He’s covered in filth, and an arc of blood across his cheek makes me think he’s been cut. Then he wipes it away, and I realize it was my blood.
“We should get out of here,” he says casually, like we’re at a movie that sucks. “Can you walk?”
I can’t walk. But I can stumble and slide on the shale, and roll and move with every little bit of help gravity can give me. Jason helps me up and propels me onward when he can, half dragging, half carrying, half chasing me as we tumble down the mountain with RPG shells landing around us. The sniper can’t get a bead on us amid the moonlit dust, but that doesn’t stop him from taking potshots at us until we finally reach the tree line.