She’d been shot, something that she never would have thought remotely possible in her previous life. Getting shot was something that happened only to people in the newspapers, only to criminals and cops and soldiers. Not to people like Rose.
Rose didn’t let her surprise stop her. She had both hands around the stranger’s gun.
He didn’t want to let go.
Rose pried at his fingers.
She bent her neck, craning it, getting her mouth right against the stranger’s exposed wrist.
She bit him. Hard, sinking her teeth into his flesh.
The stranger screamed. His grip on his gun loosened.
Rose seized the opportunity. She managed to get the gun away from his grasp.
The stranger didn’t let his pain stand much in his way. His hands came towards her. Fast.
He didn’t go for the gun. Instead, he went for her throat.
Rose felt his large, strong hands tighten around her throat.
She couldn’t see what she was doing. The gun was in her hands, but it was wedged between their two bodies. He was pressing down against her again with all his weight, his hands never leaving her neck.
Rose knew she didn’t have much time. A few more seconds and she’d lose consciousness.
The fingers around her neck tightened.
Squished between their bodies, the gun was pointed to the side.
It took all of Rose’s strength to get the gun pointed slightly to the sky. That way when she pulled the trigger, the bullet would hit the stranger.
It didn’t seem like she could do it. His body was too heavy. Her hands felt weak. The arm that had been shot didn’t seem to be working quite right. It was incredibly weak.
Finally, with one last desperate effort, she got it.
The gun was angled slightly up. She hoped. She still couldn’t see it at all.
Rose squeezed the trigger.
The recoil was intense, sending pain down her already-injured arm.
The noise of the gun was defending.
The hands around her throat loosened up immediately.
The stranger’s face was right up against hers. She’d never forget the expression it wore.
He was dead. Or just about dead.
Rose could barely get the body off of her own. It took all her effort, as well as ignoring the pain in her arm. But she got him off. He rolled over into the snow onto his back, no life left in his face.
Rose scrambled to her feet. She was covered in snow and blood. Her throat was intensely sore. The gun was still in her hand.
“Jake!”
She scrambled over through the snow to Jake, who was lying completely still.
“Jake! Say something!”
Rose dropped down onto her knees, setting the gun down into the snow. With the hand of her good arm, she pawed frantically at Jake’s face.
But there was no life in it.
Jake wouldn’t answer her anymore.
Rose wasn’t going to give up.
Despite her bad arm, she began pumping up and down on Jake’s heart with both hands. She didn’t know how to properly execute the maneuver she was trying to do. After all, she’d never studied first aid.
It was futile.
Jake was dead.
Rose kissed Jake’s lifeless lips, which had already grown cold, and then sank down into the snow. She curled herself up into a little ball, pressing herself against Jake’s dead body.
The man she was supposed to spend the rest of her life with was dead.
Rose’s face was pressed into the freezing snow. She began sinking down into a tumultuous depression. The pain in her arm was nothing compared to the anger and despair raging inside her mind.
She stayed like that for a good ten minutes, sinking deeper and deeper into complete hopelessness.
But her thoughts started to shift.
Rose didn’t know what it was. Or where it’d come from.
She knew it wasn’t quite hope.
But it was something.
She had to go on. She had to continue.
She had to try to stay alive.
She was going to act.
Maybe it’d been listening to Max over the last week. Maybe his attitude had rubbed off on her in some subtle way. Maybe it’d been spending time with the new group of people, the group who always managed to go, go, go, the group that never stopped when the situation seemed completely impossible, completely hopeless.
She rose slowly to her feet.
The pain in her arm was intense. She unzipped her jacket to examine the wound. She didn’t know what to make of it. This was her first encounter with bullet wounds.
It was more strange than horrifying to see her own flesh injured in such a way. Rarely in her life had she ever had a serious injury. She’d never even accidentally cut herself on a knife.
The bleeding didn’t seem to be too bad. At least not yet.
Since Rose didn’t know how to stop the bleeding, she decided to ignore the wound for now and try to get back to camp.
The revolver lay partially-buried in the snow. Rose reached down with her good arm and grabbed it.
Rose took one last glance at Jake. There was nothing she could do for him now. Or his body. She’d come back with the others to give him a proper burial.
She felt a pang of guilt in her chest as she turned away from Jake’s body. She was leaving him out here like he was a dead animal.
But Jake would have wanted it this way. He would have wanted her to continue.
Rose passed the man she’d shot. He had another gun on his back. Some kind of huge rifle. Rose didn’t think she’d be able to carry it with her injury, and she didn’t know how to use it, so she left it.
She didn’t think to look in the man’s pockets, or his small sack, for anything useful. The only thing on her mind now was to get back to camp.
Rose set off, her boots wading through the snow that had started to ice over in the cold.
It was a long way back to camp. But Rose was confident she could find her way back. The moon was bright, and she had no trouble seeing.
Rose kept the gun ready, her finger on the trigger in case she encountered someone else. She knew she had to keep her guard up.
It wasn’t until she’d been walking for a good five minutes, all the while not turning around once, that Rose realized how exhausted she was. The adrenaline in her system had started to die down slightly, allowing her to feel her exhaustion. She’d been through more than she’d ever been through before.
Suddenly, she heard something to her right.
Rose turned just in time to see something darting out from behind a tree.
Rose stood her ground. She wasn’t going to back down. She’d fight if she had to.
She couldn’t yet quite see what it was. The trees were in the way. It was just sound now.
Rose stood with her legs wide and raised the gun with her one good arm. She tried to hold it as steady as she could.
But it wasn’t a person. It wasn’t an enemy.
It was a dog. Nothing more than a dog. Big and furry, with pointed ears. Probably a German Shepard. The dog had seen better days. It was skinny, to the point of looking underfed. Its fur was matted in places, not to mention filthy. But despite the dog’s bedraggled appearance, there wasn’t a trace of malice in its features or movements.
Rose slowly lowered her gun, and stared in wonder at the dog, who looked back at her, cautiously approaching.
19
There wasn’t much time.
Max was taking up the rear, running behind Mandy and James. All three ran in all-out sprints. Max’s leg was killing him, but he was doing everything he could to not let it slow him down.
Max had chosen the positions carefully. If everything worked out, they’d be slightly behind and off to the side of the enemy.
If there was one thing Max had learned, it was that things rarely went the way they were supposed to. He’d have to be on his toes, on the top of his game. But expecting the unexpected was easier said than done.