She lay on her side, held by moss and shrubs.
Gnats buzzed around her head, her breathing was labored, and oblivion was only a few breaths away. One eye stared up at the sky, at wisps of clouds with edges glowing pink and orange.
It was the warm time of the year. When the sky never goes dark.
She’d smelled the stench of infection for several days, but that wasn’t going to kill her. Nor was it starvation, the hunger. She was full now. For the first time in a very long time.
The wound refused to heal, no matter how much she tried to clean it. The pain and the warmth had spread up her leg. The pack had adapted to her pace. For a while anyway. Three of her young left with the others, but the smallest stayed behind with her. Doomed to destruction.
She couldn’t hunt anymore, and he’d never been taught.
The young moose who were easy prey in the light season were unattainable for now. Even the small prey escaped her. Too early for berries, which in an emergency stave off the worst of the hunger. Yesterday they’d found some meat, partially hidden, with an odor that
nstinctively told her to flee, but it kept them going. Up on the cliffs at the forest edge, they found more. Much more. Huge chunks, more than they could eat.
So she’d lingered on with her youngest until he slowed, whimpering, taking wobbly steps till finally he could no longer stand.
She’d stayed with him until she was sure he was dead, then kept going. Not far. The cramping and trembling made that impossible. She collapsed in the moss, lying on her side.
In the warmth. In the light. In the never-ending light.
Everything had gone according to plan.
First their arrival.
Be the first in place, park the jeep and black Mercedes beside each other on a rutted clearing in the middle of the forest, used by lumber trucks and harvesters for loading and U-turns, then position the coolers to face the narrow forest road they’d just come down. The ruts beneath them, the nocturnal birdsong around them, the only thing besides absolute silence until the sound of engines announced the arrival of the Finns.
A Volvo XC90, also black, drove up. Vadim watched as Artjom and Michail took their weapons and left the Mercedes, while he and Ljuba climbed out of their jeep. He liked Ljuba, thought she liked him, too. They’d gone out for a beer together a few times, and when they asked her who she wanted to drive with, she’d chosen him. For a moment he considered telling her to wait in the car, take cover, say he had a premonition this might go wrong. But if he did that, what would they do afterwards?
Run away together? Live happily ever after?
That would be impossible once she knew what had happened. She’d never betray Valerij; she didn’t like him that much, he was sure of it. So he said nothing.
The Volvo stopped a few meters in front of them, the engine switched off, the doors opened, and four men stepped out. All of them armed. Looked around suspiciously as they fanned out.
Everything was still.
The calm before the storm.
The Finnish leader, a large man with a buzz cut and a tribal tattoo wrapped around one eye, nodded to the smallest of the four Finns, who holstered his gun, walked behind the Volvo, and opened the trunk. Vadim also backed up a few steps to unlock his jeep’s trunk.
So far everything was going according to their plan.
Time for his plan.
A bullet from a rifle with a silencer on it entered just beneath the eye of the large Finn closest to the car. The sudden explosion of bone, blood, and brain matter as the projectile made its way through the back of his head made the others react instinctively.
Everyone started shooting at the same time.
Everyone except Vadim, who threw himself behind the shelter of the jeep.
The man with the tattoo on his face roared loudly, hugged his trigger, and immediately took down Michail with four or five shots to the chest. Artyom answered with gunfire. The tattooed man was hit by two bullets, staggered back, but regained his balance and turned his
weapon on Artyom, who threw himself behind the cover of the Mercedes, but it was too late. Several bullets hit his legs from the hip down. Shrieking in pain, he landed on dry gravel. The tattooed man continued bleeding, roaring, and shooting as he moved toward the Volvo, determined to make it out of here alive. But a second later he fell to his knees gurgling, let go of his weapon, and pressed his hands to what was left of his neck.
Somewhere more shots were fired, more screams could be heard.
Artjom slid up into a sitting position, while trying to stop the blood that gushed from his thigh in the same rhythm as his racing heartbeat. Then another series of shots, and he went still, his gaze turning from desperation to emptiness, his lips forming some soundless word before his head slumped onto his chest.
The third Finn had thrown himself into the cover of a shallow ditch with a good view beneath the parked cars. A round of concentrated fire from his semi-automatic had hit Artjom in the back. Vadim realized that he, too, must be visible and flung himself around the jeep to hide behind one of its large wheels. When he got to the side of the car, he saw the smallest of the four Finns lying dead on the ground.
Ljuba wasn’t visible.
Another round of shots sounded from the ditch at the forest edge and bullets hit the metal on the back of the wheel, puncturing the tire. One went through the rubber and hit him in the side, just above his butt. The pain was a white-hot flash through his body. He closed his eyes,
swallowed a scream, leaned his forehead against his knees, and made himself as small as he could. As he slowly let the air in his lungs out again, he realized the gunfire had ceased.
It was silent. Completely silent.
No movement, no voices, no roar of pain or betrayal, no birdsong, nothing. As if the very place itself were holding its breath.
He peeked out carefully from behind the jeep.
Still silent. And still.
Slowly, slowly he raised his head for a better view. The sun hung below the trees, but still above the horizon; the scene in front of him was bathed in that particular soft, warm light of the midnight sun.
He rose cautiously to his feet. A bullet was still lodged in his muscle and tissue, but it didn’t seem to have damaged any vital organs. He pressed his hand to the wound. Blood, but no more than he could stop with a compress.
“Ljuba?”
Ljuba was leaning against the rear bumper of the Finn’s car, breathing shallowly, the front of her gray T-shirt beneath her jacket soaked in blood, the gun still in her right hand. Vadim assessed the damage. The blood was running out at a steady rate, so it hadn’t nicked an artery. No air bubbles, so her lungs were probably intact. She might very well survive.
“Who shot us?” she asked, out of breath, grabbing Vadim’s jacket with a bloody hand. “Who the fuck started shooting?”
“He’s with us.”
“What? What do you mean with us? Who is he?”
“Come on.”
He gently took the gun away from her, pushed it into his pocket before standing up, leaned forward and helped her to her feet. She grimaced from the pain of exertion but managed to stand. With his arm around her waist and her arm around his shoulders, they walked out into the open area between the cars. When they reached the rise where the tattooed Finn had fallen, Vadim stopped, gently removed Ljuba’s arm, released his supportive grip from around her waist, and backed away with two large steps.
“I’m sorry...”
Ljuba’s gaze was uncomprehending at first, but she soon realized what was happening, why he’d brought her here. Seconds later a bullet pierced her temple and she was thrown to the ground.
Vadim pressed his hand to the wound on his lower back and stretched, let out a deep sigh.
In the end, everything had gone according to plan.
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