THIRTEEN
WINTER SPORTS
“Hurry up, little Island.”
Dries gives a gentle nudge between my shoulder blades, but my body remains frozen, standing ankle deep in fresh snow. I didn’t give much thought to how we would leave this place without the ice-cream truck until they led me to the shed, and Isiporho pulled off the tarpaulins covering three snowmobiles.
“Have I . . . ever ridden one of those?” I ask warily.
“No idea.” Dries shrugs. “But it’s either this or walking all the way to the Russian border, and I’d rather we move quickly. Our brothers are probably getting fidgety after all that ice cream.”
I make a note that my guess about the Russian border was right and stare at Dries’s profile while he secures a white helmet on his head. I don’t get how he can be so composed after the emotional quake we both experienced less than ten minutes ago. I’m still in shambles, and back in that room, I could tell he felt something too. But now it’s like he’s gotten over it all already. He said he was my father—one all evidence suggests is hardly more trustworthy than the man who took on that role for eight months. And yet . . . Dries looked for me, came for me with his rockets and his clown costume.
In his own bizarre, dangerous way, he cares.
While I ponder what sort of relationship he and I could possibly have had before Anies took me, Dries climbs on a snowmobile and Isiporho settles behind Dominik on another. I consider the remaining sled’s wide track and aggressive lines hesitantly.
“You’ll ride behind me; it’s safe,” March says before he helps me adjust an unexpectedly light helmet on my head as well.
Once he’s seated behind the handlebars, I climb onto the back seat and wrap my arms around his waist, gripping it tight. It feels a little strange to be suddenly so close to him, my body molded to his, but I’ll grudgingly admit I feel a little safer holding on to him. I have no idea how fast this thing can go, and I can already picture myself toppling backward and being ejected from the sled and then somehow shredded by the track. Definitely no.
When the engine ignites and I feel the track’s vibration under my butt, I squeeze him harder. The first minutes are pretty bumpy as we ride down a slope toward a trail running along the lakeshore. The sky is almost dark, which makes me realize how well the combination of white vehicles and camo works. In the powdery mist surrounding us, I can barely make out Dries’s sled behind Dominik’s, but I keep my eyes trained on his silhouette.
We’re gliding fast down the trail under the moonlight, and I’m starting to think this isn’t so bad. I might even enjoy the ride under different circumstances. The helmet does a great job protecting my face from both the icy wind and the motor’s noise, and there’s something soothing about the endless ribbon of trees stretching along the frozen lake’s silvery surface. I feel a little numb—most likely from exhaustion—in a sensory bubble of sorts, even as we race in one of the harshest environments on Earth.
Against March’s back, my body starts to relax when suddenly the terrain changes. An unpleasant rattle travels up my spine as the skis hit a hard surface. I look down and tense. We’re crossing the lake—as in, we’re riding on ice. Please, please let it be thick enough!
I hold on tighter to March’s waist and gaze at the moon’s pale reflection chasing us on this milky mirror. A thought bubbles up from a quiet, secluded part of my mind: I wish my mother were here so I could tell her everything that happened today, that I’m scared but the lake is eerily beautiful, and I met this strange ice-cream man who says he once loved her. Through the visor, I watch him gliding on the ice a few yards ahead of us. I wonder if my mother ever saw him like I did back at the cabin, wounded and overwhelmed under that thick shell of arrogance and violence.
After a while, I make a mental note that snowmobiles are actually much louder than I thought, and heavy too: under our skis, the ice seems to be quaking. I don’t think March hears me as I yell, “Are you sure the ice is gonna hold?” especially since the engine’s powerful roar is growing stronger with each second that passes. He doesn’t answer but makes a hand gesture to his colleagues, and our sled speeds up. It takes me a couple of seconds to figure that we’re parting from Dries and the others. They’re still trailing fast at the center of the lake, whereas we’re moving closer to the shore.
And the noise . . . I’m not so sure it’s coming from us—it’s not the same kind of engine; this sounds bigger. I instantly regret my decision to shift behind March to get a better look into the mirror. Glimmering in a storm of powdery snow, several pairs of headlights appear. Following us—and gaining speed fast. My heart plops to the pit of my stomach. Anies’s men found us? How the hell? Did they track the ice-cream truck?
The answer to my questions comes in the form of a droning above our heads and a blinding beam of light swiping across the darkened woods ahead of us. I know if I look up, I’m gonna regret it, but I do, and my spine turns into a popsicle. Didn’t Dries hint that “all that ice cream” would piss off Anies? Another peek in the mirror tells me just how angry we made the Lion in chief, and I hold on to March desperately as my brain does the math. One helicopter, three quads, and a . . . Sweet Jesus, that thing looks like a cross between the Batcar and a minitank, with a low, aerodynamic body mounted on huge tracks that make the ice shake under their weight.
I know what’s coming next even before the first gunshots crack behind us. Oh God, oh God, oh God . . . I can practically feel my head retracting into my shoulders, like a turtle, as March keeps hitting the gas, and the wind lashes at us. Sparks somewhere to my right tell me that the guys on the quads are shooting at Dries, Isiporho, and Dominik while in the sky, the helicopter has locked its beam on us. Everything becomes blindingly white for a second, snowflakes glittering in my vision, when the light engulfs us. They know. They’ve figured I’m on this sled. Perhaps because I’m smaller, or because I’m not . . . sitting backward on my seat and firing at our pursuers with an automatic assault rifle like Isiporho. How does he do that? I can barely breathe let alone muster the courage to pop my head out long enough to check our surroundings.
I can see the trees more clearly: we’re almost on the lake’s shore when an ominous rumble behind us has me craning to try to locate the Bat-tank. Answer: right behind us. With insane acceleration I didn’t even think was possible for that kind of vehicle, the tank explodes forward and passes us. It keeps going, and I almost believe they’ve got something more urgent to do than kill us, until the tracks take a mad turn and send the whole thing drifting on the ice until it stops. Straight in our way.
Okay, change of plans: I hold on to March in panic when he sends our own sled into a full 180, ripping the ice as we make a swift turn back . . . toward the helicopter. A dark shape hanging out from the aircraft is the only warning I get before shots clank against the snowmobile’s hood and tracks. They didn’t kill us, but our tracks are shaking weirdly and the sled is slowing down. It comes to a full stop a couple of yards away from the lakeshore and the safe shelter of the dark woods. I’m not given any time to think; in an instant, March jumps down from the sled, grabs a rifle and some sort of pouch from the back, and hauls me with him.
I register his voice at last. “Run, and don’t look back!”
Against all odds, my legs find a will of their own and move, carrying me toward the trees even as I can make out a group of men coming out of the Bat-tank. At the other end of the lake, Dries and his men are still playing a game of cat and mouse with the quads. What if they kill him before I ever have a chance to know him again, talk to him? The helicopter’s ominous droning above them has me feeling utterly powerless; I force myself not to look or else I know fear will overcome me and paralyze me. I nearly slip on the ice, catch myself, and run, run as fast as I can, holding on to March’s hand, each breath made agonizing under the confines of my helmet.
The feel of snow under my feet is a small relief. We’re gonna make it. I mentally rehash the same words over and over. We’re gonna make it. I know the men who climbed out of the Bat-tank can’t be far behind, but already the woods are enveloping us, sheltering us in darkness. I register rustling sounds among the pines, right before March pulls me to the ground with him. I fall on the bed of snow with a yelp and roll against him, clutching his arm like a lifeline.
I look up to see that we now lie hidden under the shadow of a huge rock. An old pine leans against it, completing this natural rampart. I can still make out the lake, but I don’t think Anies’s men can see us from there. I take a calming breath. This could work. Next to me, March searches the pouch he took with him for a small object—a black ball? No, wait—a grenade! He arms the rifle and whispers, “Stay here, and”—his gloved hand grazes my helmet—“don’t take it off.”
“But—”
“Island. I need to take them out before they surround us, and I can’t do it with you in the way. Trust me.”
I’m sure March didn’t mean it like that, but all I hear is that we’re in deep enough shit that he’s willing to take the risk of leaving me here. I watch him move a few feet away around the rock, concealed by a tangle of bushes as he positions the rifle. When he raises his visor to better adjust his eye in front of the scope, I go perfectly still. The wait is the worst part: lying here flattened to the ground, feeling the cold slowly insinuate itself through each layer of my clothing, the distant noise of the helicopter, like a sword of Damocles hanging above our heads somewhere in the night sky. Is it searching for Dries and his men? Or coming back for us?
There’s a noise. I clench my fists in a desperate effort not to move. The helmet is muting everything: the sounds, what precious little moonlight bathes the woods. Maybe I dreamed it. My eyes are glued to March’s finger around the trigger, until he presses once. This time there’s no mistaking the soft echo as the bullet rips through the long silencer. A brief groan reaches us before a body hits the ground with a muted thud. I can’t precisely place the source of the noise, but somehow, around us the woods have come alive. There’s the whisper borne from careful crawling in the snow, the occasional twig cracking under unseen boots. I feel the Lions’ presence more than I hear it, in the shivers running across my skin, the tension rising from deep inside me.
When March shoots again, they replicate with a rattle of bullets that hit the rock shielding us and the trees surrounding it. Frosty bark explodes and rains on me. I curl and bite my lower lip hard not to scream. When I roll to my side to check on March, he’s no longer here. Oh God, not that. I don’t want to be alone in here. Under the helmet, I’m sweating, hyperventilating, and my visor is starting to fog, even though I’m pretty sure it shouldn’t under normal conditions.
With excruciating care, I turn my head to look around and locate him, to no avail. He vanished among the trees, could be any shadow in those moonlit woods. I wince when a little snow makes it inside my collar, freezing my spine even faster than the sudden silence surrounding me. I crawl toward the pouch March left behind. What if he doesn’t come back? If they . . . kill him?
A scream tears through the still air somewhere to my right, all the spark needed for terror to ignite in my veins. I scramble toward the pouch and rummage inside it amid renewed gunshots. After a few seconds, the shooting stops again, and March’s personal trousseau lies scattered in the snow. Several magazines, two hand grenades, but also a tube of mints, a couple energy bars, a pencil, and a neatly folded piece of paper that I recognize as crosswords.
There’s only one thing I need in there, but my hands are shaking so much I don’t think I’ll dare . . . What if it blows up in my face?
A faint creak makes every single muscle in my body freeze solid.
“Island . . . let me see your face.”