Ashes in the Darkness

Polar

The bearded man stood and looked over at the masked man, before pulling his knife from his belt and looking down at me again, I suddenly began my writhing again. Trying to roll onto my knees and stand as quickly as I could to get away. I flubbed though as I was off balance from my hands behind my back and frankly numb. I had lost feeling in them long ago. My face landed in the snow and my hair that had quite frankly turned into a mop, covered my frozen skin.

"Oh dear," I heard the bearded man say, before I heard his boots follow me. His hands found mine and the zip tie was cut, releasing my hands from their cage. My body took over again as my hands went for the closest thing I could use as a weapon which was a rock on the ground, it was quickly knocked out of my hands by a giant boot. Gloves were around my neck as I was hauled to my feet.

"Please don't kill me!" I begged.

"Golly, think we would have killed ya already if we wanted to?" The bearded man said.

Fate accepted.

"Price, what do we do?" The masked man said, "she was at the LZ when I got here." He was still holding a gun to me, to which I was getting extremely annoyed.

"Fuck," I finally said. Fear seemed to strip away as I looked down the barrel of the pistol. Somewhere deep inside me was my past self, my past training, my fearlessness. I could feel it boiling up as a second wave of fight or flight faded back into my bones.

"What's your name?" The bearded man asked, crossing his arms over his chest as he looked at me.

"Jamie," I stated, making sure to not give my last name. Who knew what they would do with that kind of information.

"How did you get out here?" The masked man asked. I narrowed my eyes at him, there was no way I was answering that question. But he cocked his gun once and stepped towards me, the bearded man said nothing.

"I work at the ranger station about ten miles east of here," I shouted, not looking the masked man in the eye as his violent footsteps made their way forward. "I was tracking some wolves this way," I continued, I suddenly tasted blood in my mouth and felt the burn of a cut on my lip, my adrenaline was fading.

The man called Price scoffed and turned his head to look at the masked man, "intel didn't have a station this close to the border."

"We've been off grid since the creation of the Forest Service, mostly for wildlife data research. There is one computer there for data input but no Wi-Fi, no signal, there is a satellite phone that we use to contact our fire tower about 60 miles from here," I said. Both men's heads swung to look at me in confusion. I raised my hands "we like to stay hidden."

"This could compromise us, Price. Civilians this close to an op is collateral that we can't afford," the masked man said. He had been holding that weapon up at me for a good hour now, his arm not even shaking.

"Can you take that fucking thing off me?!" I stabbed at him, frustration getting the better of me. The masked man took another aggravated step towards me, and I finally looked into his eyes, like daggers. I looked away.

"Ghost put the gun down, she's harmless," Price said.

"She'll run," Ghost said bluntly.

"I'm not going anywhere without my father's gun," I said without thinking.

They both looked over at the brown rifle laying on the ground between the two of them. Price went and picked it up from the mud, brushing off some of the snow that had found its way inside the bolt. He swung it over his shoulder and held his wrist up to his mouth. "MacTavish, Gaz RV at the LZ."

"Give me my father's gun," I said, suddenly getting very angry. Maybe it was the pain in my joints from being thrown around or the neurotransmitters getting confused in my head as the rollercoaster of emotions receded into a rhythmic panic.