Chloe Carter's Arc

Chapter 10 of 12

Chloe was ten steps from the sedan when she heard it. An engine, low and steady, somewhere back through the trees. She stopped in the middle of the track. Her breath fogged. She turned her ear toward the sound and held still. It could be a plow. It could be a truck on the highway she had been trying to find. It could be help. She wanted it to be help so badly her chest hurt. Then the engine cut out. No door slammed. No voices. Just the hush of snow settling on branches. A plow would have kept moving. A rescue crew would have called out. She knew then. Whoever had sent the first man had sent another. The one in the trees was not alone after all, or someone had come to finish the job. She cried once, hard, one sob into her glove. Then she wiped her face and let the anger take the place of it. Anger moved her feet. She ran back to the sedan. The drift held the front end like a fist. She did not care. She got in and slammed the door and locked it. She pulled the knife from under the passenger seat and set it on her thigh. She turned the key. The engine caught. The gauge shivered under a quarter tank. Enough for one try. She put it in reverse and floored it. The rear tires screamed on the glaze. The car shifted an inch and stopped. She threw it into drive. The bumper pushed deeper into the snowdrift. She reversed again, harder, rocking it, drive, reverse, drive, the way her father had shown her on a wet lawn a lifetime ago. The sedan lurched back a foot. Then two. Then the rear tires found the ridge of scoured center and bit. She backed down the track fast, one hand on the wheel, neck twisted to see behind her. Branches raked the paint she had once been proud of. She did not slow. She reached the fork and swung the wheel. The rear end slid wide, kissed a bank, came back. She pointed the hood down the flat track, the one she had not tried, and gave it gas. In the rearview she saw him. A man in a dark coat, standing where the two roads met, hood back, hands loose at his sides. He did not run. He watched her go the way the first one had watched her panic. The sedan carried her forward on the packed center. The trees opened. A hundred yards on, she saw a gray line cut through the timber ahead. Guardrail. Asphalt. A road wide enough for two lanes. She had found the highway. The gauge sat at an eighth. The man was behind her on foot. She turned onto the pavement and drove.