that it was dark almost constantly. It was dawn in other parts of the world, but in her little secluded part of central Alaska, nighttime skies would reign for quite some time yet.
Valera was used to this. She was used to the deadly brace of the ultimate cold, too, as she stepped out of her cabin to face the mountainous woodlands. Even the constant wail of the wind and scouring of snow was perfectly in place.
So what was out of place?
She wasn’t accustomed to ignoring her intuition, but it was too cold to dwell on the problem while standing out in the snow like an idiot. She hurried to get the firewood she needed, making several trips from the pile to the inside entry where the snow would melt off it, making it ready for the cozy fireplace she kept going all season long. A couple of times she paused to look around, trying to puzzle what it was she sensed as being out of place.
It was a ridiculous notion, really. Her closest neighbor was some kind of research station at least a hundred miles away and at a much higher elevation. And frankly, it was a long way off to borrow a cup of flour, so she’d never even seen the place. She just knew it was there.
She made her last trip for wood and then hurried out to the storage shed. She made certain there was plenty of fuel in the large generator and she decided to carry in some of the stored frozen meat she kept locked safely away in the heavy-duty building. As she stepped outside again, that was when she heard the strange scrabbling sound around the corner of the shed.
A bear.
Damn it, they never quit trying to get at her supplies. Oh, the food was safe from them, but Valera couldn’t be as confident about her own safety with that kind of wild potential just around the corner from her. She should go back into the shed and wait the creature out, but there was no heat there and she was already beyond her tolerance for the time she should be spending out in the deep freeze of winter.
So, as quietly as she could she dropped the food she held, not wishing to make herself any more of a target than she already was, and she slowly moved toward the house.
“Going somewhere?”
Valera screamed. It was such a girlie thing to do, but honestly, she lived on a remote mountainside with elk and bears for neighbors. She wasn’t used to being talked to. She turned sharply to face the voice and found two men had appeared seemingly out of nowhere.
She knew instantly that she was in big, big trouble. One woman, two men, and no cops or neighbors. It was easy math, and she just knew she was going to end up on the shitty side of the equation. Or at least that seemed to be their intention. She felt secure in that assumption as they closed in on her quickly. They were huge. Parkas and snow gear aside, they were both well over six feet tall and clearly built like brick houses.
“Well, well. Look at this. Davide, I do believe we’ve found ourselves a neighbor.”
“I noticed that,” Davide responded, reaching out to attempt a tug at her muffler where it covered her face. Valera jerked back away from his reach. “Not very friendly, is she?”
“Well, that’s because it’s cold out, idiot. Let’s get her inside where we can warm her up.”
Valera would have to be a moron not to have caught the sinister entendre to that remark. Her heart shuddered harshly in the suddenly tight confines of her chest and her belly squirmed with anxiety. She didn’t say anything when Davide grabbed hold of her, then shoved her toward her cabin; she just paid careful and quiet attention.
“Morrigan, get the priest.”
Priest? Okay, so what did that mean? Was she going to be a part of some twisted shotgun-wedding scenario? Out here in the middle of the Alaskan wilderness? The entire situation was becoming very surreal to Valera, even as her blood raced through her in acknowledgment of the danger closing in around her.
Davide approached the cabin entrance and after a cautious movement that brought his back up against the outside wall, he thrust her in front of the door, the digging of his cruel fingers penetrating her parka and bruising her arm.
“Now you listen to me very carefully. Open the door, go inside the first room, and turn off all the lights. Let’s make it nice and romantic, all right?” He smiled at her, the white of his teeth flashing in the darkness of the night. “And if you try anything tricky, I promise you’ll regret it. As of now, all we want is a place to rest for the day, some food, and a bit of comfort. Then we’ll be on our way and you can go back to your little life. But you try testing me, and this dynamic will change really fast. Do you understand?”
Valera nodded, an unavoidable tremor scurrying through her as her imaginative mind filled in all of the blanks he had left behind. She knew he had purposely not defined “comfort” in detail and she knew his promises were lies. These were powerful and dangerous men. They reeked of the trouble they brought with them.
She tried to think. Tried to figure out why they wanted the lights off. Searching for an explanation kept her mind occupied and crowded out the fear that wanted to encroach on her. She needed to stay clear. Focused.
Valera realized it was likely a tactic to preserve their anonymity. Both men were very dark-skinned and all but blended into the blackness of the night, their features indistinguishable…although she made a concentrated effort not to look at either of them too long lest they think she was trying to memorize their identities so she could report them later. As long as they kept trying to hide their faces, it meant they expected to leave her alive when they went.
Val walked into her cabin slowly and hit the first switch in the wood room. She wasn’t afraid of navigating her home in the darkness. She had done it many times when the generator had failed or run out of fuel. Sometimes circuits burned out or she simply needed to conserve fuel for whatever reason.
She stepped up out of the front area and opened the door to the house within. The double doors were designed to let her haul in wood freely without worrying about flushing out all the heat in the whole house. That purpose was being defeated, of course, as her guest kept the door wide open and inched up behind her carefully, staying in the darkness and shadows.
The living room opened up before her and it was already mostly dark. Simple little lamps on two corner tables and the fireplace were all that lit the room.
“Throw water on that fire while you’re at it,” came the gruff command behind her.
It was almost funny how that order ruffled her feathers. Obviously she kept the cantankerous response to herself, but it was almost a personal insult to her and her home to demand the ever-burning fire be quenched. She took a breath and tried to remember the need to focus on the important issues. She shut off the lamps and fetched a pitcher of water from the kitchen. It would get much colder in the house without the fire, forcing the generator to work harder and burn fuel faster. Again, it was a worry for later. She’d just filled the tank and it would last hours.
Just long enough for them to rape and kill me, she thought wryly.
Once the fire was doused, Davide hustled her through the rest of the house until there wasn’t a light on anywhere. He even jerked her digital clock’s plug out of the wall, blacking out the glowing red numbers. Davide then sent her back into her living room with a good shove, landing her on the nearest couch in the darkness. Val’s eyes were adjusting quickly since she didn’t keep the house overly bright to begin with, and she saw the man called Morrigan enter with a huge burden thrown over one shoulder. Obviously it wasn’t precious cargo because he dropped the burlap-wrapped thing to the floor with a shrug of his shoulder.
