whiteness. She was still alive, but …
“You still there?” Carla whispered. Her greatest fear was to lose him. He was annoying, but he was in every sense her blood brother.
Finn opened his eyes in the curled sanctuary of her hair.
“Are you kidding? This stuff is like a bulletproof duvet.”
She let out a “Ha!” in relief.
“Is he still there?” said Finn in turn, hardly daring to hope.
Carla tried to move and got a shock. She still felt the pain of the shackles, but her wrists moved freely through the powder … Nothing at all binding them. She opened her arms … Smooth, delicious nothing. She felt like a princess waking in a fairy tale.
“HA!” Finn yelled when she brought her hands to her face in disbelief. “GET AWAY!”
Powered by euphoria and panic, Carla began to swim up to the surface.
“Careful!” Finn called out as the sun hit her face and she took a deep lungful of free, freezing air.
“Careful …” Finn warned again.
“OK …” Carla whispered. Slowly she wriggled and worked her head above the surface.
Baptiste …
Three feet away.
Head and shoulders out of the snow, stock-still like an Easter Island statue. Except this statue was bleeding and wisps of cloudy breath leaked from its mouth …
Carla held her own.
“Slow, slow, slow …” Finn urged.
Staring intently at the statue, Carla began to inch her way out. First her shoulders, then her arms, her knees … until she was able to take a first high step, a second …
She turned to wade down the slope, heart thumping. Three steps, four, five … She’d not been this far from him in months. The invisible chains that bound her to her captor seemed to be breaking one by one, until—
His eyes snapped open.
“AAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHH!” screamed Carla.
“RUN!” Finn yelled.
Carla ran, kneeing through the deep powder, stumbling as Baptiste exploded from the bank – “WAAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHH!” – avalanching after her, reborn in rage.
Finn shot to the top of her hair and grabbed his favourite long curl, flying free at its end like a mad bungie jumper able to bounce around and see all ways at once.
“RUN RUN RUN!”
Baptiste had pulled a knife from his belt and was closing fast.
Finn had to do something. Finn had to kill the giant. How?
“Arrrggghhhhh!” – Carla cried out suddenly as she ran onto nothingness and dropped a dozen feet before a rocky outcrop, coming to land – WHUMP – in a snowdrift at its base.
Baptiste followed – WHUMP – thumping further down the slope.
Carla instinctively rose to run again, but as she did so she heard Finn warn – “DON’T MOVE!”
She had fallen at the mouth of a cave, smashing aside the snow that concealed it. Now its contents were exposed. She sensed stink and stored heat. She saw fur. A pair of black eyes zooming in. A mother roused from a hibernating huddle.
“BEAR!” yelled Finn unnecessarily. “BROWN BEAR!” Always the naturalist.
Its massive salivating jaws opened – “ROOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAA-RRRRRRRRRRR!”
Carla screamed. The huge female swung round to check its pile of young, then swung back.
Finn, from the flying curl, saw Baptiste rising up the slope with the knife.
“KICK THE BEAR!”
“What?!” said Carla.
“KICK IT AND RUN!” screamed Finn.
Carla kicked at the dirt and ice before her, sending a spray of filth and grit into the bear’s face, enraging her and flipping her from defence mode into attack.
“ROOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRR!”
“GO!” screamed Finn.
As claws and jaws flashed towards Carla, she rose like a rocket and threw herself as far down the slope as she could, straight past the rising Baptiste …
“ARRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!” Man met mammal.
Carla sensed the force of the blow and heard a gasp of air as the claws of the bear ripped Baptiste clean open. She felt hot blood spray against her, felt life end – and thanked God she couldn’t see it – as the bear’s jaws snapped home round Baptiste’s neck, breaking his spine like a dry stick.
Finn caught a glimpse of it. Saw the crimson arc whiplash across the snow and sky. A final obscenity. But not final for long …
“ROOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRR!”
“RUN!” This was one mad bear.
Carla fell and tumbled and ran and staggered down through the forest as the bear pounded after her.
Carla had seconds.
Moments.
She would be obliterated.
Finn braced himself for the incoming final hit and yelled, uselessly, finally, “NOOOOOOO!”
YAP!
Hope.
Yo-yo galloped through the undergrowth and gave it everything, put every ounce of jelly energy into his spring and sank his teeth into the bear’s hind leg.
ROOOOOAAAAAARARARARARARR!
Yo-yo let go and – using the momentum of the bear’s reeling body – flew like a stone from a slingshot down the steep slope.
ROOOOOAAAAAARARARARARARR!
The bear roared again as it barrelled after the pelting, yelping mongrel, splintering the forest and exploding the snow.
“Run …” Finn managed to say through his astonishment.
FEBRUARY 19 16:37 (GMT+1).
