Ice (16 page)

“I used Doug’s key,” was all I could think to say. I couldn’t really focus on the details with everything going on.

As if on cue, the Native man whom I had given the card to came running toward me with it. A few of the Huskies were following him, looking uncertain and disturbed. “Thanks, lady.”

He took off, but then Kavick stopped him. “Wait! Do you know anyone named Tupit?”

I felt my jaw drop. Didn’t Kavick say the hunters killed him?

Tartok looked just as shocked as I was…and just as hopeful as his brother. He looked at the Native man expectantly and then returned his gaze to Kavick. His eyes were solemn then. “Kavick, I saw him die….”

“You saw him get shot. I was shot, too.” Kavick lifted his white shirt to reveal a square patch of gauze on his side. “He may be alive.”

The hope suddenly rekindled on Tartok’s face. We looked to the man, waiting for the verdict on Tupit’s fate.

“I don’t know…what’s he look like?”

“Like us,” Kavick said quickly, motioning to himself and his brother. “He has one blue eye and one brown eye.”

We all looked to the door then at the sound of more gunshots and even louder whimpering and snarling. Kavick’s eyes were huge. For the first time, I saw fear in his eyes. He suddenly looked down at me. “You have to get out of here.”

“But—!”

“Tartok! Get her out of here! I’ll get myself out later!”

Tartok gave Kavick a look like his brother had gone insane. “I didn’t come here just to leave you behind!” he said furiously.

I grabbed Kavick’s arm and squeezed it to let him know I wasn’t letting go. He looked down at me again, just like I wanted. “We’re leaving together.” My voice didn’t leave any room for argument.

“We all need to get out of here,” the man said as he nervously glanced at the door. “Get to one of those computer rooms. There’s gotta be some kind of record of him if he’s here. They record everything about us.”

I couldn’t help but give Tartok a worried look when I remembered him burning some in the office outside of the caged operating room. He just kept that steely gaze on his face.

“Is there any other way out of here besides that door?” Tartok asked.

“Over there.” The man pointed to a dark corner on the opposite side of the room. There was another door. “This place wraps around like one big pretzel. I’ve tried to escape enough times to know. Good luck.”

The man ran to other door, though, where there were clearly hunters. I assumed that he and the other prisoners wanted revenge.

We ran for the door in the corner and I swiped the card. We hurriedly pushed the big metal door open. It led to a narrow cement hallway like the last one. There were few lights, too, making it even darker each time the lights dimmed with the siren.

My boots and Tartok’s thudded and scraped against the cement floor while Kavick’s bare feet padded on it. Tartok ran ahead
, with Kavick and me running behind. Suddenly, Kavick was the one clinging to me. I wasn’t sure when exactly I stopped holding his arm and began holding his hand. His grip was tight. I never looked down at his hand, even though I felt the urge to. We were in a mad rush and hoping we wouldn’t meet any security. I wondered for a moment if he was holding my hand out of desperation, or if it was because of the gunshot wound. Once in a while he would trip over his feet or grab his side, and in those moments the turn of events seemed so surreal to me. Kavick was relying on me for once. He needed me, just like I had needed him so many times. He helped guide me in my darkest time just by being in my life. Now I was guiding him through his.

Suddenly, I heard a door opening behind us. Just as I looked back, I saw Kavick turning his head at the same time. There was a man emerging at the end of the hallway, dressed cas
ually in jeans and a big coat, the typical Alaskan attire. I knew he must have been one of the members of security for the facility because of the large gun he was holding, despite his civilian attire. Suddenly, I realized this man was more than an acting security guard. He reminded me too much of Doug, and that was what helped me to understand that this man was one of their hunters. He was there to round up the prisoners, the very people he’d helped put in there, and ensure that they stay.

It was like time slowed down as the man raised his gun. He had a hard look on his face, the look one might really imagine a cold blooded killer to have. Just as it happened, I stopped breathing; everything happened so fast.

Kavick was pushing me down behind him, and Tartok was pulling me back so fluidly, it was like a practiced maneuver between them. Tartok covered me and Kavick jumped at the man.

The gun fired.

I blinked at the familiar noise, peeking above Tartok’s shoulder. When I opened my eyes, Kavick was a large Husky pouncing on the man. Tartok quickly let go of me and ran over to aid his brother. Kavick kept the man pinned, snarling and bringing his teeth close enough to bite him, but never did. The man couldn’t shake Kavick off him as they wrestled. The man yelled, cursed, screamed, and hit Kavick, but Kavick was too heavy, too resilient.

Tartok grabbed the fallen gun and aimed it at the man. I was too stunned to move, still sitting on the floor with my mouth hanging open. It was as if the
blaring sirens had made me deaf for a second, and the only thing I could hear was the argument between the brothers as Kavick shifted back into a human before my eyes. He was still on top of the man, just like he had been as a Husky, now trying to hold him down as a human. A little part of me was aware I was gawking at him half-naked, but it was like I wasn’t really there at the same time. I felt like I was having a strange nightmare. I was almost scared at the idea of what was going to happen next. Was Tartok going to kill the hunter? Part of me thought that was a good thing, actually, since he had just tried to kill us, but another part of me was terrified at the idea of watching a person die.

The hunter nearly had Kavick pushed off when Tartok kicked the man in the side. Tartok yelled a threat to shoot the man. Kavick yelled for him not to.

“We’ve got his gun! Besides, we need to know how to get out of here!” Kavick said desperately to his brother.

Kavick stood up and the man stayed down. Kavick quickly grabbed his side as he reached for the white pants he’d lost when he shifted. Once he had the pants on, I walked over to him, noticing he was still holding his side.

“Are you okay?” I asked, moving his hand to see if he was bleeding. The gauze was still white, though.

He nodded. “It just hurts when I shift.”

“I bet it does,” the man on the ground said, sneering at us arrogantly. “You’re screwing up your anatomy every time you change into a dog. The flesh changes, the wound changes. It can’t heal if you keep shifting, but you can’t survive out there dressed like that. You’ll freeze to death. Good luck getting out of here alive, dog.”

The man was right; the scrubs were too thin for this weather and he had no shoes on. I quickly began taking off my coat and my gloves.

Kavick shook his head, though. “I’ll get mine back. You need yours.”

Tartok kicked the man again. “Where are his clothes?” he yelled.

I glanced up the hall at the other door. I gulped, but my throat was so dry it didn’t help. What if there were more hunters ahead? And what about Suka and her father? All I could do was hope they were out of the Factory by now, but it didn’t seem likely.

Tartok pressed the end of the gun into the man’s chest. Kavick yelled at Tartok again not to shoot, saying we should just go on.

I clutched whatever was next to my hands as my body stiffened. I could feel that my eyes were wide in fear, but I couldn’t seem to relax them or any part of my body, for that matter. I felt something touch one of my hands and I looked down to see what it was. I realized I had clutched the bottom of my coat with my right hand and my left hand had clutched Kavick’s. Kavick’s ghostly white hand was holding mine. Next to his skin I could faintly see my old California tan, the first time in months. It was as if my skin had been permanently stained by the sun, the rays forever seared into my skin.

Charlotte
wouldn’t like it,
I thought absentmindedly as I remembered the skincare train she still rode these days. I knew what she would tell me if she could see my skin right now. It was as if I could hear her voice in my head. She would tell me it was the result of too many days at the beach and not nearly enough sunscreen. The thought of Charlotte only eased my nerves a little for a brief second. My mind instantly returned to the situation before my eyes.

The hard look was long gone from the hunter’s face. For somebody who was probably just like Doug, a killer, the man was terrified of death. I could see the fear in his eyes as he looked up at Tartok. He hurriedly gave directions as to where they kept the personal effects of the prisoners and a way out of the factory.

“…Don’t shoot me! I helped you! Let me go, please just let me go! Let me go, let me go….” The man lost his voice amidst his begging. His hands trembled in the air.

Tartok lowered the gun and grabbed the man firmly by the arm, pulling him up to his feet. The man was too scared to get his footing. Tartok began dragging the man back to the door at then end of the hall we had come from with the cells. The man’s boots scuffed against the concrete floor as he struggled to get his footing and tried to break free of Tartok’s grasp. “What are you doing? What are you doing?! I helped you!”

“I’m letting you go,” Tartok said coldly.

I glanced at Kavick to see him watching Tartok with equally wide eyes.

“Tartok…” he whispered to himself. He sounded unhappy. He knew what Tartok was doing. But he wasn’t stopping him, either.

Tartok opened the door and we were instantly met with the sound of dogs barking, snarling, whining, and gun fire. It was utter chaos in that room. Tartok shoved the man into the room and began shutting the door. The man foug
ht and pushed against it. “Let me out! I don’t have a gun! Please, at least give me my rifle!”

“So you can shoot more of us?” Tartok said in the same cold voice before finally managing to close the door.

It clicked shut.

The green light turned red.

Distant gunshots and snarls continued to rip into the air.

And then there was a fresh scream, louder than any other from behind the door.

I gasped. I stared at the door until Tartok passed us. I couldn’t keep myself from gaping at him. Kavick silently urged me to walk pulling me with him behind his brother. It felt as if he was holding my hand even tighter, but I couldn’t be sure. I gulped again and pulled myself together. I tried to think that the man deserved it, and told myself Doug did, too, but I couldn’t feel that way for some reason. I just couldn’t take satisfaction in someone dying, even if I did consider the person evil and the world a better place without him.

After several seconds of rushing down the hall, I was able to push it into the back of my mind and
focus on survival. I wasn’t sure what they would do to me if I were captured, but that didn’t matter; Kavick’s survival mattered. That became the focus of my attention.

I didn’t take the time to read the sign next to the door as we entered another room.
Tartok opened a clear cabinet and pulled out Kavick’s clothes that were in large plastic bags. There was the familiar cape made of black bear fur, his coat, sweater and faded blue jeans.  Kavick let go of my hand and started putting them on. I quickly stepped forward to grab the bag that had his boots and thick gray socks. I just passed it to Tartok behind me without even looking, not wanting to take a chance of seeing Kavick naked again.

It seemed like it was only a second later that Tartok nudged my arm. I turned around to see Kavick balancing on one foot, trying to hurriedly put his other boot on. Once he slipped it on, not even bothering to tie the laces, he said, “C’mon,” in a breathless voice.

It was like the starting gunshot to a race; we all darted for the door and ran down the hall as fast as we could. The directions the hunter gave just moments earlier kept echoing in my head as I forced myself to remember. Just as we reached the door, we heard a door open behind us, followed by the yells of, “STOP!”

“HOLD IT RIGHT THERE!”

“WE’LL SHOOT!”

Before I could even glance back, Tartok had opened the door and Kavick was shoving me through even though I was moving as fast as I could. This door didn’t have a lock, so there was nothing to stop them from catching up to us. We ran, maybe even faster than before. We were all panting, pushing ourselves to the limit as we flew down the curved hallway. Our boots slapped against the floor, and I continued to look back to see if they were behind us.

Then we heard them in the distance again. I panicked, seeing the last door ahead was too far away. I ran to the nearest one on the right and looked through the glass panel in it. There were just computers, no hunters. I turned the handle and whispered, “In here!”

Kavick and Tartok abruptly stopped. Kavick entered the room without question as I held the door open. Tartok stood there hissing, “What are
you doing?! That’s not—!”

I hurriedly motioned and hissed, “Just do it! Hurry!”

He entered anyway, hearing the men getting closer. I closed the door quietly and hid under the computer desk beside the one Kavick was hiding under. I saw Tartok rush across the room and hide behind one, peeking above it to watch the door. He held the rifle closer, as if ready to jump up with it. Kavick eyed the door, as well. I pulled a swivel chair in front of me just to help hide me better.