Page 112 of Katya and the Young God

K (5:31 PM): Thank your boyfriend for helping with the security, apparently that has helped.

MIRI (5:32 PM): Thomas is in class right now, but I’ll tell him and he’ll be very smug.

MIRI (5:33 PM): We should get you out.

But Selene is just now getting used to playing outside in the snow, just now used to the small cabin, making her small corner in the world.

K (5:34 PM): Not yet.

She sets her phone down on the dash, right as the snow begins to fall in earnest, and —

In a bright, crystalline moment of shattering glass and twisting metal, a car slams into the back of her truck, slingshotting the cabin of her truck around, until it careens into the trees by the road.

There’s glass in her hair, there’s glass across her cheek, and she’s gasping for air. She’s in pain, she knows she’s in pain, she can’t tell where or by what, but there’s pain.

She’s up against the car door, the seatbelt cutting across her chest, there’s something wet on her face, and the windshield in front of her is spider webbed, fracturing the world she can see.

The car that hit her opens its doors, and Katya forces herself to twist, to see. Her gun is pinned to her side, under her suit jacket, and her hands shake and slip, trying to unbutton it.

Feketer steps out of the car. A line of blood trickles down his face, but otherwise he steps true.

They lock gazes, his friendly brown eyes glittering, as she tries to push herself up, unbuckle the seat belt, but her fingers slip.

The corners of his lips curl up into a smile, as the snow falls around him, before he stalks towards the truck, tearing the door open.

Katya doesn’t quite fall out, the seatbelt keeping her in place, but with smoothed, practiced motions, he cuts through the seatbelt, batting her hands away.

Another car pulls up, and then another, but as her head lolls to look, she knows they’re not here to help. Not good Samaritans stopping at a car accident, not on this remote road.

Feketer peels her out of the truck, and there are new pains, arching up her back and through her leg, but he carries her away, like she weighs nothing more than a baby.

“Stop,” she croaks out, not at him, but at the group of people, hoping someone can step in.

No one moves to interfere.

She flops her hand over to her suit jacket again, fingers now coated in blood, but her arm is pinned to her side, she can’t get the leverage, not quite, but —

Feketer drops her into the backseat of a car, leaning over the car door. “Let’s see how well you do as a hostage,” he says, before grimacing, pulling a shard of safety glass out of her hair. “Apologies for the truck.”

She gapes at him, can’t find anything to say, can’t, but...but her fingers slip open her suit jacket, and her palm rests on her small, tiny favorite revolver.

She can’t aim, her hands are shaking too much, but Feketer looks away, directing the men around her, still leaning over her.

His torso is blocked by the car door, she can’t hit him there, but —

She snaps the gun upwards, as much as she can, her hand shaking like a leaf, and fires.

The bullet goes through his thigh, and it’s too loud, so loud Katya shuts her eyes and tries to recoil away. There’s a split second, a split second where all she sees is blood and his eyes open wide in surprise, before he sags against the car.

She tries, she tries hard, to yank up the gun, to get him elsewhere, to shoot it again, but her arm doesn’t cooperate.

Feketer gets shouldered off to the side, people yelling, and someone else, their appearance blurring, reaches and plucks the gun from her hand, shutting her into the car.

The car moves, she can barely move her neck, and her forehead smears blood along the window. Feketer’s on the ground, someone applying first aid to the bloody hole in his leg.

She blinks and they’re out of sight, the truck, the extra cars, everything, just trees whipping by.

She tries to pull herself up, tries to get to sitting position, see who’s in the car in front of her, but she can’t, her head clunking back against the window with a thud, jarring her teeth.

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