Forever by Janie Crouch

Chapter Nineteen

Jess

Ethan jumped firstas the train slowed, and I followed. Landing on the ground jostled my bones, but I didn’t have a choice. We couldn’t afford to wait until the train stopped.

The sun was rising. We couldn’t see the front of the train to get an idea of what was happening, but we definitely weren’t going to stick around to see. Ethan took my hand and we slipped into the trees. Shouts came from the front of the train as we made it deeper into the woods. Luck was on our side. For the moment.

We quietly consulted the map, following the tracks on it until we could get an idea of where we were. It had cut more than half the distance off our journey, but we were still far away from the capital.

Ethan pointed in the direction that we needed to go. Neither of us wanted to speak, knowing that we were so close to possible enemies.

Passing through the woods, we found a dirt road heading in the direction we needed. “I think it’s safe enough to use it,” Ethan said softly. “And it will be faster than moving through wilderness.”

I nodded.

We walked hand in hand. Our intimacy of last night had carried over. We were a solid unit again, the way we’d always been as kids. The way I wanted us to always be.

But as happy as I was, I was tired. The couple hours of sleep that we’d managed to get was only a Band-Aid on the exhaustion that seeped through my pores. If—when—we got out of here, the first thing I wanted was a shower. Followed by a long nap. Preferably curled up next to Ethan. I always slept better when he was near.

The sound of tires in front of us came too quickly for us to hide, and the car turned around the corner into view in the next second. Ethan’s hand tightened on mine. “Just keep walking,” he said. “We’re not doing anything wrong. Just out for a walk.”

“In the middle of nowhere,” I muttered.

“Pretend it’s normal.”

The car slowed down as it came toward us, and Ethan gave a friendly wave. The couple in the car stared at us for a moment as their car came to a stop. “Should we stop?” I asked Ethan as we kept walking toward them.

“No. Don’t stop.”

The woman in the car pointed at us and started speaking to the man. But speaking was an understatement. She was absolutely freaking out. The man nodded, agreeing. Neither of them took their eyes off us, and we walked casually past, their voices muffled as they argued.

As soon as we had passed the car, they took off, gravel spitting behind their tires. If this road had been asphalt, they would have burned rubber for sure.

“Fuck,” Ethan said, low and urgent. “That’s not good.”

My stomach sank. “Does that mean what I think it means?”

He nodded, pulling me faster along the road. “They knew our faces. And they were civilians. So Radu has been circulating our pictures and has asked the general populace to help find us. Maybe offered a reward.”

“How does he have that much influence?”

“Doesn’t really matter,” Ethan said. “He does. And that’s going to make this much, much harder.”

He pulled me off the road, and we ducked into the trees, going as fast as we dared. When we were out of hearing distance from the road, Ethan finally stopped. “I need to talk to Uncle Ian.”

He pulled out the cellphone he had on him. “Is there a signal?”

“Not much, but enough.” He quickly dialed a number and held the phone to his ear. I wrapped my arms around him and pressed my ear near to the phone so I could hear too. Ethan’s free arm held me close, and I breathed in the scent of him while the phone rang.

Ian’s voice was quiet, but I could hear him well enough. “Ethan?”

“Yeah.”

“Thank God. I heard from Landon and Isaac, and they brought me up to speed, but they said they hadn’t heard from you.”

Ethan sighed. “We’re okay. We hopped a train trying to get to Kishinev but had to get off. On foot is just as bad. Radu has circulated our photos. We just passed two civilians who knew us, which means that Radu will have our location soon. I don’t know if we’re going to make it to Kishinev in time for the extract. Not if we have to stay out of sight the whole time.”

Ian let out a string of curses I’m not sure he would have used if he’d known I was listening. “This situation is actually worse than that. ‘Radu’ is Andre Radu.”

“Shit.” Ethan hung his head. “Are you serious?”

“Who is Radu, Uncle Ian?” I asked.

“Jess, I’m glad you’re okay, honey,” Ian said. “Andre Radu is a weapons and information dealer. One of the terrorist world’s top resources. He doesn’t commit the crimes, but he makes sure the actual terrorists have everything that they need. This is not a good guy.”

I looked up into Ethan’s eyes. They were grim.

“I know you both already know this, but Radu cannot get his hands on the stolen research. Isaac and Landon filled me in on the details about Alena but said she doesn’t have it.”

“Affirmative,” Ethan said. “It’s safe with us.”

“Then I’ll feel a hell of a lot better when you’re out of the country. If Radu has circulated your photos, getting into the city will be impossible. But we have a backup.”

“Where?” Ethan handed me the phone and dug in the backpack for the map. He spread it on the ground and I held up the phone so we could both hear.

“An airstrip west of the city. It’s only used for commercial shipments, so it’s farther out. Should be a little closer to you and isolated enough that you can get there.”

Ethan found the spot. “Got it.”

“Where is that relative to where you are?”

“We can be there in roughly three hours,” Ethan said, looking at me. “If we push.”

I nodded. I would do whatever we needed to do to get out of here. And if that meant pushing myself past my limits for a few hours, then so be it.

“My pilot will meet you there,” Ian said. “In three and fifteen, to give you a little wiggle room. But this pickup isn’t going to be pretty.”

Ethan chuckled. “It never is.”

“Quick and dirty. I don’t want the plane to be on the ground for more than thirty seconds. So when you get there, be ready to run and board.”

“We can do that,” I said.

“Good,” he said, though he didn’t sound relieved at all. “Also, very important. You need to know—”

The phone went dead, and a beep told me that the connection had failed.

“Shit.” Ethan took the phone from me and redialed, but I watched the call fail while it was still on the screen.

“What happened?”

He shook his head. “There’s suddenly no signal at all. Not even a blip. It’s just a flat line.”

Adrenaline spiked through me. “Think it’s artificial?”

“Yeah,” he said, dropping his voice further. “If Radu and his men are using signal blockers, at least some of them have to be close. We have to be as quiet as possible, but we also have to be fast.”

Not to mention we had no idea what really important thing Ian had to tell us.

I nodded. “I’ll keep up.”

For a brief second, Ethan hauled me against him and captured my lips with his. The kiss was filled with heat and a promise—that he would do whatever he could to get us out.

Then he pulled away, and we were moving. We had a plane to catch.

The terrain here wasn’t so different than what I’d grown up hiking in Wyoming. There were fewer mountains here, but that made it easier for us.

Whenever we broke out of the trees, and there was nothing but an open field in front of us, we ran. There wasn’t any point in moving slowly through an open field that made us easy targets.

Despite my familiarity with the terrain, Ethan was so much better at this than I was. He never seemed to tire, and the rocks and hills that we had to climb looked effortless for him to scale. Obviously, his SEAL training had only furthered what he’d spent a lifetime doing in Wyoming.

But I held my own. I wasn’t as graceful, and I lagged behind a little. But Ethan didn’t have to slow his pace too much for me, and I was proud of that.

Judging by the looks Ethan kept giving me, he was proud of me too. He led the way, and I followed. He helped me climb things that were just out of my reach, and I helped him with the map the few times we stopped to get our bearings. As always, we made a good team.

I wanted to revel in the fact that he was proud of me. I wanted to lie down and go to sleep. I wanted so many things that didn’t matter in this moment because our lives depended on me not stopping. So I didn’t stop.

We skirted a wooded area. Over the past couple of hours, we hadn’t seen any people, but the way Ethan was moving now—slowly and cautiously—made me think his instincts felt something that I did not.

Moving through the trees, we both did our best to go as silently as possible, though that slowed our pace to a crawl.

To our left, a branch snapped. Both of us froze in place. My heart thundered in my ears and everything around us seemed suddenly loud. The wind. The rustle of branches. Birdsong.

Ethan held out a hand to me, telling me to stay put. He ventured forward alone, looking around, and I held my breath. It felt like the woods themselves were suddenly thick with tension.

He was so fast, I could barely see him. Like a snake striking, Ethan leapt out from behind the tree where he was hiding and raised his tranq gun in the same motion, firing. Instantly, he dropped to his knees and spun and fired again, before the first body hit the ground.

I heard two dull thuds as the men fell, but I didn’t move until Ethan did. He looked them over, taking a large gun from one of the men and tossing it away. But he took one of the pistols and kept it.

I just stared at him. Awed. It was one thing to know that he’d made a career out of being an utter badass. It was an entirely different thing to see him in action.

“That’s it,” he said. “I’m out of tranquilizers.”

I swallowed. “Hopefully, we won’t need them.”

“Hopefully not.”

“These were Radu’s men?”

Ethan shrugged. “Even if they weren’t, they were heavily armed. Not something to take a chance with. But I’m going to go with yes.” We stood still for another moment, just resting. And then Ethan looked at me. “Ready?”

“Ready,” I said, as if we had any other options. Time was ticking, and we still had a ways to go. So we moved, not bothering as much with stealth as we were with speed.

Maybe it was the adrenaline that had pumped through my system at the near miss with the men in the woods, but after that I couldn’t seem to get my energy back up. I was starting to drag. My body ached from running and climbing. My feet screamed that they had had enough, and my stomach had numbed the feeling of hunger hours ago. I kept going, but it was getting harder.

Ethan’s hand found mine and didn’t let go. The message was clear: he wasn’t leaving me. My pace would be his pace.

I never felt more relief than when I saw the airfield in front of us. We’d made it. It was almost over. All we had to do was wait for the plane, then one more sprint. I could do that much.

Breaking out of the final line of trees, we stumbled to a stop and Ethan pulled me into a hug. “You did amazing,” he whispered in my ear. “You are amazing.”

Tears stung my eyes, and I buried my face in his chest. I wasn’t a big crier, but I couldn’t stop them right now. We were so close, and I wanted it to be over.

The screech of tires made me jump. A jeep careened toward us from the far end of the runway, moving toward us too fast to not know what they were looking for.

They knew we were here.

“Go.” Ethan pulled me back toward the trees where we’d just come from.

We didn’t make it far. I skidded to a stop barely inside the tree line when half a dozen men met us there coming from the other direction. They were obviously here to take us.

Ethan was already moving, taking one down with a quick punch to the face. I followed his lead. One of the guys grabbed me from behind, and I didn’t hesitate—I threw my head back with as much force as I could. The guy howled as his nose broke, and I jumped away, ready to fight another.

I managed to land a hit on another one, hoping—knowing—Ethan could hold his own. I would fight by his side, not be a damsel that he had to protect.

But the click of a hammer and a barrel against my skull made me freeze. One of them wrapped an arm across my chest, the pistol pushed into my head hard enough to bruise.

And in front of me, Ethan was a whirlwind. Three men were on the ground, and he was fighting a fourth when I called his name. “Ethan.”

He froze when he saw me, hands instantly in the air. The soldier he was fighting hit him in the stomach. He took it well, though it knocked the wind out of his lungs. But he never looked away from me. Our eyes were locked.

We’d been so close. What would happen when Ian’s pilot got here? Would they try to land anyway? Would they leave us completely? I didn’t know.

The jeep we saw at a distance stopped in front of us, and Radu’s men marched us both closer to the tarmac. I felt sick. Radu himself got out of the driver’s seat, a smug smile on his face. But I expected that from him now that I knew who he was.

But even worse was who got out beside him, with a smile just as smug.

Alena.