Chapter 1: Katerina

My hold on my gun did not waver even as the blood draining from my thigh caused my vision to. I closed my eyes and leaned against the trunk of a tree to listen for the men following me. It had been at least three that managed to follow my car up to the woods, but I was very certain that at least one had been lost to my bullets.

I didn’t hear anything over the sound of my own breathing for two of the longest minutes of my life. Each second caused more of my life to pulse from the open wound and I needed to find a place to stop so I could staunch the flow.

The continued silence all around me did little to calm my racing heart because I knew all to well that the wet ground would only fuck me over. The mud held footprints like a vice but could muffle the sound of tromping feet in a way that dry earth never could. ‘Fuck fuck fuckity fuck’ I felt like screaming in frustration at the turn of events but knew it would only hurt my cause.

At the very least, twigs still snapped when stepped on or passed through. Every bit a blessing and a curse because both parties would know if the other approached. Even knowing this though, knowing that staying still was my only way of remaining undetected, it didn’t prevent me from acknowledging that I had to move or I would die as surely from blood loss as I would from a bullet to my head or center mass.

Finally, I stopped next to a tree with a thick enough trunk to hide behind. I crouched low, dropped my pack and examined the hole in my thigh. The pant leg was sticking to the wound and each tug had stars dancing in my eyes but I finally got it unstuck and had to sit for a second, gathering myself for more pain.

I then reached around to the pack at my side and removed all of the supplies that I needed. Saline, gauze, gloves and sanitizer. Check, check and check. I started by tearing a small rip in the gauze pack so I didn’t have to fight with it later then took the saline and started spraying it into the open wound in order to clean it. It stung like a son of a bitch, because I was literally pouring salt in the wound, and I wanted to hit something. ‘It’s better than dying, it’s better than dying’. Tears sprang up in my eyes and I took a deep breath to calm myself. I then donned the gloves and lathered them in sanitizer as a precaution.

Next came the part that I was dreading the most: Packing the wound to stop the bleeding.

If I had been thinking, I would have put something in my mouth to bite down on but as it stood, I couldn’t risk contaminating my gloves more than was already a risk. Bracing myself harder against the tree, I placed my fingers at the open wound on my thigh and took a deep breath before pushing my fingers into the wound and feeling around for the pumping artery. The want to scream rose up in my throat and I had to clamp down on it like a vice as I tried to focus on the feeling in my hands rather than the horrible pain in my thigh.

‘Jesus Christ on a fucking cracker!’ I hissed through my teeth and zeroed in on the fluttering of the blood pumping around my finger. ‘There!’ I grabbed the package of rapid-clotting gauze and started feeding it into the wound and pressing it in as tightly as I could. The wound was deep but not too deep for the gauze. By the time the wound was packed, I was gasping for breath and just wanting to stop but there were more steps.

I couldn’t see any blood seeping out around the gauze and I also didn’t feel any bone fragments. Small miracles.

I shifted in order to lean on my other hip to make it easier to lift my injured leg to wrap the other gauze around it. I wrapped it around and around, careful to keep it taut. At least here it was so much easier to just focus on the task that I’ve repeated a million times in the past, even a handful on myself. I just needed to not think on the ‘why’ of me needing to wrap up my thigh.

While holding the gauze in place, I took my collapsible hiking stick and placed one piece at my thigh on the side with the wound and tied it in place using one layer of gauze then held another piece at the other side and wrapped them up tight using the rest.

I pulled out the other walking stick and screwed it together then leaned against the tree and pushed myself back to standing, using the stick as an awkward crutch, and donned my pack. I had already wasted too much time and, though I couldn’t hear my pursuers, I knew that they could be anywhere waiting to spring out. All I could do was get my bearings and get to the cabin. He would be able to help me from there.

I looked up at the stars, which were visible but just barely. I waited for a beat until the wind had pushed the clouds out of the way then looked for Polaris. I couldn’t see it but if I tilted my head, I could just barely see the constellation cancer and so I followed the line of it to figure out where Polaris was. If my estimation was correct, Polaris was to my right so I turned left-ish and continued slowly making my way south-west.

I didn’t creep nor did I stomp. I stood on rocks when I could to keep my steps from putting tracks in the wet earth. Every so often, I would pause, listen out for the sounds of pursuit then rearrange myself from the memory of the last time I was here. All of the times I was here.

I trudged along even as the pack dug into my spine and the straps sawed at my shoulder. I just kept telling myself that the house wasn’t that much farther. It wasn’t too far. I would make it ... if only because I had to.