seconds, my father is back on his snowmobile, pulling me up behind him. Aksel leaps aboard the second snowmobile and we steer into the forest.
I curl up behind my father as he swerves every thirty meters, careening through the pine trees, taking air over a ledge. I keep my head low to avoid branches. Bitter wind tears at my cheeks.
Snowmobiling down Eagle Pass, we eject from the forest near the top of Charlotte’s driveway. A large black Suburban idles in front of us. The snowmobiles come to a halt and we jump off.
“Careful,” Aksel says in a low voice. He is at my side, holding his hand to my bleeding thigh as we clamber into the Suburban along with the others.
Within seconds, we are speeding through the dark streets.
Steadying my breath, I turn to my father.
“Them,” I say. Terror stains the simple word. “Dad, it was them.” My voice catches between a whisper and a scream.
How? Why? I want answers so badly I feel incendiary.
The vehicle has been fixed with two bench seats facing each other, so although I’m in the back row, I’m facing my father. He is dressed in a blue button-up shirt and a sport coat, like he’s just come from dinner.
Aksel’s mangled forearm is being bandaged by a young African American man who, unlike my father, is dressed in combat gear—all black, with a bulletproof vest, two Smith & Wesson revolvers holstered cross-draw at his waist, and an HK in his belt.
Watching my father, Aksel appears to be forcing calm. Breathing in through his nose and holding his lips tight, he doesn’t acknowledge the disinfectant being poured onto his wounds.
Prying my eyes from Aksel’s injuries, I turn to my father. “Dad,” I force the words from my parched lips. “How?” My left shoulder aches. I cradle it with my right to alleviate the throbbing.
Moving aside a remnant of tulle, my father winces at the laceration in my thigh. “It’s deep, but clean,” he utters. “Should heal fast.”
He knots a rubber tourniquet above the wound.
Warm blood trickles from my left temple and drips onto my cheek. I wipe it off with the back of my hand. The medical kit is on the floor; I snatch a loose butterfly strip and pass it to my father. He adheres it in place on my temple.
When my father finally meets my gaze, his steel-gray eyes appear heavy and worn. His skin is pale, but what startles me most is the return of that hollow, calculated stare. With its reappearance, I feel a torrent of dread.
I glance sideways at Aksel. He knew I was being followed. He tried to convince me. Warn me. I knew too. And I denied it.
Aksel’s eyes shift from my father to the man plucking shrapnel out of his arm, to me; he doesn’t look hurt, he looks enraged.
“Who is he?” I ask again. “I kept seeing him … I told myself … believed … it was a coincidence … I should have trusted my instincts … this is my fault …”
My father interjects, shaking his head, “No, Sophia. It’s mine.”
My whole left side is bruised from the fall; I can feel scratches on my face from the snowmobile ride and a stinging pain where the bullet grazed my left arm. But these wounds hurt less than the look on my father’s face—he’s not surprised?
Aksel makes a deep growling sound in his throat. The man pops Aksel’s shoulder back into place with a grinding, snapping sound. Aksel doesn’t flinch.
My father applies pressure to the wound in my thigh. He pricks my skin with a needle of lidocaine.
“You knew?” I whisper.
He doesn’t have to speak to answer my question.
“I believed you!” I exclaim. “You told me I was safe here! I believed you from the night we left Tunisia!”
“You were safe here, Sophia!” With a pair of sturdy tweezers, he removes the glass shard lodged in my flesh. He begins stitching.
“How is this safe?” I ask through gritted teeth.
“Because at first, he only wanted to observe you,” my father says, ripping open a bandage with his teeth and holding it to my leg.
“You call that observation?!” I shout.
“He’s been watching you for months. He was sent to confirm, then return, and reconfirm. They were only tracking your movements, so we let them. Monitoring him while he followed you gave us essential intelligence into how CNF has rebuilt.”
My voice is barely audible. “You let him follow me?”
Beside me, Aksel glowers at my father with barely concealed rage.
“Since he was