Tribal Blood

She pounded on the door. “I need to use the toilet.”

“Use the sink in there.”

“I can’t climb up on that sink!”

The door opened and Anton entered. He took her arm and hauled her up another flight of stairs to a very nice, clean bathroom with a claw-foot tub, white shower curtain, shampoo, conditioner, soap and clean towels. She scowled at the bounty as the anger built inside like lava. She and her friends had one bar of soap among all of them, worked down to a thin wafer. Meanwhile the guards had this. She glanced from the toilet to the small window.

“So go,” said Anton.

He wanted to watch? Fine. She drew up the sheath dress they had provided and sat. After several minutes, he urged her to hurry.

“I’m not done.”

“You better not have that kid in that toilet.”

She had her weapon. Kacey closed her eyes and pushed, crying out. She peered at her captor. He was glancing back toward the hall.

Kacey cried louder.

“Oleg! Get up here.” He stepped out of the door and vanished.

Kacey had the door shut and the bolt thrown in a moment. Anton pounded on the door as Kacey opened the window and scrambled out onto a flat roof overhanging the first floor. She ran to the edge and glanced to the lawn. It seemed a long way down. Then she turned back toward the house. How long did she have?

She threw one of her princess slippers off the roof. Then she threw the other one. The roof coating was so hot, it burned her feet. Kacey ran along the roof to the other side of the house, where she found a half-open window. She could see Oleg and the third man rush down the hall toward the bathroom.

Kacey was sliding the window open the rest of the way when she heard a crash. The bathroom door, she thought. Kacey slipped inside the house and down the stairs to the first floor as the men shouted from the bathroom. She hurried through the office and to the entrance hall. There on the stand beside a hat rack were three sets of car keys. She grabbed all three and was turning toward the basement door to release her friends when she saw Oleg through the dining room window as he passed by on the outside of the house. How had he got off the roof so fast?

They made eye contact and he shouted to the others, breaking into a run. She glanced to the locked basement door. If she went that way, he’d have her.

Kacey made her decision and charged out the front door. She descended the porch stairs, hitting the unlock button on one of the car fobs. A car beeped. But that one was trapped behind the others. She tried again, reaching the drive as Oleg made it to the walkway.

The next car was the one she wanted. It looked new and fast. More important, it was closest to the road. She dived into the car as Oleg pounded both open hands on the hood, denting the metal.

She pressed the lock on the fob as his hand slipped onto the latch and tugged. Kacey looked for a key, but there was none. Just a button beside the steering wheel that said START. She pushed it and the engine turned over. There was no gearshift, just a knob. She rotated it to R as Oleg shattered the driver’s-side window with his fist.

“I rip dat baby from your belly!” he bellowed.

His hand extended toward her, his fingers forming a claw. Kacey screamed and threw herself sideways across the console. Then she jammed her foot down on the gas. The car sailed backward down the drive, over the curb, hitting something that flew over the roof before she righted herself. She could barely reach the pedals because the seat was so far back, but she managed to get the car into Drive and turn the wheel so the tires were back on pavement as she raced away. She saw Anton running after her in the street. She thrust her arm out the open space where the window had been and extended her middle finger, giving him a gesture of farewell.

She had all their keys and she knew where they were keeping her friends. All she had to do was get to the police and tell them what had happened.

But Marta told her that she had heard Oleg say the police were on their payroll and that they knew about the house and did nothing. Not the police, then. Her tribe—tribal police. She had to get home to Turquoise Canyon.

Where was she? Sweat beaded on her forehead and her stomach muscles cramped. She slowed as she made a turn onto a strange road. The landscape was familiar. She looked around and then into the rearview at the way she had come. She knew they hadn’t taken her far from home because of the amount of time she had ridden in the back of the van. Soon she had herself oriented.

She was in Darabee, Arizona. And everyone in her tribe knew that Darabee was the police force who had set the stage for the Lilac Shooter to be assassinated right in the station. The investigations were ongoing. The police chief had been replaced, but she believed what Marta had told her. This police force could be on the Russians’ payroll, so she was not going there under any circumstances. Kacey was halfway to her home in Turquoise Canyon when she realized that this would be the first place they would look.

Her mother couldn’t protect her, assuming she was even there. And going there would only put her brothers and sisters in danger. Her best friend, Marta, was still a captive. Kacey needed to get the girls out of there before they did something terrible to them all.

The tribal police, she trusted them. They could find the house. She drove to Piñon Forks, past the activity at the river, construction mostly, with dump trucks, bulldozers and backhoes. She ignored them as she drove to tribal headquarters. The parking lot was eerily empty. There were no police cars and no tribal vehicles. She drew up to the fire lane in front of the station, peering at the dark empty building.

Something was very wrong.

She craned her neck. Why were there no pickup trucks on the road? She had passed no one and seen not one soul since arriving on the rez. The town looked deserted. Where was everyone?

A car appeared in her rearview and she jumped. Was it Oleg?

The man who stepped out of the vehicle was white and wearing some sort of uniform. Her heart hammered as she considered fleeing before he reached her. But she needed information.

He approached from the driver’s side. Kacey prepared to shift her foot from brake to gas. He stood before her window. She meant to lower it only a crack, but the window was gone, leaving her vulnerable. Her heart pounded in her throat.

“You looking for tribal headquarters?” he asked.

“Yes.” Her voice sounded strange to her ears. Barely a squeak.

“They moved,” he said.

What? Why? That didn’t make any sense at all. “Where?” Her voice was all air and very little sound.

He cocked his head and gave her an odd stare as if she should know this.

“Up to Turquoise Ridge.” He glanced at her distended belly. “Oh! Clinic is up there, too. They’re in trailers, one beside the other. Can’t miss it. You need me to drive you?”

“No. Thanks.” She did not wait for a reply before accelerating away.

They’d moved? Why would tribal government ever leave their main community for the rough mining settlement of Turquoise Ridge?

The women’s health clinic was right next to the police station, looking just as deserted. But she couldn’t go to the clinic, even if it were open, because the Russians would probably look for her there, because someone there had done this to her. She and the other girls had compared memories. They had all been to the tribal health-care facility shortly before capture. But what had happened there was a yawning blank, for her visits and theirs. Why couldn’t they remember?

She had to get word to tribal police.

It was several minutes before Kacey became aware of her surroundings again. She was already in the tribal community of Koun’nde and heading for Turquoise Ridge. She should turn around.

And go where?

Where could she go where she would be safe and where they could not find her? Somewhere she could find help for her friends but not endanger her sisters and brothers?

And then she knew. She would go to him, the boy who had promised to go away with her and instead left her behind. Kacey knew he was scheduled to come home from Afghanistan. His brother Ty had told her so and that he was changed. He had been discharged after something that had happened over there. Ty said that Colt had been captured with comrades in an insurgent attack and then recovered.

Afterward Colt had spoken to Ty from Maryland and said he wasn’t ready to come home. Ty talked him into coming back anyway. Colt agreed but only if he could live up in the family’s claim off Dead Horse Road beyond the community of Turquoise Ridge.

Ty had told her Colt wanted to see her after he got his act together. But she’d been taken before he came home. She knew Colt’s plan had been to make over an old cabin. Colt had shown it to her once. She knew where it was. It was a good place to hide, and if Colt was there, he could help her rescue her friends.

What she didn’t know was if she had the physical strength to reach it. Her middle began to squeeze again and she bucked back in the seat, swerving dangerously. She had to reach him before her body forced her to stop, before the men pursuing her captured her again.

I rip dat baby from your belly.

She shivered at the memory of Oleg’s words. The tears she had held for months now poured down her cheeks, blurring her vision. But she ignored the tears and pain in her middle and the ache in her heart as she pressed down on the gas.