He stared straight ahead, his shoulder jammed into hers. "This is okay, ptuška. It was not you I had the angry feelings for.”
Dora felt a wave of relief and relaxed a little. Being jammed in between Anton and Danil began to feel companionable.
"Why does everyone call me ‘ptuška’?" she asked the car in general as they crept through the edge of the woods where they could just see the sorting facility. The sun was still a good 30 minutes from making it to the edge of the world.
"It is obvious," Anton answered.
And apparently that settled it because no one else elaborated. Well, the Belarusians certainly had a way of seeing the world.
The car was in position, hidden in the shadows where they would be able to watch the packages being loaded into the truck. That same truck would deliver them to the dummy location. They'd follow the truck to there and then follow whoever picked up the packages to wherever the new lab site was.
But the minutes ticked past and Dora began to get a little unsettled. It shouldn't be taking this long.
She turned to Danil, her nerves getting the best of her, when Emin's phone started trilling, making all of them jump.
"Jesus, Emin, turn your ringer down!"
He just grumbled and eyed the screen. "It is AJ."
Dora felt Anton stiffen beside her. She risked a glance at his face and saw it set in a taut, tense scowl. Interesting. He didn't like AJ calling his brother. Very interesting. Dora wisely chose to say nothing.
"AJ, you are okay?" Emin asked, his eyebrows pulling tight at whatever her answer was.
Dora suddenly got a very bad feeling. What if they were loading the packages off at the other loading dock? She'd never seen them do that before. But it wasn't out of the realm of possibility. She'd hate to miss it and have to wait another whole week to track the packages to the location. She couldn't take the stress, the anticipation of it.
"Why does she call you?" Anton asked Emin.
Emin plugged his finger with one ear and listened harder to what AJ was saying. Anton leaned forward and slapped his brother's hand away from his ear.
A small scuffle ensued. And Dora took her opportunity.
"I'll be back in just a second," she whispered to Danil.
"Where?" he demanded, his eyes narrowing.
"I'm just going to pee," she replied, knowing that if he knew she was going to check things out back behind the building, he'd never let her go alone. And then all the brothers would want to go and by the time they'd gotten it all sorted out, the delivery might already be loaded and gone.
So she slid out of the car, over Danil's lap, pressing a small kiss to his cheek and disappearing into the woods beside the car.
Dora knew she only had a few minutes. She was sure that Danil would come after her if she was gone too long. And then he would be irritated at her for exploring on her own and it would be a whole thing. All she needed was a glimpse of the other loading dock. Something to confirm that they, for some reason, weren't loading any packages today, and she wasn’t just missing it completely.
Dora rounded the corner of the facility and saw that the other loading dock was shut just as tight as the main one. So weird. She knew the shipment was scheduled to come in today. She bit back a growl of frustration in her chest. Back to square one.
She turned, hurrying to get back to the car before suspicions rose, but she immediately froze when she heard a stick crack to her left. Her eyes scanned the woods which were just beginning to lighten with the dawn. She saw nothing but trees and shadows. Shrugging her shoulders, Dora turned away. But there. She felt it. Eyes on her.
Trusting her gut, Dora didn't turn around. She needed to get back to the car. Like yesterday.
She fell easily into a sprint, grateful she'd worn sneakers. But then she wasn't grateful for much of anything as what felt like a semi truck crashed into her side.
Dora gasped, a sound dulled by the mushroom cloud of pain tearing through her. She rolled across the ground.
The sky through the leaves, dawn was coming, she thought vaguely as her rattled brain settled in her head.
And then she saw what had knocked her down. A bear.
Her mind jumped. Danil?
No. This bear was leaner. Its face was scarred and wild. One of the eyes in its angry face was sewn closed. When it bared its horrible teeth to her, Dora saw that many of them were a shiny titanium. And it stank. Even with her dull human nose, she could smell the offensive chemical scent rolling off of the beast.
The bear came to its two back feet and stared at her with what could only be described as hatred. Dora quailed under the look and felt horribly, horribly frozen. She knew she couldn’t outrun it. She couldn’t outmaneuver it. Her hands searched the ground frantically for a stick, a rock, anything she could use to stun the creature while she got away.