Chapter 8 - SHADOWS IN THE SNOW
The drop was sudden and brutal.
Clara crashed onto the wooden balcony deck fifteen feet below, her knees buckling under the impact, her body absorbing the force to shield Leo from the ground. Pain shot through her ankles and hips, a sharp, nauseating ache that made her vision go white for a second.
"Mama!" Leo gasped, his arms still locked tightly around her neck.
"I'm okay! I'm okay!" Clara grunted, pushing herself up from the snow-dusted deck planks.
Above them, through the shattered nursery window, Julian’s bloody face appeared. He looked down at them, his eyes wild, the knife still clutched in his hand. He cleared the play-chest away from the frame, preparing to climb through the broken window himself.
Clara didn't look back. She carried Leo down the exterior wooden staircase that led from the balcony into the rear garden. Her bare feet were completely numb now, the freezing snow burning against her skin like liquid fire, but she didn't feel it. The adrenaline surging through her system blocked out everything except the singular imperative to move forward.
The rear garden was a vast, open slope of deep snow, flanked by dense pine trees that stretched up toward the Holmenkollen ridge.
She ran toward the shelter of the woods, her boots sinking thirty centimeters into the fresh drift with every step, her breath rising in thick, frantic plumes of steam.
Behind them, the sound of heavy glass shattering echoed through the yard as Julian dropped from the balcony onto the deck, his crippled leg giving out beneath him as he crashed onto the snow. He screamed in pain, a terrifying, animalistic sound that rattled through the silent trees, but a second later, the soft crunch of his heavy footsteps began tracking them through the yard.
He was pursuing them into the woods.
Clara reached the treeline, slipping beneath the dark canopy of the pines. The snow was thinner here, sheltered by the dense branches, but the darkness was absolute. The only light came from the distant, flashing yellow glow of their house behind them and the faint pale moonlight reflecting off the clouds above.
She set Leo down behind a massive, ancient pine trunk, sinking onto her knees beside him.
"Leo," she whispered, her hands cupping his cold cheeks. His lips were blue, his body shaking violently from fear and the bitter cold. "Listen to me very carefully. I need you to stay right here behind this tree. Do not move. Do not make a sound. Do not come out until you hear the sirens with the red and blue lights. Do you understand Mommy?"
"No, Mama! Don't leave me!" he sobbed, his voice trembling so hard his teeth clicked together.
"I am not leaving you," she whispered fiercely, pressing a deep kiss to his cold forehead. "I am going to draw him away. I am going to end this right now."
She reached into her coat pocket, pulled out her spare set of analog studio keys, and pressed them into his small hands, folding his fingers firmly over the metal ring.
"Hold these. These are our keys to our new home. You keep them safe for me."
Leo looked at the keys, then up into her eyes, his small face hardening into a brave, terrified nod. "Okay, Mama."
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Clara stood up, stepped away from the tree, and deliberately kicked a heavy pine branch, letting it snap with a loud, sharp crack that echoed through the dark woods.
"Julian!" she shouted into the freezing night, her voice ringing clear and defiant through the trees. "I'm right here!"
