Till the End of the Line

Sarah stared at the moving landscape around her as the car sped along the highway. The windows were blinded, so a dark shade was cast on everything she saw, except the interior of the car. When she looked straight ahead she could only see the back of the driver's bald head.
'Where are we going?' she asked, although she didn't really expect any answer, she was used to her questions being ignored.
'You're being transferred,' replied the low, gravelly voice of the driver.
'Transferred? To where? From where?' but apparently that was all the answer she was going to get, because he remained silent after the first response.

She continued to gaze open-mouthed at the scenery speeding past, she had almost forgotten what the outside world looked like, how magnificent trees were, and how large the world really was. The sun set in a haze of pale coral and pink, and her eyes drooped shut.
When she awoke, they were still driving. The sky was a light shade of lilac. She knew this meant that it must be nearly night. There was something familiar about driving on the highway. Something soothing.
It was a while before she noticed that the driver had turned on the radio. She hadn't heard music in ages. The sounds came in faint and distant and strange. But soon enough she was nodding her head in time to the tunes floating to the back of the car where she sat. The song that was playing was very repetitive. It sounded very familiar.
"At the Copa-Copacabana, the hottest club north of Havana." The words seemed to resound in her head, like a strange kind of mantra. Instinctively, Sarah tried to find her gun. But then she realised that her hands were tied. There was no gun. But the song seemed to have jogged her memory. She could remember the smell of the interior of the truck when she and James had been on the road.
"At the Copa-Copacabana, music and passion were always the fashion…"
First time handling a gun. She recognised the song. "Copacabana" was the song that was playing in the petrol station where she and James were spotted on their way to the cabin. She and James. James. What would James do? What did James want me to do?
She had been trained. All of that seemed to flood back. James had prepped her for this. For assessing situations, for defending herself.
Her gaze fell on the back of the driver's bald head again. He was softly humming along with the song.
'Are we taking a toilet-break any time soon?' Sarah asked. The driver didn't seem to hear her, so she repeated the question a little louder.
'We're not stopping until we get there,' he retorted curtly, without taking his eyes off the road.
'So, you'd be alright with me soiling the backseat, would you?' She persisted. She could see his jaw tense while he processed this.
'There's a gas station ten minutes from here. Can you hold it till then?'
'I'll try.'

They approached the gas station. As they pulled over, Sarah couldn't help but feel that she'd been there before. With a small smirk, she realised that it was the exact same shop where she and James had stopped to buy food, where she'd had her first disastrous experience handling a gun. It felt bizarrely serendipitous, the fact that that song had been playing on the radio and their stopping at this exact location. It somehow gave her courage to set forth with her plan.
The car stopped, and the driver got out. Sarah watched him from the shaded window while he approached her side of the car. He slowly opened the door.
'No tricks,' he muttered sternly, while he reached forward to pull her into his direction by her bound hands. Sarah nodded and drew her legs up, swiveled them around and kicked him as hard as she could in the groin. The man gave an agonised yelp and crumpled into a heap. Her hands still bound, Sarah jumped over him, kicked him in the head for good measure, then legged it to the nearest car that was parked at the fuel dispenser. Luckily, the keys were still in the engine and she turned it on and raced away, even though her hands were still tied.
Sometimes you'll hear stories of a mother lifting a car to save her child, while ordinarily she wouldn't have been able to do any such thing, simply because of her instinct. The same kind of power was guiding Sarah as she was driving the car with her hands still tightly tied together. Instinct was taking over, and she found herself on a somewhat familiar route as she sped along the highway. She was heading towards the cabin, although she didn't realise that she was. She'd been on this road once before, in the same state of anxiety, and her muscles appeared to have taken over control. Her head kept turning to look over her shoulder, but no one was following her, it seemed.
Night fell. Sarah parked in an overgrown field along the way to untie her hands. It took her a long time, but she managed it in the end. While she tried to pry the rope from her hands using her teeth, the car keys, and any other sharp object she found in the backseat, she kept expecting to hear the sounds of pursuit, of car tires screeching or, even sirens. But there was nothing, no sign that Hydra was trying to catch up with her. The silence was more nerve wrangling than anything.
Once she could use her hands again she drove back to the highway and decided, on the spot, to follow the way she knew that led to the cabin. She couldn't think of anything else to do. As a matter of fact: she wasn't thinking at all. Everything she did was an automatic physical reaction, rather than a conscious decision. Now that it was night, she also felt more comfortable, as her eyes were accustomed to a permanent state of darkness.

There was no one else on the road. Every now and then Sarah massaged her wrists, which were still feeling rather sore after the rope came off. It hadn't dawned on her completely, but now that she was in full possession of both her hands once more, that she'd done it. She'd escaped Hydra. She was free… While this thought settled in her mind, she couldn't help but let out a soft chuckle, that slowly became longer and louder, until she was laughing hysterically, tears of mirth and confusion and disbelief streaming down her cheeks. She didn't even bother wiping them away. Her body, so beaten and battered and exhausted, felt lighter with every passing minute that she was laughing, and she gladly gave herself over to the release.

It was still dark when she finally approached the familiar surroundings of the cabin. Out of precaution, Sarah parked the car somewhere between the trees, a good distance away from the house. Under the cover of night, she started walking, very slowly and cautiously, to where the cabin stood. Even with the lights out, and in the blackness of the evening, the sight of the house was like seeing an old friend again after many, many years. Her heart skipped a beat as she kept walking up to it. She inspected the outside first. There were no traces of footprints or cars in the grass. Nothing that suggested that someone had been sniffing around the place in their absence. The shooting range she and James had built was still there, a few empty shells lay forgotten on the ground. Sarah picked them up before she crept closer to the house to peer in through the windows. Again, she didn't see anything suspicious, and therefore decided that it was safe to go inside.
The air inside was stale when she entered the cabin. As quietly as she could, she hurried to close all the curtains, before she withdrew into the bedroom. She sat down on the bed. (Or, more accurately, she let herself fall flat onto the mattress.) A flurry of dust issued from the bedclothes as she lay down. For a few minutes, she just lay there, her eyes closed, breathing in the familiar smell of the place that lingered underneath all the dust. She was so tired. So hungry, and so tired. She hadn't realised it while she was driving, but now that she had reached her final destination, it hit her like brick wall. She pulled her legs up to her chest and wrapped her arms around her knees and she could feel herself nodding off.
But before she drifted off completely, she sat up with a start and held her breath, as a noise came from somewhere near the front door. She waited, her heart beating so loudly she could hardly hear what was going on. There was another sound, as if someone was walking around the house and touching the handle on the door. For a second time that day, Sarah reached for a gun that wasn't there, and when she didn't find it she felt more helpless than ever. The noise by the door persisted. Someone was fidgeting with the lock. For a split second she sat frozen on the bed, then she considered hiding under it. But then she heard the door unlock and soft footsteps entering the house. She got to her feet and went to stand next to the gap in the bedroom door to the living room, listening intently. She could tell that it was a single person who was cautiously shuffling inside. The door fell shut quietly and it was in this instant that Sarah could only think one thing: James?