Cold as Hell (Haven’s Rock #3)

Prologue

PROLOGUE

As Kendra stumbles onto her residence porch, she tries to recall how much she had to drink. The answer should be easy. Two beers consumed over two hours, which should not make her drunk. The second one had been a black velvet, combining beer and wine—totally Yolanda’s fault for ordering a round—but still, that wouldn’t even put Kendra over the legal driving limit. Not that driving matters in Haven’s Rock, where there are no cars. The point is that two drinks over two hours should not have her tripping over her own feet.

The problem, Kendra decides, is that even two beers is more than she’s had since college. Kendra’s idea of “going out drinking” means she goes out and has a drink. One. She knows most people would blame this on her growing up Indigenous in the Canadian north. But, really, it’s just Kendra. She doesn’t mind a beer, but she’s just as happy with a soda. Unfortunately, there is no soda in Haven’s Rock.

Kendra stands on the porch and blinks. It’s past midnight and pitch-dark and freaking cold. Okay, she’s being a wimp about the cold. Haven’s Rock might be in the Yukon, but she grew up at a higher latitude, and for late March, they’ve actually been having a warm spell. Tonight, though, a fierce north wind slices right through her sweatshirt.

Sweatshirt? Where’s her parka? It might be a “warm spell” but it’s still hovering around zero.

Did she leave her parka in the Roc? Why would she do that?

Because she’s drunk.

Okay, but why is she on the residence porch instead of getting her ass inside where it’s warm?

Right. The bathroom situation.

The residence has three toilets, perfectly reasonable for a building designed to house a couple of dozen people. Kendra should know. During town construction, she’d been hired for her unique combination of talents—a social worker with extensive experience plumbing in a northern climate. They needed the plumber part and wanted someone to help with any psychological effects of the isolation. That was also why she’d been offered long-term employment after construction was done. Because a town with an off-grid sanitation system needs an on-site plumber, and a town this unique needs all the mental-health experts they can get.

Why is she thinking about her job right now?

Right. Because she needs to pee and there are no available toilets because residents flushed nonflushable items down two of them. The fixes require replacement parts. She’d also ordered extra replacement parts for sanitation in a town with people accustomed to being able to flush whatever crap they wanted.

Damn it, she really needs to pee, and the Roc just closed, and she wasn’t fast enough getting back to snag a toilet, so now she’s left staring into the forest and considering her options.

Dropping her trousers in freezing weather should not be one of those options. Especially in a pitch-black forest. But it won’t be the first time she’s done it. When you head out on the land to hunt, you don’t haul along a chemical toilet.

Still…

She should just wait for a stall to be free. How long can it take?

A moment later, Kendra finds herself on the edge of the forest and stops short. How did she get here? She was just on the deck, thinking she should wait it out.

Something’s wrong.

She shakes off the internal whisper. She’s drunk and not accustomed to being in that state.

You shouldn’t be blacking out after two drinks.

She didn’t black out. She’s just confused, and as long as the forest is right there, she might as well use it.

She takes two steps, and her foot slides in the melting snow. As she’s righting herself, she hears a crackle behind her, like a boot breaking through a skin of ice.

Kendra spins, and her foot slides right out from under her, and she collapses into the wet snow and—

She’s on her feet again. She goes still and looks around.

Did she imagine falling?

No, there’s the skid mark from her boot and the handprint from where she landed. When she clenches her fist, her fingers are wet.

Wait, where are her gloves?

Why is she outside without gloves or a parka, like some newbie to the north, thinking I’m only walking a hundred feet?

Is it the booze, making her not feel the cold?

She remembers when she was in college, studying the “starlight tours” in Saskatoon, where police would drive drunk Indigenous men past the town limits and leave them there, often improperly dressed for the weather. Three froze to death.

She shivers and shakes her head sharply. Her brain is zipping all over the place, and she needs to…

What did she need to do again?

Her aching bladder reminds her, but when she looks at the forest, something else nudges at the back of her mind.

She heard something. That’s why she stumbled.

She peers around.

No one’s out here, and even if there were, it’d just be someone heading home from the Roc.

Why isn’t she seeing people heading home from the Roc? She’d left at closing, and there’d still been others behind her.

She checks her watch.

Past twelve-thirty ? How is that possible? The bar closed at midnight.

Her watch must be wrong. Even if it’s not, hearing someone out at one isn’t a cause for alarm in Haven’s Rock. They’d just be heading to or from a lover’s bed, the lucky—

Wait. That’s why she’d had a second drink. She’d been flying high because one of the new residents, Tish, has been making what seems like a concerted effort to “bump into” Kendra as often as possible. Kendra thought she might catch the right vibes, but also feared that after nearly a year of celibacy, she was seeing what she wanted to see.

Damn it, her brain is like a terrier tonight, chasing everything that runs across its path. Forget this nonsense. By now, there has to be an empty stall in the bathroom.

Kendra takes a step toward the residence, and the next thing she knows, she’s flat on her back with no idea how she got there. She pushes to her feet.

Something is definitely wrong. Two drinks do not cause blackouts.

Is she having an allergic reaction?

In college, her first thought would be that someone slipped something into her drink. But this isn’t college, and she didn’t just walk out of a bar full of strangers. There are seventy people in Haven’s Rock. Dose a woman here, and you’ll get caught.

Hell, it’s not even a remote worksite filled with guys who might think that’s a perfectly fine way to get laid, especially if the woman you’re eyeing “claims” she’s not into men. Kendra had narrowly avoided that once on a remote job, saved by a guy who’d caught the offender tipping something into her drink. It’s one reason Kendra had joined Yolanda’s construction team—it was seventy-five percent female. Which, to be honest, made her happy in more ways than one.

Kendra smiles… and then she remembers what originally prompted that memory and the smile evaporates.

Was she dosed in the Roc?

No, she was just arguing that she couldn’t have been.

Stop thinking. Start moving. Get her ass inside and lock her damn door—

Crunch.

Kendra wheels just as something slams into her back, and her first and only thought is This is it. Someone hit her from behind, and now, instead of spinning and slugging them, she’ll slip and fall. Or she’ll just black out. Because someone put something into her drink, and that is not fair.

It’s not fucking fair.

At least give her a chance to fight. She isn’t very good at it, and she isn’t big or strong enough to power through, but at least give her a literal fighting chance.

She doesn’t slip, though. Or black out. She even manages to half spin before another blow comes. This one knocks her face-first into the snow. She manages to get one hand down in the slush, ready to push up, when her attacker grabs her feet and yanks so hard that she face-plants in the snow again. She tries to flip over, but she’s being dragged.

Someone is dragging her into the forest.

Scream!

She opens her mouth, but time jumps again, and now she’s in the forest and there’s a hand over her mouth.

Bite! Kick! Scream!

She bites as hard as she can and clamps down on a wool glove. She kicks backward and somehow— somehow —her foot actually makes contact. Her attacker grunts, and the grip on her mouth slips, and she screams. She screams with everything she has, and from the town, a voice answers.

She doesn’t know what the voice says. It’s just a voice, alarmed, and her attacker drops her. They try to grab her again, catching her by the sweatshirt, but she lunges free and runs.

There’s a figure up ahead. She can’t quite make it out, but someone’s running her way, and she waves frantically and then her foot slides and she goes down, and—

Darkness.