Chapter 4
4
Booker
“W e’re supposed to take care of her, not take advantage of her,” Nico scolds us.
Morning light reaches our kitchen for the first time in days. Chance and I just finished shoveling some of the snow off the porch surrounding the cabin, but we’re a long way from clearing a path off the mountain just yet.
I defend my decision. “She initiated it. It was… damn, Nico, you should’ve seen her, the way she opened up.”
“Anya is in a vulnerable state of mind,” he insists, adding sugar to his coffee.
Chance joins us in the kitchen. “What’s this about?”
“Our brother has some thoughts about what happened last night,” I say, my tone flat as I help myself to a cup of freshly brewed coffee. “Granted, I understand his concerns.”
“Nico, it was organic, I swear,” my twin replies. “She came to us.”
“She came to you.”
The raised eyebrow on Nico’s face irks me the most, considering that he, too, carries quite the torch for Anya. He’s always been the most affectionate and the most caring where she was concerned, and I saw the look in his eyes when we first brought her in from the wreck.
“The chemistry is there.” Chance shrugs as I pour him a cup. “Thank you, brother.”
“We should still be careful,” Nico advises, briefly lowering his gaze.
I shoot him a cool grin. “Or you could just drop the self-righteous act and join us. We all know it, and so do you. Anya’s different, man. On so many levels, it’s mind-boggling.”
“Given the circumstances, I’d rather focus on how she got here,” Nico replies, then gazes out the kitchen window again. “How’s it looking out there?”
Chance takes a sip from his hot coffee, closing his eyes for a moment. “We’re clear past the gate, but we’ll need to get down to her car sooner rather than later.”
We’ve yet to fully process what happened that night. We’ve yet to find answers to a lot of troubling questions. The blizzard has kept us cooped up in here long enough for all sorts of scenarios to worm their way into our heads.
Yet one thing has remained constant throughout: this sizzling sexual tension between us and Anya. What happened last night was unavoidable. And she’s the one who called the shots. Sure, we caved in without so much as a peep, but… Damn, we were her first. I’m still wrapping my head around that part.
I was the first man to lose himself inside this wonderful woman. What a privilege.
“It wasn’t just a car accident,” Nico grimly reminds us. “There were flashing lights, two of them in rapid succession.”
“That’s all dark,” Chance says with a slow nod. “Not that I’m questioning your judgment, but you’re right about one thing. We do need to check Anya’s car. Where is she?”
“Sleeping, which is good,” Nico says. “I poked my head in her room earlier. One of us should stay with her. One of you, specifically. I want to check her car.”
I agree and glance back at the hallway, where water still drips from my snow boots. “Whoever we saw take off that night might be around,” I mutter, “though I’m pretty sure they headed back into town before the heavy snow.”
“They would’ve died, otherwise. Temperatures dropped well below zero, and I haven’t seen or heard anything out there,” Nico says.
“I’ll stay with her,” Chance replies.
“Maybe she’ll start remembering what she was doing here in the first place,” I say.
Nico exhales sharply, then downs the rest of his coffee and leaves the mug in the sink. “It’s been two years. I thought she was dead.”
“We all thought she was dead,” Chance sighs. “I would kill to find out what happened that day at the Dalton Festival.”
“I think Anya would, too,” I mutter. “What’s the last we heard about what went down over there?”
Chance takes his phone out, going through saved photos and screenshots. We may not have cell reception, but we can still access whatever we have stored on our phones, and I know Chance has been keeping an eye on any news bits coming out of New York since Dalton. I notice that ever since Anya came to us, the light has returned to my brother’s eyes.
“The Feds are still investigating, but there haven’t been any new leads for more than a year,” he says, giving me a curious look. “All the information we had pointed to Anya having died that day with her family.”
“Clearly, she didn’t,” Nico replies. “I wonder how she got out.”
“And where she’s been for the past couple of years,” I add. “Alright, Nico, I’ll join you. We need to comb through her car before anyone else gets to it.”
Nico nods in agreement. “Let’s get one thing clear here. The minute they figure out she’s not down there, dead, they might come after her again. We need to prepare for that possibility.”
“They can fucking try,” Chance replies with newfound determination. “There’s no way I’m letting Anya out of our sight ever again. No fucking way.”
“Good to have you back, brother,” I chuckle softly.
He looks at me with slight confusion. “What do you mean?”
“Come on, isn’t it obvious? You’ve been so gloomy and morose since we first heard about Dalton. And now, look at you. Ready to go all gung-ho on anybody who tries to take her away from us. Don’t get me wrong, I’m loving the vibe.”
“You’re laughing again,” Nico tells him. Nico noticed, too.
And Chance is realizing it, too. The light in his eyes shines brighter as he puts his phone away and heads upstairs. “Take a shotgun with you,” he says as he walks out of the kitchen. “Fire two rounds if you need help. I’ll hear them from up here.”
“Light a flare on the roof,” Nico replies. “We’ll be back in a jiff if we see it.”
“Roger that.”
Once we both hear Chance’s footsteps upstairs, Nico and I head back into the hallway to get our snow gear on. Heavily equipped, we step out into the endless white blanketing our otherwise quiet side of the mountain.
“Damn, it’s brutal but so beautiful out here,” I say.
“See those plumes of smoke?” Nico points to a couple of faint grey lines working their way across a clear blue sky, the sun rising somewhere behind us. “The town’s still alive.”
“Good. We invested too much in the local businesses to lose it all to a frickin’ blizzard.” I chuckle dryly and follow him down the porch steps. “Hey, do you think Anya might’ve had it with her?”
“Had what?”
“The USB drive,” I say. “Aleks said he was going to have Anya hold on to it before Dalton happened. He was going to put her on a train and send her to us.”
“It’s odd that it took her two years to get here.”
“Whatever happened in those two years could be the key to what happens next.”
Nico curses under his breath. “I’m serious about what I said earlier, Booker. About Anya. We need to be careful. We don’t know what we’re walking into, and it’s my duty to keep the two of you alive. It’s always been my duty.”
“Except we’re not kids anymore, Nico. Pretty sure Chance and I saved your ass a couple of times back in the service. Though your concern is duly noted and definitely appreciated,” I reply with a wry smile.
It takes us a few minutes of slipping and struggling, with snow constantly crunching and dipping under our boots, but we manage to establish a walking rhythm that keeps us at a steady pace down the mountain.
The pine trees are heavily clad in snow, some of it already falling off and clumping along the once-visible road leading to the bottom. At this point, however, we’re working off memory and instinct.
“There it is.” Nico points to the tight turn of the road.
It’s nearly covered in about two feet of snow, but the front end sticks out and it appears untouched.
To the left, the mountain continues its descent with a thickening forest and a swirling road riddled with jutting stones and gnarly roots—most of it hidden under the snow. It’s impossible to drive at this point.
Good. It’ll keep any threat at bay for a while longer.
“No one’s been here,” Nico concludes upon reaching Anya’s car.
“No prints in the snow either. And it stopped snowing sometime last night,” I reply, constantly looking around, searching for anything that might be out of place.
Nothing pops out. Even better.
“That USB drive could change everything,” Nico muses as he circles the car a couple of times, giving it a first glance. “If Anya had it, if she was finally bringing it to us…”
“Then she knew what Aleks was up to.”
“There,” my brother snaps and points a finger inside the car. “I knew it.”
I come closer and help him clear the snow from the driver’s seat. It takes a while, but we manage to get in so I, too, can see the bullet hole in the dashboard. “Shit,” I whisper, my eyes widening as I realize what happened here.
“And there’s the second one,” he nods toward the windshield.
The bullet went through, leaving a small hole none of us noticed the night the blizzard landed. We were too busy trying to rescue Anya to see the cracks in the glass. But I see it now, clear under the rising sunlight.
“Two shots fired. Pop, pop,” I mutter, then look at Nico. “Do you think…”
“Anya’s head injury,” he’s quick to read my mind. “It could be that one of the bullets grazed her skull. The force of the bullet could’ve caused the damage, the retrograde amnesia, the shock itself. Yes, it might explain a few things. The shape of the cut is consistent with a bullet graze.”
My blood runs cold as I realize what this means. “Nico, she almost died out here that night. After somehow surviving Dalton, she almost… fucking hell…”
“I need to look under the hood. You search for the USB drive. It might be somewhere in here,” he says and gestures to the front of the car.
I hear the clanking of his tool bag as he takes out a crowbar and pries the hood open. All the snow and ice almost sealed it shut. In the meantime, I rummage through snow and dirt in the front and back seats of the car.
“What are you thinking?” I call out to Nico before I force the glove compartment open.
“I’m trying to figure out how she got wrapped around this tree. Those are snow tires and chains on the wheels, and the road was relatively clear when she first got up here. Given what we know about the fired shots, I wouldn’t exclude sabotage either.”
“For her to lose control like this, she must’ve been driving at a high speed.”
The glove compartment reveals a few random things: A map of the area, ChapStick, wet tissues and… a gun. A Colt revolver, otherwise known as a widow-maker. A pretty big gun for a little lady like Anya. “Hey.” I show it to Nico. “She was packing this. And it’s loaded.”
“Has it been fired?” he asks, coming over to the driver’s side.
I flip the cylinder open and count the bullets. “None missing.”
“Chances are, she knew who was following her.”
“I think we also know who was following her, or their employer, at least,” I mutter, then search along the dashboard. “Dammit, nothing.”
“Check the top.” Nico points to the sun visors. “If anyone is looking for that, specifically, the glove compartment would be the first place they’d search. Anya’s a lot smarter than that.”
I flip the driver’s sun visor down. As if summoned, a small, square device slips out and falls into my lap. I turn it over a few times, noticing the scratches on both sides. Nico takes a deep breath. “Let’s hope it still works. With the subzero temps we’ve had over the past week, the interior circuits might be damaged.”
“Well, that would be a fucking shame, wouldn’t it?” I give him a curious look. “At least we know she had it. Did you find anything under the hood?”
He raises a handful of cables, two of which were hastily chopped. “What I suspected. Someone tampered with her car. They messed with the steering wheel and the transmission. Slow drip to failure, to be specific.”
“Holy shit,” I gasp, my eyes as wide as saucers as I stare at him. “Had you not seen the headlights… had you not seen the muzzle flash…”
“She would’ve died out here in the dark.” Nico sighs and takes a step back. “We scared the fucker off with my truck. He would’ve finished the job.”
“And we wouldn’t have found her until we were able to get back down the mountain.”
“That’s right.”
Ice thickens in my veins as I reassess the entire situation. It only makes me want to protect Anya even more. “We made a promise to her brother a long time ago,” I tell Nico. “Granted, we never thought a day like this would come.”
“We’re going to keep that promise,” my brother replies, a muscle ticking furiously in his jaw. “And provided we’re able to salvage whatever is on that drive, we’ll take those fuckers down, too. Once and for all.”
I look at the drive again. “Do we show it to her?”
“It might trigger some memories.”
“Part of me doesn’t really want her to remember,” I confess.
“I can’t blame you. I think I feel that way, too, sometimes. Chance, as well. She’s good here, safe,” Nico says. “It could be the beginning of something new, something better. Maybe Anya is better off not knowing. But at the end of the day, it should be her decision. Her mind. Her rules. All we can do is stick to her side and make sure nothing happens.”
“Keep our promise, like you said.”
Easier said than done, if we don’t know where the enemy’s coming from. How many of them are there? And how determined are they to get to her and the USB drive?
“We need to rethink our safety and defense strategy,” Nico concludes.
Much like Nico and Chance, I will go scorched earth on anyone who tries to come after Anya. Especially after last night, when the unthinkable happened. We have her. We’re not letting them take her from us.