Chapter 77
Vilhelm watched Maggie, a thin smile on his lips.
“Let’s take a walk.”
Fear sliced through her, rooting her to the spot. Her pulse roared in her ears. No way of running. All she had was her voice. “No.”
With a sigh, Vilhelm moved a hand to his waistband and withdrew a gun. He pointed it at her almost wearily, as if it saddened him that it had come to this. “I said, walk.”
Maggie stared at the gun, blinking. This can’t be happening.
Vilhelm raised the gun until it was level with her forehead.
She let out a whimpering sound, instinctively lifting her hands.
“Turn around and WALK.”
She did as he said, moving toward the door. “My ankle—” she began, but was silenced by the cool nose of the gun pressing against the back of her skull.
She exited the cabin, hobbling. Each step was agony. Her vision wavered from the pain. The fog was beginning to thin, feathering away in places, so rising boulders punctured the scene.
“Move,” he commanded.
She heard her own whimpered cry as another bolt of pain burst down her ankle.
Dragging herself forward, Maggie noticed a low, black shape emerging from the mist, the same one she’d seen earlier. It moved steadily toward them, and for a moment, she allowed herself to hope.
But it was only Vilhelm’s dog, Runa, coat matted, pink tongue lolling. It came to her side, brushing close to her legs. Instinctively, she lowered the back of her hand, feeling the dog’s fur against it.
Vilhelm cussed at the dog, sending it away. It slunk low to its belly, ears flattening.
Maggie swallowed down her fear, senses fizzing and acute. She knew the course Vilhelm was setting: the mountain edge.
The gun nosed the back of her head.
“You’re going to kill me?”
She heard the smile in Vilhelm’s voice as he said, “You’re already dead.”
Her skin prickled icily.
“There will be reports of the landslide soon. Four British women buried alive as they slept. A tragedy.”
A cold, chilling sensation shivered across her neck, down the backs of her arms. Her stomach roiled. Everyone would think they had been crushed beneath hundreds of tons of earth and rock.
No one would be looking for them.
Vilhelm could make them all disappear.
She swallowed the saliva pooling in her throat. He would push her over the edge, her body disappearing into the river below.
No evidence. No witnesses.
Just like he did to Karin. The thought landed like an echo.
“You killed Karin, didn’t you?” she said.
“I did what I had to.”
She swallowed. “You could have let her go!”
“Impossible. She would have talked. Austin, my son, he is a good boy—not the brightest, perhaps, but I couldn’t have her ruining his life.”
“So you pushed her,” she whispered to herself. She felt desolate with fear and misery at the thought of Karin’s body lost down there, undiscovered.
A quaking began deep within her body.
Behind them somewhere, she heard the low whine of Runa, a plaintive sound that swirled with the mist.
Her brain scrambled for what to do. There was a gun at her back, a mountain edge ahead, her ankle too damaged to run.
For a beat, everything stood still. She was no longer walking or thinking. There was another sense that she had no words for. It was a feeling that rose beyond the clamor of her fear, drew her out of her body, as if she’d stepped apart from herself and was watching.
She could see herself on the mountain edge—waves of auburn hair tangled over her shoulders, gaze lifted to the mist. Her hands were loose at her sides, freckles dusting the skin of her bare forearms. There was a silver bracelet on her wrist, beaded with letters. She looked down at it.
K-A-R-I-N.
Maggie wasn’t seeing herself but Karin. It was an echo. A palpitating, living memory that was here. Too ethereal to understand, so it could only be felt.
Thin places, she thought distantly. The narrow divide between this world and another.
She wasn’t scared. She was comforted.
Then she felt Karin’s voice deep within her body—as if Karin were speaking within her.
Fight, Maggie.
The words breathed steel into her muscles. She thought of Phoebe waiting for her at Aidan’s. Of the long life they’d planned together, filled with puddles and sunflowers and reading dens and sleep-warmed cheeks.
Then Karin was gone and it was just Maggie on the mountain edge.
She took another jerky step forward. As her strong leg set down on the ground, she swung around with unexpected ferocity—and roared.
The sound was an explosion from deep in her body.
Violent. Surging. Not fear, but rage and anger and violence and instinct.
Her wolf-self rising, howling, roaring into Vilhelm’s astonished face.
She harnessed the element of surprise, knocking the gun from his hand. She heard the clank of metal against stone as it landed. And then she was on him, using her fists, the hook of her thumbs, the claw of her fingernails.
The rush of noise and movement gave her an advantage. She gouged her thumbs into his eye sockets, and still she roared, lips peeled back, teeth bared. She brought her knee up hard and swift to his groin.
Vilhelm doubled over. She landed a punch on the side of his neck—and he fell to the ground with a grunt.
But he wasn’t done. Vilhelm was crawling forward to where the gun lay.
She couldn’t let him reach it! She tried to kick it further away—but as her foot connected, her bad ankle gave out and she stumbled, landing hard on her knees.
Vilhelm seized the advantage, scrambling to his feet. He snatched up the gun, and a moment later, there was a sudden burning pain at her scalp as he grabbed a fistful of hair, snapping her head up.
She scrabbled frantically, screaming.
Somewhere, the dog was barking.
Vilhelm booted her in the ribs, steel caps shocking the air from her lungs. He released her hair, and she fell onto the earth, gasping.
The dog was frantic now, making high-pitched yelps.
Vilhelm yelled at it.
There was blood in her mouth. Dust in her nostrils. She curled into a ball to protect herself from the next blows, but they came anyway, another violent kick to her side that flipped her, rolling her closer to the mountain edge.
Above her, his rasped breathing.
She lay still, curled at his feet.
A gurgled whimper left her lungs. The fight gone.