Chapter 17
Jed
Worst case scenario. I had Boer in my grasp—but I couldn’t chase him, because Sandee was lying down there, motionless.
She could die of exposure, or fall off the narrow shelf of rock where her still body was perched.
She could have a concussion, broken bones, bullet wounds, any fucking thing my brain could dream up.
So I had to rescue her while the sniper from hell across the canyon took potshots at me. Fucking great.
I peered down the waving treetops, looking for Boer, but he was lost to sight.
Sandee still lay on the ledge. The sniper seemed to be taking a break.
I hoped to God I’d killed the sonofabitch.
Or at least wounded him long enough to crawl down the cliff and haul that pain-in-the-ass woman back from certain death.
Though she’d fling herself back in harm’s way again at the first opportunity. I could be pretty fucking sure of that.
Sandee still wasn’t moving. Sandee, Freya, whoever. I couldn’t think of her as Freya right now. It rattled me. I couldn’t afford to be rattled. I had to keep it simple.
I had to go down for her on the rope. Which made me a target, if the sniper started shooting again. No way to do evasive maneuvers. No way to dive for cover. No way to return fire. Worst-case scenario.
Fuck it. That was just how I rolled these days.
I fashioned a loop at the end of the rope, hoping it was long enough. And that Sandee had enough wits left to help me when I got down there.
I launched myself off the edge and rappelled swiftly down the cliff face, hand over hand. The rope was just barely long enough to reach her. Small mercies.
I grabbed her shoulder, shaking it gently. “Sandee. Sandee? Hey.”
She made a soft sound and slowly lifted her head. There was blood in her bleached blonde hair. The wound looked nasty and painful, but as far as I could see, everything important was still inside her skull. Just a bloody mess on the outside.
I hoped she hadn’t dinged it too hard. That woman had enough serious personal problems to grapple with without adding a bad head injury to the list.
Sandee. Freya. The fuck?
Whoa, stop that shit. No rabbit holes. One thing at a time.
I find footholds, brace myself, studying the situation. Get the rope over her head and shoulders. Pull her arms through. Tuck it under her armpits. Lots of manipulation and movement, without letting her fall off the narrow ledge. Or falling myself.
And it was just a loop, not a harness. So she had to wake up, be smart and active, help me out. I couldn’t hold her limp body and climb out hand over hand.
“Sandee!” I said urgently. “Babe. Wake up. I need you to help me get you out of this. We have to get back up the cliff. Sandee!”
Her eyes fluttered. “Huh?” she mumbled. “Who?”
She wasn’t connecting. “Freya,” I said grimly. “Wake the fuck up. Now.”
That snapped her eyes wide open. She blinked at me.
So it was true. Not that Boer would have had any reason to lie about something so random, so bizarre, so easily disproved. Not that it changed anything right now.
“You’ve got to help me,” I told her. “I have to get this rope under your arms so I can pull you up, so you have to help me out. You have to hang on tight and keep the loop under your armpits, and help me with your feet whenever you can. I can’t do this if you just lie there like a sack of flour. You hear me?”
“I hear you.” Her voice was a thread. It quivered, which unnerved me.
“Is anything broken?” I demanded.
“I don’t think so. I’m really cold. I can’t feel much of anything.”
“Can you move?” I asked.
She lifted her head, and peered over the edge down the cliff, then looked up and met my eyes. “I’m afraid to,” she admitted.
I braced my feet in a notch I found in the rock wall. “I won’t let you fall.”
I hoped I could keep that rash promise as I got her ready, staying pressed against her like a bulwark against that long, empty nothing beyond the ledge.
They were extremely long, painful minutes, working the rope over her shivering body. When the loop was under her arms, I tested my knots. They were good and tight. Then I saw blood on her hands. “What the fuck? Why are your hands bleeding?”
“I grabbed onto the trees on my way down,” she said faintly.
Of course she did. Whatever else she might be, this girl was one badass babe.
“So this is what’ll happen,” I told her. “I’ll climb back up. Then I’ll pull you up. Your job is to keep the rope under your arms, hang on tight to the rope, and help me with your feet, as much as you can, whenever you can. Is that clear?”
“Crystal clear,” she said.
I got to the top, found some solid rock to brace myself, and started hauling her up the slope.
She was tough and uncomplaining, mouth set, blood smeared over the side of her pallid face.
She clung to the rope, and climbed whenever she could find footholds.
There was just one harrowing part when I had to pull her over an overhang where she could find no purchase at all and had to dangle, feet waving over the emptiness.
She just stared up at me, not letting herself look down. Tough babe.
And after that sweaty, nerve-wracking eternity, finally she was scrambling up over the top of the cliff. She collapsed onto the ground, panting.
“On your feet,” I said. “We have to get the fuck out of here.”
“Give me a second,” she mumbled.
“I don’t know if you noticed, but there’s a sniper on the other side of the canyon. I don’t know if he’s dead, wounded, or reloading. On your feet.” I grabbed her by the arm. She cried out sharply, and I froze. “What? Did you hurt your arm?”
“I caught myself on the trees with that arm, and the crazy mask guy was hanging off my feet,” she said. “He was heavy. Messed up my shoulder, I think.”
Damn, that sucked. Didn’t stop her, though. She climbed to her feet without my help, but she tottered like a newborn foal.
I scooped her up, carried her to the Jeep, and deposited her into the passenger seat. Then I took off to retrieve my other guns, which still lay in the snow where Boer had forced me to throw them. The way things were going, I’d need them all, and soon.
On the way back, I was alarmed to see Freya out of the Jeep, staggering into the house.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I yelled. “We have to go, right now!”
“I need my coat,” she said, breathlessly.
“Fuck your coat! I’ll buy you another one! That coat’s too goddamn bright anyway! You need to be invisible!”
She shot me an implacable look. “I want my goddamn coat, Jed.”
First time she’d used my real name. She wasn’t Sandee anymore. The tone and cadence of her voice had changed. Lower, less breathy, more steady, more musical.
Still sexy as fuck.
I followed her into the house and let her retrieve her fucking coat from the chair at the kitchen table. At which point she no longer objected to being herded back into the Jeep, thank God.
We took off as fast as conditions allowed. Boer was hiking out down the riverbed right now. If I were alone, I could stop a couple of miles down the road and hunt that fucker down, once and for all.
But I couldn’t leave her behind, alone and undefended with God knows how many other murdering shitheads on the loose. I wouldn’t be able to if it were Sandee beside me, and I certainly couldn’t now that I knew she was Freya Masters.
There it was, the SUV Boer had driven up here.
I’d spotted it first while sprinting back up the hill after blowing up his team.
I jerked the Jeep to a halt, and ran toward it, pulling out my knife.
I slashed all four tires. Let the fuckface find some new wheels for himself and his murdering crew. We needed a breather.
I gave Freya a worried once-over when I kicked the snow off my boots and got back into the car. Her lips were blue, her face was ashy pale. The head wound didn’t seem to be bleeding, but she looked like hell.
Freya’s eyes got big as we drove off the road, lurching and jolting over the frozen creek bed in order to give the bridge and its grisly load a wide berth.
We lurched back up onto the road. She stared back at the burned-out vehicle, the black smoke rising, the bodies, hanging out of the open doors, and didn’t speak for several miles. She let out a sigh, as if she’d been holding her breath the whole time.
“Jed,” she said. “I…I…um…thank you.”
“Don’t.” It came out savagely loud.
Freya winced. “But I—”
“I would’ve had him.” It was pouring out of me now, like a fire hose.
“I could have gone after him and fucking nailed the bastard. But no. Because there you were, hanging off the edge of a cliff. A target for the sniper. I should’ve just left you there and gone after him.
But like an asshole, I didn’t. I just couldn’t do it. ”
“You saved me,” she whispered.
“Yeah, I did. So now, instead of him, I’ve got you. Useless, lying, whacked-out you. Hanging on me like a ball and chain.”
“Jed, that’s not fair. I didn’t—”
“Hah. Shut up. Sandee. Freya. Whoever the hell you are. You fucked me up either way.” I looked back at her face, trying to reconcile my memories of Shane and Ethan’s little sister with the woman beside me. “I can’t believe you’re Freya Masters.”
She snorted. “Because the last time you saw me, I was chubby, and geeky, with zits and a mouth full of metal? Classic.”
“But your hair,” I said. “It wasn’t…”
“Yeah, you’re right. It wasn’t,” she agreed. “I’m ash blonde, not white blond. I bleached it. I’ll have dark roots soon enough. So it’s just the hair that fooled you?”
“It’s the vibe,” I said. “I wouldn’t have expected Freya Masters to be using her tits like a set of nunchucks. That’s a brand new personality trait.”
“You knew diddly-squat about my personality, Jed. You never saw me as a person. I only existed for you because I was attached to Shane and Ethan.”
“Yes! You were a child!”
“Well, I’m not a child anymore,” she said.
I shook my head. “I get that. But why fuck with my head like you did? Does Ethan know you’re here?”