Chapter 3
JUST. Keep. Running.
Keely’s own breath betrayed her. Her gasps slammed against her body, as branches whipped against her face. Blood dripped from her lip where she’d tripped and careened into a tree, and she’d probably twisted her ankle too. It burned, and she bit down on a whimper.
Don’t look back.
Of course, that’s exactly what she did, but the forest closed in, and frankly, she could be running in circles, right back to the shoreline where—
Oh. She pressed a gloved hand to her mouth, then tripped and caught herself on a birch tree. Listened.
Her heart thundered, her breaths hard. She tried to silence them, to make them tremors rather than sweeping gasps.
No crashing behind her. No bearded thug slash woodsman threatening to slice her up with a bowie knife.
No murderer catching up to leave her dead in the woods.
Maybe.
She stumbled toward a nearby pine tree and climbed under the massive shaggy arms, pulling her knees to herself.
Breathe. Just . . .
She closed her eyes. No, bad idea. Because then she landed right back at the beach, strapped into her seat, lying on her side.
It had taken a long second, maybe a few, to unravel what had happened—the plane crash, the cartwheeling, the fact she’d lived.
She’d unbuckled and fell to the snow, and then she’d heard it—the snarls of men fighting. They punched each other—Wilder and Thornwood—and then Wilder tackled the bigger man to the ground. Roared when Thornwood drilled a fist into his head.
Don’t look. She cast her gaze to the plane and spotted Mack, the kind pilot, crawling away from the fuselage, leaving a bloody trail in the snow.
She ran over to him, where he’d stopped, breathing hard as he collapsed. She rolled him over. Blood covered his abdomen, and he must have hit the instrument panel, because red ran down his face, pooled in his jacket.
“Mack—what can I do—”
“Run.”
“What?”
He grabbed her hand, pulled her down to him. “Go to that community . . . we flew over. It’s maybe . . . five miles . . . northeast—run, get there. They’ll protect . . .”
Run. Through the woods—“I . . . no—”
“I should have recognized him—”
A shout, and Wilder stood up, red down the front of him, his lip bloody.
Thornwood kicked him, his boot sending the man back.
“Get my gun!” Mack pointed to the plane. “It’s under my seat.”
He had a gun? She scrambled for the plane, the door already open. The buckles dangled down, but she spotted a hardcase wedged under the pilot’s seat and pulled it out.
Thornwood jumped Wilder, bracing his knees on the man’s shoulders, and even as Wilder thrashed, he couldn’t break free.
The bigger man wrapped his hands around Wilder’s neck.
Oh. No—no—
She opened the case, memory of how to use the weapon clicking. Thank you, Dad. Then she pulled out the gun, stood up, shaking.
“Get off him!” She pointed the gun at Thornwood.
He didn’t even glance at her.
She pulled the trigger. The shot barked into the air, its echo shredding the cold. “The next one goes in your back.” Shoot—did she really say that? She took a breath. “I mean it!”
Wilder still thrashed, but less so. Thornwood turned back to him.
She pulled the trigger.
Instinct, but she saw herself do it, more as an out-of-body experience than full-on thought.
The shot hit Thornwood in the shoulder, and he roared back, turning, falling into the snow.
Wilder rolled, scrambled up, and ran.
Ran.
Away.
As in left her.
Then Thornwood found his feet and rounded. Oh, no—no—
He took off toward her.
Another shot, not from her, clipped him again, this time across his thigh.
“Run, girl, run!” Mack, still on the ground, but he held Thornwood’s Glock. He must have found it in the debris.
She looked at Thornwood, now halted, then the forest and—
Ran.
Just left poor Mack on the beach with Thornwood.
She fled into the forest as another shot breached the air. She slowed, breathing hard. She should get back to Mack, help him—
Until she’d spotted Thornwood thundering after her.
She’d turned and ran with everything inside her.
Now, she hadn’t a clue how far she’d gone, she listened for the bear of a man on her tail.
Nothing but the moan of the wind, the trees creaking.
Only then did she realize she’d dropped the gun.
And now, wait—barking. The sound slivered through her, shook her bones. Wolves?
She got up, looking for the sun. What had Mack said—five miles northeast? That meant the sun was behind her, right? Or did the sun behave differently here in Alaska?
Hopefully not, because she took off, the sun at her back, what little of it she could see. Memories of that movie with Liam Neeson flickered through her brain, the one where the wolves surrounded him, where he fought them off with fire.
She had no fire. No backpack. Snow crammed into her short Pradas, and her legs had turned to ice. Easy prey.
The barking followed her. God—please.
Funny how her mother’s faith bubbled up sometimes, filled her soul, as if it might actually help.
Keely spotted a dip in the forest wall, something ahead that might be a clearing, and headed for it.
The barking grew louder, and she picked up her pace, her hands in front of her. She tried not to scream. Faster, crashing through the forest—she spotted the meadow up ahead, a clear space. Maybe even the field around the community. Please, please—
She looked back, still running, and spotted something black coming at her, over downed logs—no, no—
Turning back, she sped up, crashed through the heavy boughs of a pine and—
Went airborne. The earth dropped out from below her, and she launched into nothing. Her arms spun, and she screamed as the earth rushed at her.
She landed hard, slamming against boulders, the snow barely enough to cushion her fall into the depths of the ravine. She tried to catch herself, but no, the momentum pitched her right to the bottom.
Bam.
She landed so hard, her breath clogged in her throat.
Breathe!
It took a second, then air rushed back at her and she gasped, gulped it in.
Okay. Okay. She wasn’t dead. And maybe not broken, although her body burned and ached. She lay back, closed her eyes, and started to whimper.
Barking. No—no—
She opened her eyes and spotted the animal at the top, prowling, then dropping low to bark again. A wolf, all black, and it pawed at the snow some ten feet above her, at the top of the ravine.
She lay back down. Maybe the beast would go away.
It kept barking.
But what if it brought Thornwood?
She eased up and rolled over, nearly screamed. Yeah, whatever she’d done to her ankle before, the fall had only exacerbated the sprain. She tried to put weight on it, but sank down on her hands and knees, trembling.
“Don’t cry. Crying doesn’t fix anything.”
Yeah, well, maybe not, but she wasn’t former street cop turned detective Jimmy Williams. Didn’t even have his blood in her veins.
Frankly, crying seemed the right choice.
Ahead, the ravine continued cutting through the rock. Maybe she’d fallen into a creek bed, tumbled down a frozen waterfall. As long as she stayed in the river, the wolf couldn’t reach her.
He kept barking, but she forced herself up, stood on one leg, then gritted her jaw as she put weight on her ankle. Okay, maybe it wasn’t broken. Still, pain shot up her leg, and she got back down on all fours.
Crawling could work.
She scooted along the creek bed, her arms breaking through the icy top layer, snow tunneling up her jacket.
The wolf seemed to follow her from above, still barking.
She wanted to throw something at it, maybe scare it away.
Her breath had slowed, her heartbeat not a fist in her chest, but she’d gone maybe two hundred feet when she sat back and rested, breathing hard.
She was going to die here.
Die, and never meet Zoey.
Die, and never meet Vic, although honestly, she’d made peace with that.
Die, and . . . she’d heard hypothermia wasn’t terrible.
Like going to sleep. Except for that part where you took off all your clothing because your body played tricks on you.
Seemed unfair that in the end they’d find her naked body after all the fights she’d waged with photographers who wanted her to show more skin than she felt comfortable with.
It wouldn’t take long for Goldie to send out a search party. And they’d certainly find the crash—Mack had confirmed their path with the tower.
But how far had she run?
Maybe the wolf would simply tear her body to shreds.
Okay. That was enough of that—she rolled back over and started to crawl again.
She would survive. Find her voice again.
Maybe even make peace with her choices.
Crunching sounds on the snow ahead of her made her look up.
Snowshoes. And leather boots. Snow pants and a thick leather jacket and a furry hat and a . . . gun? The man who stood in front of her held his rifle loosely but aimed in her general direction and . . .
She might not be thinking clearly. Might not have all her wits about her, and maybe this guy hadn’t shown up out of nowhere to kill her. Maybe he wasn’t tracking her, like that character Jeremy Renner played in that scary winter movie about the Wyoming serial killer.
“Don’t kill me!” She lifted her arms—why hadn’t she hung on to Mack’s gun!
Barking—no, snarling—erupted behind her. She turned and spotted the wolf—no, a dog? A wild dog, racing toward her, teeth bared—
Stay calm, stay calm—
Not a chance. She dropped into a ball and screamed.
He must have a touch of PTS because the scream simply lit Dawson on fire, found his bones, and shook them.
He wanted to stop, put his hands over his ears, haul in breaths.
It didn’t help that his knee burned, fat and stiff and cumbersome, especially after twenty minutes of hiking-slash-running and thankfully not falling through the snowy forest. He’d shouted a few times, hoping that Caspian might abandon the stupid rabbit or whatever he might be chasing, but the dog refused to obey, like they were playing a game.