Chapter 5
Chapter Five
The forest floor was treacherous in the darkness. What looked like solid ground gave way beneath their feet—layers of pine needles hiding rocks and roots and holes that could break an ankle. Liza stumbled twice in the first hundred yards, Grant’s hand the only thing keeping her upright.
Her head throbbed with each jarring step, the concussion making the darkness swim and shift. The flashlight beam created more shadows than illumination, turning every tree into a potential obstacle, every depression into a pit.
“Watch your left,” Grant said, his voice barely above a whisper. “Steep drop.”
Liza veered right, her shoulder brushing against rough bark. She could hear her own breathing, too loud, too ragged. Behind them, the motorcycle engine revved and faded, revved and faded. Caine was searching the road, looking for where they’d entered the forest.
They had minutes. Maybe less.
The grade steepened, and suddenly they were climbing. Liza’s thighs burned as she pulled herself up the slope, grabbing at branches, her boots slipping on loose scree. The duffle bags Grant carried didn’t slow him down, but she could hear the change in his breathing, the effort it took.
“Keep moving,” he said. “Don’t stop.”
She didn’t plan to stop. Stopping meant dying.
A branch whipped across her face, and she tasted blood. Her hands were already scraped raw from catching herself on rocks and bark. The cold mountain air burned her lungs with each gasping breath.
The motorcycle engine cut out.
Grant stopped so abruptly Liza ran into his back. His hand came up, signaling silence, and they both froze. Listening.
Nothing. Just the whisper of wind through the pines and the hammering of Liza’s heart.
Then—a sound. Footsteps on gravel. Caine had left the motorcycle. She was coming after them on foot.
Grant pulled Liza down behind a fallen log, his hand over her mouth, his body covering hers. The log was massive, easily four feet in diameter, probably brought down in a windstorm years ago. Moss grew thick on the north side, and mushrooms clustered where the bark had rotted away.
Liza pressed her face against the damp wood and tried not to breathe.
More footsteps. Closer now. The snap of a branch. The rustle of disturbed undergrowth.
Caine was tracking them.
Grant’s hand tightened on Liza’s shoulder—a warning or a comfort, she couldn’t tell which. His other hand rested on his weapon. She could feel the tension in every line of his body, coiled and ready.
A flashlight beam swept through the trees above them, passing over their hiding spot, moving on. Liza counted her heartbeats. Ten. Twenty. Thirty.
The footsteps moved away, heading north—the wrong direction. Grant had led them northeast, but Caine was searching due north.
They waited. Five minutes that felt like fifty. When Grant finally moved, it was with excruciating slowness, making no sound as he rose and helped Liza to her feet.
“She’s ahead of us now,” he breathed into her ear. “We circle around. Stay low. Stay quiet.”
They moved parallel to the slope, traversing the mountainside rather than climbing straight up. It was harder this way—every step required balance, focus, the constant adjustment to uneven ground that wanted to slide them downhill. But it kept them away from Caine’s probable search pattern.
The forest grew denser. Pines gave way to a tangle of undergrowth that caught at their clothes and slowed their progress. Grant used his flashlight sparingly now, just brief flickers to check their path, then darkness again to preserve their night vision.
Liza’s concussion was getting worse. She could feel it in the way the darkness seemed to pulse, the way her balance wavered even on flat ground. Nausea rolled through her stomach in waves.
“Grant,” she whispered. “I need to stop. Just for a minute.”
“Not yet.” His hand found hers in the darkness, squeezed. “Another quarter mile. There’s a creek ahead—we’ll use it to mask our trail, then we can rest.”
She nodded, though he probably couldn’t see it, and pushed on.
The sound of water reached them before they saw it—a rushing, tumbling sound that spoke of snowmelt and spring runoff. The creek was maybe fifteen feet across, swollen with recent rain, moving fast over rocks that gleamed wet in the moonlight filtering through the canopy.
“We cross here,” Grant said, studying the water. “It’ll be cold. The current’s strong. But it’ll hide our tracks.”
Liza looked at the dark water and felt her stomach drop. “How deep?”
“Knee-deep, maybe thigh-deep in the middle. Can you make it?”
Could she? Her ankle was screaming, her head was pounding, and every muscle in her body felt like it was made of lead. But behind them—somewhere in the darkness—Caine was hunting.
“I can make it,” she said.
Grant went first, testing each step, finding the rocks that were stable enough to bear weight. The water hit him at mid-calf, then his knees, then his thighs at the deepest point. He turned back, extending his hand.
“Come on. Step where I stepped. I’ve got you.”
Liza stepped into the creek and gasped. The water was ice cold, so cold it felt like knives cutting into her legs. The current pushed against her, trying to sweep her downstream.
“I’ve got you,” Grant said again, his hand locked around her wrist. “Just a few more steps.”
She focused on his voice, on the strength of his grip, on putting one foot in front of the other. The water soaked through her jeans, climbing to her thighs, the cold so intense it made her teeth chatter.
Three more steps. Two. One.
Grant pulled her up onto the opposite bank and into his arms. She was shaking violently, her legs numb from the cold.
“We need to keep moving,” he said. “Get your blood flowing. Warm you up.”
“C-can’t,” she managed through chattering teeth.
“You can.” He rubbed her arms briskly. “You’re the woman who drove a car through a window. You’re the toughest person I know. You can do this.”
Something in his voice—the absolute conviction—cut through the cold and the pain and the exhaustion. She straightened, forced her legs to stop shaking.
“Okay,” she said. “Okay. Let’s go.”
They climbed away from the creek, Grant supporting half her weight now. The water had done its job. But they’d paid for it in energy they couldn’t afford to lose.
Liza’s clothes clung to her, icy and heavy. Each gust of wind felt like it was stripping away another layer of warmth. Her fingers were numb. Her feet were numb. Only the pain in her head reminded her she was still alive.
“How far?” she asked again, but this time her voice was thin, desperate.
“Maybe two miles.” Grant’s arm tightened around her waist. “But we’re circling around her now. She went north. We’re going northeast. She’ll have to backtrack to find us, and by then we’ll be at the cabin.”
If we make it, Liza thought but didn’t say.
They pushed on through the darkness, leaving the sound of the creek behind, climbing higher into the mountains. Every step was agony. Every breath burned. But Liza kept moving because the alternative was unthinkable.
Grant moved ahead of her with surprising quiet despite the rough terrain. She tried to match his pace, but she was a baker from Vancouver, not Robocop or whatever he was. Every step felt loud, clumsy.
They pushed deeper into the forest, the grade growing steeper. Liza’s lungs burned and her legs ached, but she kept moving. Above them, through breaks in the canopy, stars wheeled across the sky. Grant used them to navigate, always heading north.
“Tell me about this cabin,” Liza said, needing something to focus on besides the pain. “Is it actually habitable?”
“The O’Haras use it for hunting season. Should have a woodstove, bunks, basic supplies.” Grant helped her over a fallen log. “It’s remote enough that Caine won’t stumble on it by accident. She’ll have to know where it is.”
“And if she does?”
“Then we don’t go in. We find somewhere else.” His hand tightened on hers. “I’m not walking you into a kill zone. Can you make it the rest of the way?”
Every part of her hurt. Her head, her feet, her lungs. But she thought about the alternative—being caught by that woman on the motorcycle, the one who’d already tried to kill them once today.
“I can make it,” she said.
They pushed deeper into the forest, leaving the road and its dangers behind.
Liza focused on putting one foot in front of the other. On not falling. On not thinking about how impossible this all was.