Page 27 of One Last Storm
“There’s still time to do the right thing here, Sergei.”
“The right thing?” Ravak’s voice carried no emotion now. “The right thing is making sure what’s mine stays mine.”
He glanced at the SWAT officer, gave a nod.
In a second, the door banged open, and he rolled into the room, came up, his gun on Ravak.
Time slowed.
Ravak pushed the little girl in his arms away, toward Dawson.
Aimed.
Dawson grabbed her, threw her down?—
Flynn shouted behind him.
Dawson glanced at Ravak. For a split second their eyes met across the dim room.
Then the world exploded in muzzle flash, heat and pain.
And everything went dark.
CHAPTER 8
AXEL
Almost home—the lights of Anchorage looked close enough to touch, glowing against the arch of darkness.
In a few hours Axel would be with Flynn, maybe talking her into breakfast before she had to work, maybe finding the right moment to show her the ring he’d been carrying like borrowed time.
He hung onto the seat bars of the snowmobile, the hum of the engine turning him nearly deaf after two hours of driving, careening through drifts and fighting through too deep snow. The road ribboned out somewhere to their left, but they’d yet to find it.
Still, south. They just had to head south.
Some thirty feet behind them, Shep and London kept up, their light cutting through the darkness. Whatever their one-on-one in the barn had been about, they’d seemed to put it behind them, London holding on tight to Shep the few glimpses Axel had gotten of them.
They were the kind of happy ending Axel wanted. Together in adventure. Together in life.
Please, please get us home.
The snowmobile engine coughed beneath him. A wet sound that made his stomach clench. Moose felt it too—his shoulders went rigid as he throttled down, the machine shuddering.
“Come on,” Moose muttered, his voice barely audible through the helmet radio. “Not now.”
No, no?—
But the engine was already dying. That distinctive sputter of a fuel system running dry.
Shoot. Old machines—they ate up fuel too fast.
They coasted to a stop in a valley between two hills, surrounded by pristine snow that stretched to the horizon like an endless white carpet. The silence descended, sudden and complete except for the ticking of cooling metal and the distant whisper of wind through sparse Arctic willow.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Moose yanked off his helmet. He got off the machine and—and hurled the helmet into the snow.
What?
His brother’s breath formed white puffs in the subzero air. Ice crystals clung to his dark beard, and his face flushed red from wind exposure. “We’re still ten miles out.”
