Page 48 of Risk It All
“You hit?” Henry whirled around, looking intensely worried.
“No, just spooked,” she answered, her breath coming in short huffs from the adrenaline and exertion.
His expression barely lightened as he urged her to move in front of him. Even though she hated that he’d put himself in danger for her again, she didn’t take time to argue. Instead, she tore as fast as she could down the path. Another shot echoed across the silent slope, and Henry grunted.
Terrified, Cara twisted around. “Wereyouhit?”
“Grazed,” he said, but she wasn’t reassured. With how tough Henry could act,grazedcould mean that the bullet barely brushed against his heart.
Before she could press the matter, he’d grabbed her and urged her into a crevice in the rock before planting himself in front of her. It wasn’t large enough to be a cave, more like a depression in the rock face, but it hid them both from whoever was shooting at them—although it was a tight squeeze. Cara’s face was pressed against his back, and she was right up against the wall of the crevice. In that position, she couldn’t see anything, but she trusted that Henry would get them out of this situation alive. After all, they had a pretty good record of surviving whatever Abbott had thrown at them so far.
Despite this, her heart still thundered as they waited, pressed as closely together as possible. Everything was quiet except the rasp of her breathing, and she tried to take shallower, silent breaths. There was the slightest scuff of a boot against rock outside their improvised shelter, and Henry lunged forward so quickly that she almost fell forward at the loss of his support.
Pivoting to face the way they’d come, he raised his gun and fired three times in quick succession. Cara’s body jerked with each loud bang, but the silence that came after was even more nerve-racking. She didn’t dare move or say anything. All she managed to do was keep her eyes locked on Henry’s grim profile until he turned back to her.
“Let’s go,” he said in a low voice, reaching for her hand. She grasped it, falling in behind him, unable to stop herself from peering over her shoulder. “Don’t look.”
His words came too late. Cara had already seen the two fallen figures just ten feet from their hiding spot. One of their faces was turned toward her, and she recognized the features of the second kidnapper, the one who’d almost shot her at the cabin.
“Is one of them Abbott?” she asked.
“No.” Henry tugged her forward, forcing her out of her paralysis, and she tore her eyes away from the fallen men as she stumbled after him. Her feet started working automatically, even as her brain tried to process what had happened. Gradually, the numbness faded, and she kept her mind on moving as quickly as possible along the path behind Henry. She knew she’d need to deal with her reaction later; now was not the time. They were still in survival mode.
From behind, Cara could see the torn spot at the top of his left sleeve where the bullet had creased his skin. A little blood stained the fabric around the hole, but it wasn’t much. He’d been telling the truth when he’d said that the bullet had only grazed him. Relief coursed through her, warming the spots that were still numb from the violence and horror. Henry was okay, and that was the most important thing right now.
“I think we’ve lost them.”
Even as quiet as it was, Henry’s voice made her jump. Giving a nervous glance over her shoulder, she asked, “Are you sure?”
He tipped his head as if considering the question—or listening for approaching footsteps. “Fairly sure. We should keep moving, though.”
They continued walking for what felt like an eternity, but couldn’t have been more than an hour. The early-morning sun still frosted the new snow with pinkish-gold light, giving everything a glow that seemed too perfect to be real. The wind had died down to nothing, and the air felt powdery and almost warm on Cara’s cheeks.
“I feel like I might have too many layers on,” she said, keeping her voice low as she followed Henry down the trail. She felt a pang of guilt for making such a selfish complaint when two men were dead behind them, but then she reminded herself how many times those guys had tried to kill her. They wouldn’t have mourned her or Henry for a second.
“See how you feel now that we’ve stopped running,” he said, giving her an assessing look over his shoulder. “If you’re still warm, you can take off a layer.”
“Okay.” They’d moved to a trail a safer distance from the edge, and her feet sank into the six inches of powder with each step. It was so light and fluffy that walking through it wasn’t much harder than if there hadn’t been any snow at all. For the second time that morning, she offered mental thanks to the boot gods as she tried to imagine how miserable she would’ve been if she’d tried to wear Henry’s coat sleeves on her feet again. It had been bad enough on dry, mostly snow-free ground when they weren’t running for their lives.
As they left the open area and began winding through another patch of trees, the snow on the ground thinned, since most of it had been caught by the branches. Keeping an eye out for any movement—from either humans or wild carnivorous animals—she jumped at every scratch of pine needles against their jackets and theshushof snow falling from the trees.
“Are you sure you know which way to go?” she asked, more to fill the eerie silence than because she doubted him.
“Yes.”
That didn’t help. He needed to contribute to the conversation, or she’d be stuck giving a monologue just to keep herself from freaking out whenever a squirrel made the tiniest noise. “How do you know?”
“Because we need to go east.”
It took her a few seconds to get it. Once she did, she felt a little silly. “Right. Toward the sun.”
Rather than mocking her, he just gave a grunt of agreement, which she appreciated. What she didn’t like so much was that they’d fallen back into silence, and the tiny sounds were starting to make her tense up again.Maybe it’s good to be able to hear everything, she thought, scanning the area around them.We want some warning before someone starts shooting at us again or a mountain lion starts gnawing on our heads.Somehow, that thought wasn’t as reassuring as it should’ve been.
After they walked quietly for a while, the trees started to thin, and the ground grew snowier under their boots. Cara was forced to concentrate on where she placed her feet, so she could only give an occasional quick upward glance to make sure that Henry was still right in front of her and hadn’t been carried off by an eagle or something while she’d been staring at the ground.
As the tree cover tapered off completely, the trail they were on grew narrower and more sloped until it blended into the rock face altogether. The snow hadn’t been able to pile onto the angled surface, so the stone was mostly bare, but that didn’t help much. The soles of her boots slid across the smooth, hard surface, sending a surge of panic through her. She caught her balance and managed to stop her slow, sideways skid, but she didn’t want to take another step forward.
The ground under her feet sloped dramatically, making her stomach lurch. It reminded her of standing at the top of the hill when she’d gone snowboarding for the first time, and she was sure that it was too steep to survive the plunge. This time, though, the exposed rock wasn’t a groomed ski trail. If she fell, she would most likely die.
