What Doesn't Kill Her (Cape Charade #2)(66)

“Yes.”

“We looked. Zone and I searched separately and together.” Max herded her down the mountain. “Whoever was chasing you and the head had access to funds.”

“Considering the value of the head, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.” It wasn’t until they turned onto the bicycle path that she relaxed and walked with Max without looking over her shoulder. “It’s beautiful up there on Horizon Ridge—and I don’t ever want to go back.”

“The farther away we get, the happier I am. I like this descent. I hear music in my head, the kind they play in the action movies to make your heart pound, but it’s a good feeling. We’re getting away. We’re almost safe.”

“Right. Almost safe.” That sounded like something they said in those action movies right before everything went south. “What music did you hear when you were going uphill?”

“Uphill was different. The music was ominous, I was walking and running, terrified I would be too late. It was like one of those nightmares where you want to sprint, but your feet are too heavy.” As he spoke and recalled, he moved faster and faster, into the evening’s gathering dusk.

She was good with that. The forest surrounded them, the wilderness lands released their call and gathered in the people who knelt against the earth and listened to its call. The sun set, that impressive sudden slash as the mountain ripped the light away, and suddenly they were in darkness.

Kellen stopped walking. “Listen to the quiet. I can’t hear the call of a night bird or the scamper of a squirrel. It’s as if we were alone in the world.”

For the first time in days, Max pulled her close. “We’re not going to make it all the way down the mountain tonight. Not in this dark. What do you say we...linger...a few more hours?”

Their last night alone, without responsibility, feeling like teenagers and loving like adults, the two of them together again, understanding that each moment might be the last.

She cupped his face, seeing his dim outline in the starlight and recognizing it in her heart. “Look at the sky. I’ll remember this for the rest of my—” A thin, bright red beam flashed across the clearing and into her eyes.

Max slammed into her, hard and fast, knocking her backward, slamming her head into a boulder and shoving her to the ground behind its shelter.

A rifle shot blasted the world to pieces.

She gasped for breath.

No air.

She struggled against a weight.

His weight, collapsed on her, two hundred pounds of muscle, bone and fury, bunching, preparing to—

He rolled off and disappeared.

She was alone.

Her head splintered with blinding pain. The black sky weighed on her like an iron sheet, pressing her into the dirt. She sank. The stars were holes poked through the iron, allowing those few hints of light from beyond.

She still couldn’t breathe.

The pain in her head was blistering cold.

She still couldn’t move.

She couldn’t run.

The gray was coming for her from that place where it hovered, waiting to take her.

It pounced, and she traveled out of time, out of mind, to nowhere and nothing.

From far away, she heard another shot. So final, so fatal.

She was back. Sprawled on the ground. She could hear shouting. Men shouting. A series of thumps, hard and fast. But no more shooting.

Was Max alive?

He had to live.

She wanted to stand up, to see, to help. She couldn’t move. Nothing. She tried to wiggle her fingers, her toes. She was trapped in her own body, panicked, silently screaming.

The gray waited, always there.

No malice. No kindness. A hell of nothing. Blank months. Wasted years.

She cried without tears.

And was gone forever.

Again.



37


Something wet fell into Kellen’s palm.

She flinched and opened her eyes.

Gray again. Gray sky, the beginnings of dawn in the mountains.

So not months and years. Hours only, wandering toward death.

Somehow, while she was gone, Max had wrapped her in blankets, placed her in the sleeping bag, protected her from the cold night.

He was alive. Whatever else had happened last night, he had lived through it.

Now he knelt beside her, eyes closed, cradling her hand and crying as if each silent sob was an agony, as if he had never cried before.

Maybe he hadn’t.

He was afraid. For her. Afraid she had lapsed into a coma.

She lifted her hand and touched his cheek.

He opened his eyes, took a shuddering breath, kissed her fingers. “Eight years ago, I saw Fontina shoot you. I didn’t get there in time to stop him.”

She stroked his tears away. “I saw you running. Milliseconds, Max. I’ve seen men shot.” So many men. Soldiers she knew, soldiers she didn’t know, enemies and friends, in harsh foreign mountains and terrorist attacks in civilization’s heart. “I know about milliseconds, about the tipping point between life and death, suffering and thankfulness. You can’t blame yourself.”

“I saw him shoot you,” Max repeated. Apparently, he could blame himself. “I saw you fall. I hit him—I was already launched at him, I couldn’t stop myself. I couldn’t catch you in time.” Roughly, he wiped his face on his sleeve. “You hit the ground so hard the world shuddered.”