The Thirteenth Skull (Alfred Kropp #3)(42)

They were shooting at us, though. The bullets tore into tree trunks and snapped off small branches as we rocketed past, flinging chunks of wood and toothpick-sized pieces of shrapnel on impact.

Maybe three hundred yards down, we went airborne, clearing a small ledge, smacking down so hard my jaws slammed together with enough force to bite my tongue in two if it had been between them. The trees thinned out and, looking over Ashley’s shoulder, I could see the slope abruptly ended: we were heading straight for a deep gorge. If I didn’t find a way to stop us, we were going straight over the edge of a cliff.

I flung my legs out and pulled back hard on the cord, like a rider trying to rein in a runaway horse. We went into a spin and the world whirled around us, trees, snow, rock, sky.

Instinctively, I shoved Ashley as hard as I could. She tumbled away and then I dove after her. The lid tumbled over the cliff, swallowed by the deep shadow of the crevasse.

I was sliding toward it on my back, frantically kicking my heels into the snow, trying to slow my descent. My flailing right hand touched Ashley’s forearm and I grabbed her. Dumb idea: if I went over the edge, I’d take her down with me. I let go.

We came to a snow-crunching stop with five feet to spare, flat on our backs, staring up with open mouths at the cloudless, brilliant blue sky. After what seemed like a very long time, I looked at her, and saw the snow beneath her was red.

I didn’t dare stand up. The ground was steep and slick with snow. So I scooted to her side like a marine in the barbed-wire portion of an obstacle course.

“Nothing personal—gotta do this, Ashley,” I breathed in her ear as I unbuttoned her jumpsuit. I pulled back the material to reveal the wound: the bullet had torn into her left side, between a couple of ribs; I probably got one of her lungs. I tried not to look, but I did notice—I swear not on purpose— that her bra was pink.

Then I dug into the snow until I reached the hard, frozen ground beneath and slammed my wounded palm against it until the cut burst open and began to bleed.

I pressed my palm against the bullet hole and I also pressed my lips against her ear, which was bright red and very cold, whispering, “In the name of Michael, Prince of Light, I command you to be healed, Ashley. Be healed . . .”

My heart pumped blood down my arm, into my hand, through the jagged lips of my wound and entered her body.

A gift . . . not a treasure.

Ashley’s eyes came open and she said in a clear, strong voice, “I can’t believe you shot me, you jerk.”

02:17:16:44

The sky was darkening, the first stars were poking through the atmosphere, and the temperature had dropped at least ten degrees when Ashley lowered herself to the ground and leaned against a tree, gasping.

“Can’t go on . . . Got to rest,” she said.

That was fine with me. We’d been hiking along the ridge for hours, staying near the cover of the trees, stopping only to eat snow to keep us hydrated and to listen for any sound of pursuit. There was lots of snow but no pursuit, though once I thought I heard the sound of a helicopter to the south, where the compound was.

“Why did you shoot me?” she asked.

“If I tried to shoot Nueve, he’d shoot you. If I didn’t shoot, we were both shot. He thought those were the only two options: shoot him—not shoot him. So instead I shot you. He thought I’d zig, so I zagged.”

“You zagged?”

“Well, it worked, didn’t it?”

She didn’t answer. She blew into her hands. Her fingers were bright red. No gloves, no parkas, and a night that promised temperatures well below freezing. My zagging might just kill us yet.

I started to unlace one of my boots.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“I saw this on a show,” I said. “You take a stick, make a bow from your shoelace, and use it to spin the wood until the friction makes a fire. We’ve got to make a fire, Ashley.”

“Or we could just make a huge sign in the snow that says, ‘Here we are!’ ” she said.

“Maybe you’d rather die of hypothermia,” I said.

She stood up and walked deeper into the trees. I started after her and tripped on my loose shoelace, falling facefirst into the snow. When I looked up, I saw her kneeling, digging like a dog after a bone, snow flying everywhere.

I laced up my boot and went over to her.

“What are you doing?”

“Digging a snow cave. It would go faster if you helped.”

I knelt beside her and together we hollowed out a space wide and deep enough for both of us to crawl inside. She ordered a halt every few minutes—not to rest, but to keep ourselves from sweating. You sweat in these temperatures and your sweat freezes and then you’re an ice sculpture. Her every gesture and every word, even the word “faster” or “deeper,” had an undercurrent of anger to it. I wondered why she was angry at me—or if she was just angry at the situation. Of course, I did put a bullet into her, but she was a former field operative and had to understand the zigzag theory. The important thing to understand about girls is you can’t understand them. Girls are complicated. You can understand the complication, but not the girl.

After half an hour, teeth chattering, muscles singing with fatigue, we crawled inside our makeshift cave—more a trench or shaft than a cave, barely wide enough for both of us. We lay on our sides facing each other, and Ashley of the blond hair and perfect skin and eyes the color of a winter sky wrapped her arms around me and pulled me close.