He pulled her a few steps forward until she was out of the drift, trying to figure out what was going on. He’d been monitoring their time in the snow, knowing frostbite was a possibility, especially in tennis shoes. But they hadn’t been walking long enough for it to be an issue—it shouldn’t be causing her pain. She hadn’t said anything about it until the drift.
He ripped off his gloves and grabbed his phone to turn on the flashlight. He leaned Natalie—who still looked dazed and frightened—against a tree. Lifting her foot, he checked for any holes in her shoes that he hadn’t known about or some sort of wound that had caused her such distress. She was still breathing so deeply she was in danger of hyperventilating.
There was nothing on either her leg or foot that should be causing her pain. And while she was cold, she definitely wasn’t anywhere near numbness or frostbite.
He shifted the light back up to look her in the face. Her lips were pinched with pain, her eyes closed. “No more snow. Please, no more snow. I was wrong. You were right.”
“Natalie.” He put his hands on either side of the sweater she’d wrapped around her head. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
“No more. It burns so bad. Please,” she whispered. Tears were streaming out of her eyes.
Ren didn’t know exactly what was happening, but he knew it wasn’t part of his plan. They weren’t far from the cave so he whisked her up in his arms and cradled her against his chest.
“Okay, Peaches, no more snow. I’ve got you now. You’re not in it anymore.”
Her arms came up to wrap around his shoulders, and he pulled her more tightly against himself and farther from the ground. He began walking quickly toward the cave.
Was this some sort of weird phobia? Maybe just a reaction to stress? After all, she thought five other people had died tonight and they’d narrowly escaped with their lives.
She definitely didn’t know that if she’d taken another couple dozen steps toward the train when she’d decided to come help him with the “rescue” that she would’ve seen Ren talking to Philip and Madeline, both very much alive. The three-member train crew? Also totally unharmed.
As a matter of fact, if she’d come out of the circle of smoke, she would’ve seen the train hadn’t crashed at all. It was all a very elaborate smoke and light show. One car had been burning so she could feel the heat, and be scared enough not to come closer.
Damned if she hadn’t come anyway, trying to help. Ren had barely caught her in time.
After blowing the carefully laid explosives once he’d given them the signal through a single text, the rest of the team had left and were probably already down in Riverton, the Colorado town that was only about six miles away.
Ren just hoped he didn’t have to bring them immediately back up here because Natalie was having some sort of nervous breakdown or allergic reaction to the drugs. The first he could possibly still use to his advantage as long as it didn’t gettoo murky. But the second would require immediate medical attention, effectively bringing the mission to a halt.
She still had her arms wrapped tightly around his neck, trying to hold as much of her own weight as she could, as if that was very significant to begin with. He’d regularly carried more weight for much longer in the special forces. Ren just kept her close and moved quickly toward the cave.
“Here we are, Peaches,” he said. He set her down inside the overhang that sheltered them from the wind on three sides. He’d planned to make a big production of searching it to make sure it was safe, but she seemed much more concerned about the white stuff on the ground outside than she did about anything else. He clicked his phone flashlight back on to make sure nothing had taken residence in the last few days.
“Yeah, this will be good,” he continued. “Get us out of the elements so we can get some sleep.”
She looked around, slowly taking everything in, one of her hands still grasping his shoulder.
“See?” He took the sweater covering her head and pushed it down slightly so she had more freedom of movement of her head. Strands of her light blond hair flew everywhere. “No snow in here. Do you think you can crawl in?”
She nodded and let go of him to slide inside. He took off her backpack and pushed it toward her. She wrapped her arms around it and pulled it up to her chest. But at least she had lost that utterly hollow look in her eyes.
“I think there’s enough dry wood in here for us to start a fire. It won’t be much of anything, but it will be something. Give a little light. Warmth. But there’s no snow in here, okay?”
“Okay,” she whispered.
He smiled and began building a small fire in the far corner so the smoke would go outward instead of toward them. She was still cradling her backpack.
“You should probably eat one of your protein bars. Your blood sugar is bottoming out, which is making everything much harder on you.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll have one in the morning, but right now I’m fine.”
She nodded. “I’ll get out my sleeping bag, too.”
“While you’re at it, why don’t you try your cell phone? I know you said you didn’t have a signal before, but you never know, sometimes you can just catch the right spot and find a signal. I’ve already tried mine but it didn’t work.”
Maybe she would make it easy and call Freihof right here and now. Omega had provided a cell signal booster to this area and had an agent monitoring the local 911 dispatch. So if Natalie tried to call someone—hopefully Freihof—the call would go through, but a call to 911 would just disconnect.
