The metallic slide as I chambered a round made a sharp, definitive sound that seemed to echo in the silent room.
Then I grabbed for my phone where I’d tossed it on the bed, ready to call dispatch. But there was no signal. Next I checked my security app, but it came back with an error message.
I had no cell signal. No internet. Hell. This could not be good.
My breath came fast and shallow. I forced myself to slow down, to think. The smartest thing to do would be to get out of the house. But if there was someone waiting outside, ready to grab me?
No way. I was going to fight.
Padding on the rug to my bedroom door, I listened with my gun ready, finger alongside the trigger guard.
I eased the opening in the doorway wider and stepped out. There was a window to my left, closed. An open door across the hall, which led to the small laundry room. Nobody inside. Just the dark shapes of the washer and dryer.
The rest of the hallway stretched before me, leading to the living room.
My vision adjusted slowly to the darkness. Every muscle in my body was taut, ready to spring. I stepped forward carefully, my bare feet silent on the carpet, gun aimed forward as blood rushed in my ears.
I reached the mouth of the hallway. Cold air flowed around my feet, raising goosebumps on my bare legs. Fear washed over me, my brain turning strangely blank, everything slowing.
A figure stood in the kitchen.
The man was wearing a mask. A hideous, demonic face. A nightmare. His arms were down, no weapon visible. But still, the sight of him awakened a terror I’d never experienced.
Another split second passed, slow as an eternity, before the moment broke open and I could move again.
“Police,” I shouted, my voice surprisingly steady. “Get down on the ground, hands where I can see them!”
Movement on my periphery. Shit. Shifting, I turned and saw another masked intruder stepping out of the shadows near the coat closet.
A muzzle flash lit up the room like lightning. The gunshot was deafening in the enclosed space, a thunderclap that made my ears ring. At the same instant, fire tore through my left side, just below my ribs.
The impact spun me halfway around. Pain sliced along my side. I fired back. My gun bucked in my hand. I heard a shout as I tried to back away, tried to retreat to the hallway where I’d have cover.
I didn’t make it.
The next bullet caught me higher, punching into my chest and driving me backward into a wall. My legs gave out. The gun slipped from my fingers and clattered to the floor.
The world tilted and spun.
I tried to move, tried to reach for my weapon, but my body wouldn’t respond. Pain and heat and cold took over my senses.
Then the night closed in around me, and I felt nothing at all.
CHAPTER THREE
Dean
Pausingat the top of the mogul field, I took in the panoramic view below me.
The Swiss Alps stretched out in every direction, their peaks still crowned with snow. The morning sun caught the ridges and turned them gold, casting long purple shadows across the slopes.
Pine forests climbed the lower elevations, dark green against the white. The air was crisp and thin, sharp in my lungs.
“Tell me that’s not the most breathtaking thing you’ve ever seen,” my friend Alina said beside me.
I chuckled and nodded amiably, because she was just making conversation. No point in telling her this was definitelynotthe most breathtaking thing I’d seen, despite the fact that it was incredibly beautiful.
That title belonged to something back in Colorado. Someone.
