Or trust my instincts.
But whoever or whatever was moving toward the house stops, dead, for a second, then turns back the way they came.
I pull hard left on the wheel of the truck, drop down the slight embankment, and plow across the field.
“Fuck, I see him,” Atom says.
It’s hard not to notice the truck flying toward him, so the intruder, dressed in black, runs fast.
I chew up the distance between us, and he jumps a fence.
The truck jostles and bounces around as I race toward him.
“Stop,” Atom shouts. “There are huge rocks on the other side of that fence to protect it when we snow plow through there. You won’t get through.”
I skid the truck to a halt, stopping inches before the fence, and without turning the truck off, I leap out of it.
The person is fast. I pray I’m faster.
Snow crunches beneath my feet, and it’s the only sound I hear besides the whoosh of blood through my temples.
I can make this right for Wren. I can finally find out who is after them.
The distance between the two of us closes, and I throw myself onto the stranger. My arms close around his shoulders, but not tight enough that he can’t use momentum and force to break free. Our feet stumble, I trip, my fingers stroking the black jacket he wears. A balaclava covers most of his face as he glances over his shoulder at me, and there isn’t any instantaneous recognition on my part.
“Show me your face, you fucker,” I yell.
He’s fast, I’ll give him that. Cold night air rips into my chest. My muscles burn as I sprint. But I can’t stop, until?—
“Fuck!”
Using the slippery surface of impacted snow, he spins and nails me in the gut with the rifle he’s carrying, sending me falling backward.
Everything happens in slow motion.
The lack of balance, the thud of my back against one of the large rocks. My vision blurs for a second.
“Amateur,” the man says. But before I can ask him what he means, I hear the roar of a snowmobile that throws up fresh powder in its wake.
16
WREN
The sight of River tied to a chair stops my heart. Digital problems I can fix, but physical ones I can’t.
This is his specialty, not mine.
Brute force. Annihilation. Physical rescue.
“Help me,” he croaks, as I take in his injuries.
One eye is just a swollen mess of weeping blood with a violent scar through it. There’s no way it’s recoverable. The other opens no wider than a slit.
And those are the least of his injuries.
He drops his head, and his shoulders sag and jerk with sobs.
“River,” I say, but the words won’t come out.
