He lifted her, wrapped in the blanket from his bed. She wasn’t heavy, he knew from carrying her before. That was the heartbreaking part—she was light, way too light. So dry and hot, she felt like a husk of a woman. The thought sent a new wash of panic through him, and he squeezed her too tightly as he took her out to the truck.
The dog insisted on coming, so Luc let him climb into the back of the cab, comforted by the companionship.
Once in the truck, Luc had a moment of hesitation. He couldn’t exactly buckle her in, could he, half-conscious, with her back a mess? But shit, plowing the drive with this amount of snow—he had no idea how dangerous it would be. The last thing he needed was Abby flying through the windshield.
He buckled her, pulled out the ancient cigarette lighter, and plugged his phone in.
Slowly, steadily, he rolled down the drive, Abby sagging in the front seat beside him. It wasn’t until he approached the neighboring property that he realized he’d be in full view of them—the cult. What would they do if they saw her?
Merde!Luc’s pulse went nuts. The nerves made his skin cold, his hands so tight on the wheel he couldn’t imagine prying them off. In front of them lay all that pristine white to plow through—nothing but obstacles, and as their fence grew closer, he pictured them plowing through that, too.
From the back, the dog whined.
It took a while, plowing through the drive alongside their property—that place where they hung the animal carcasses to bleed them, where he’d picked up Le Dog. Every second, he was sure he could feel them watching, could sense their ire, the crosshairs on his back. A group of men emerged from the big building in the distance, the one they seemed to use as their headquarters. Did they know he had her? Could they guess?
Goddamn it. He had to hurry. He couldn’t hide her well enough from someone looking in the window. Behind him, Le Dog let out a quiet and menacing noise, different from anything Luc had heard from him thus far. A low, visceral growl that made the hairs stand up along Luc’s arms.
That was when he spotted Isaiah, the snake, as he stepped out of the building.
Luc tapped the accelerator, praying he wouldn’t speed up too fast and get them jammed in a snowbank.
I never signed up for this, he thought for one brief, selfish moment, before shifting back into first and forcing the truck’s engine forward through the snow.
They were halfway there. Halfway, and the copper-haired man walked steadily to where their drives ran parallel to each other, only a low fence in this section, before separating again closer to the road.Don’t let him get here in time.If he got in front of the truck, Luc would be obliged to stop. The truck moved another few feet, gravity doing all the hard work, and Luc pasted on a sick, weird smile, lifted his hand in what he hoped looked like a neighborly greeting, and rocketed past.
Safe, safe. Go, go, go.
Relief flooded Luc—until he saw the hairpin turn another thirty meters down, and he knew they were screwed.
Unable to slow down enough, he took the turn too fast and wound up on the uphill side of the mountain, almost windshield-deep in a snow drift. He tried to reverse. Nothing. The tires turned in the snow like hamster wheels, going nowhere.
“Abby?”
No answer.
“Wake up, Abby,” he whispered. Fuck, was she alive? “Come on, Abby, you’ve got to get in the back.”
She moaned.Good, good.
“Come on, Abby,ma chérie, get in back. Go. I can’t lift you back there—you have to do it on your own.”
The men approached in the rearview mirror. Even through the sound of the truck’s engine, he could hear the crunch of their feet in the snow.
These figures, so familiar now in their wool coats and gloves, a few of them holding rifles, looked like an old-fashioned army closing in on his truck. It reminded him of something fromGangs of New York. Weird. Weird to think of that at this moment, the pulse behind his eyes making his head ache.Hurry. Hurry.
Okay. Okay, he could do this. He could pull this off.
He got out of the truck, forcing himself to move slowly. He meandered to the back for the shovel, all the while shaking his head, exaggerating the movement so they’d see it, pasting on a rueful smile. With the strangest sense of certainty, he knew that they’d kill her if they found her.
They’d kill him, too.
He didn’t think about how they might have killed her already. If he didn’t get her to a doctor, and soon, she could be dead.
That thought dug the smile deeper into his features, hardened his muscles, made him wish he’d remembered to grab his rifle. It was back there, in his cabin, standing useless against the wall.
He forced himself to dig, tires first. The group drew closer, unnervingly silent aside from the inexorable crunch of feet in crisp snow. The back windows of his truck, fogged up now, reflected nothing but bright, white light. No movement. Maybe they wouldn’t see her if they didn’t approach the front.
“Morning, neighbor,” the man’s voice rang out. Isaiah, the sick mastermind behind this strange clusterfuck of humanity.
