Her boot hit something with a clang. She glanced down. Millimeters below her foot, a trap sat, armed, the two sets of sharp, gleaming teeth wide-open. With a gasp, she overcorrected and wobbled. Pendulum-heavy, the pack dragged her weight in the opposite direction, straight at the gaping jaws. Her instincts, though slow, told her to dive. Airborne for a few breathless seconds, she twisted in a pointless attempt to land on the pack, before ramming into cold, hard ice. The impact emptied her lungs in a single, painful burst.
Her skull exploded in white-hot pain.
***
The air outside stank of fuel and burned plastic and, if he wasn’t mistaken, charred flesh. He didn’t dare approach the ruined cabin to do a head count. It wasn’t worth the risk, given that his tracks would lead them back here. Even this far, he could hear them taking over the woods around his home with the confidence and recklessness of men convinced they were on the right side of things.
Been there, done that. Got the scars to prove it.
Hopefully they assumed he’d died in the fire.
He swiped a gloved hand across his wet face. The stuff falling from the sky was somewhere between snow and ice. The kind of precipitation that slowedeveryonedown.
Him included.
He glanced at the entrance to the cave. Given the state of his unexpected guest—or prisoner, depending on who she was—a few hours rest probably wasn’t a bad thing. The trick would be to time things right. If they left too early, they’d get stuck in this crap. If they waited too long, the other team had the numbers and equipment to catch up with them.
This time of year was treacherous for travel. Snow and ice melt meant floods and landslides and muddy, impossible terrain.
He stepped inside, automatically scanned the space, and went dead still. Bo yipped.
By the time his eyes adjusted, he’d figured out what he was looking at—sort of. The woman appeared to be struggling to sit up on the cave floor, right where he’d armed one of his traps. Filled with dread, he ran toward her. “Leo.”
She made a sound that was half-grunt, half-gasp and fought harder to rise. By the time he made it to her side, he could see that the trap was still armed—thank God. Her head, on the other hand, was bleeding again.
“Hold on. Stay still.” He squatted beside her. “You okay?”
As if finally giving up, she sank back to her butt and let her face fall into her gloved hands. “No.”
“What’d you do?”
One dark eye peeked out from between her fingers. “Can’t you put it together?”
He took in the trap, her arms still strapped into the backpack, which anchored her to the ice floor, a blood smear on the ice wall above her head. “Didn’t make it far.”
“I almost stepped in that thing.” She threw him a dirty look. “You trying to maim me?”
“Trying to maim the guys who came after you.”
“Well, it foiled my escape attempt.”
“You’re not a prisoner, Leo.” At least he didn’t think so. He hoped not. He didn’t want her to be.
The impact of her gaze meeting his was visceral. There was something wild in the way she watched him. It reached deep inside him and tweaked a savage little chord of its own.Recognition.
“Why’d they call you Campbell Turner?” Her question wasn’t what he expected. When he didn’t immediately respond, she carefully leaned her head back on the pack as if it were a pillow and tracked him with her eyes. “That’s what I can’t figure out. Some random guy just minding his business might pull me from the crash. But you…” She swallowed with a grimace. More blood seeped from her scalp, down her forehead to the corner of her eye. She swiped it away and pointed that same gloved hand at him. “You hauled ass up to the cabin like you knew exactly what was about to happen.” She started to shake her head and grimaced. “Shit, why can’t I figure this out?”
“You cracked your head.” He glanced up at the blood on the wall. “For the second time.”
“Not feeling so hot.”
“I can tell.” He scooted closer. “I should clean it. Will you let me do that?”
The look they exchanged was long, searching. It hit him in that place again—too deep in his bones to identify. Her eyes flicked away. “Yeah. Just…just tell me one thing.”
He lifted his brows, waiting.
“Areyouher godson? Amka’s?”
