Sarah couldn't stop shaking.
It wasn't the pain radiating from her ankle with every step, or the cold mountain air cutting through her torn sweatshirt. It was the sound burned into her mind—gunshots.
They were going to kill her. Actually kill her. Not arrest her, not interrogate her. End her life and walk away.
Her teeth chattered as Griff half-carried her across the rocky terrain, his arm solid around her waist, taking most of her weight. She wanted to tell him she could walk on her own, maintain some dignity, but the lie wouldn't form. Without him, she'd collapse.
"Almost there," he murmured, scanning the landscape ahead.
Sarah followed his gaze and her stomach dropped. The mountainside was riddled with dark holes—mine shafts, dozens of them.
"No." The word came out as a whimper. "Please, no."
"We need cover." His voice was steady, matter-of-fact, likethey were discussing weather options instead of hiding from killers.
"I can't." Her voice cracked. "I don't do enclosed spaces. I had an MRI once and had a panic attack. They had to sedate me. This is so much worse than an MRI."
The distant thrum of helicopter rotors cut through the air.
Her knees buckled. Only Griff's grip kept her upright.
"Hey." He shifted to face her, his hands on her shoulders. "Look at me."
She forced herself to meet his eyes. In the fading light, they were steady, calm. How could he be calm?
"You're stronger than you think," he said. "You got out of that cabin. You ran through gunfire. You can do this."
"Those were different. Those were—" She struggled for words. "Outside. With exits. With air."
"This has exits too. And air—you're the one who noticed the airflow patterns, remember?"
The helicopter was getting closer. They were coming. They were coming and there was nowhere to go except?—
"I'll be right there with you," Griff said quietly. "Every step. I won't let anything happen to you."
It was a promise he couldn't possibly keep, but something in his voice made her want to believe him.
"Okay," she whispered.
He guided her toward a shaft partially hidden behind a pile of tailings but stopped at two other entrances first. Sarah watched, confused and fascinated despite her terror, as he pulled items from his pack—road flares, some kind of timer device, even hand warmers.
"What are you doing?"
"Insurance." He rigged the flares to the timer at one shaft entrance, then moved to another, setting up the hand warmers on a delayed heating element. "Heat signatures and movement. They'll think we went this way."
Even through her panic, she admired him. He was thinking three steps ahead while she could barely think past her next breath.
At their actual entrance, he quickly examined the old mining equipment scattered around. Rusted cables, pulleys, a mining cart on narrow tracks that disappeared into the darkness.
"Put this on." He'd fashioned some kind of harness from the old cables.
"That's like a thousand years old. It's probably rusted through?—"
"It'll hold." He helped her into it, his hands steady and impersonal as he adjusted the fit. "Turn around."
She obeyed numbly as he secured her laptop bag to her back, distributing the weight. Even through her terror, gratitude flickered. He'd thought to protect her data.
"Ready?"
