"Shut up."
"Tactical... error," he wheezes. "I'm slowing... you down. They’re tracking... the blood trail."
"Let them track it," I snarl. "I have twelve rounds. That’s twelve dead men."
"You only have... one gun," he argues weakly. "Go. Find... the highway."
I stop. Not because he told me to. But because I see it. To our left, the terrain rises sharply. A limestone ridge jutting out of the earth like the spine of a buried giant. At the base, shrouded in thick brush and snow-drifts, is a black fissure. A cave. Or at least, a hollow.
"There," I pant, pointing.
"Trap," Alaric mumbles. "No exit."
"It's shelter. If we stay in the open, we freeze. If we go in there, we can hold a choke point." I learned that word from him.Choke point.I am learning everything from him.
I drag him toward the ridge. The slope is steep. I have to dig my boots into the frozen earth, practically carrying him up the last ten yards. We crash through the frozen underbrush and collapse into the darkness of the fissure.
It isn't a deep cave. Just a shallow recess in the rock, maybe ten feet deep, protected from the wind and the snow. The ground is dry—packed dirt and dead leaves. It smells of damp earth and animal musk. A bear den? A coyote sleep spot? I don't care. It’s dry.
I lower Alaric to the ground. He groans, his hand clutching his shoulder, his eyes squeezing shut against the pain. "Check... the perimeter," he whispers.
"The perimeter is a wall of snow," I say, dropping to my knees beside him. "We’re safe for a minute."
I check his pulse. It’s thready. Fast. He needs heat. I look around. No wood for a fire. And even if there was, the smoke would give us away. The fire at the cabin was a distraction; a fire here would be a beacon. I have to use what I have.
I zip the leather jacket up to my chin. I pull Alaric into a sitting position against the rock wall. Then I sit between his legs, pressing my back against his chest. I pull the sides of his open coat around me, creating a cocoon of body heat. "Wrap your arms around me," I order.
He obeys slowly, his movements clumsy. His good arm locks across my chest. His wounded arm rests on my lap. "Human... radiator," he murmurs against my hair.
"Just breathe, Alaric. Just stay awake."
We sit there in the silence of the earth. The wind howls outside, but in here, it’s quiet. Too quiet. The silence invites the ghosts.
"You knew," I whisper into the dark. I haven't processed it yet. The revelation from the cabin. The Fray Trust. The land. "You knew who I was before you ever saw me."
Alaric shifts. I feel his chest expand against my back. "I knew... of the Asset," he admits. His voice is stronger now that he’s not moving. The adrenaline crash has leveled out into a dull, lucid pain. "I research... everything. When I bought the facility... I audited the neighbors. The land rights."
"And you saw my name."
"Elodie Cassandra Fray. Heir to the Van Der Hoven mineral rights. Estimated value... four billion dollars."
Four billion. The number is so large it feels abstract. It feels fake. My father complained about the cost of my piano lessons. He complained about the price of my dresses. And all the while, he was sitting on a mountain of gold that belonged to me, waiting for me to break so he could steal it.
"He drugged me," I say, the realization tasting like ash. "The anxiety. The panic attacks. It wasn't just pressure. He was poisoning me."
"Benzodiazepines," Alaric confirms. "And beta-blockers. In your food. In your water. Dr. Aris... was a well-paid man." He tightens his grip on me. "They made you sick, Elodie. They induced the tremors. They engineered the collapse at the Winter Gala. They needed you incompetent. They needed a reason to lock you away."
"And you let them."
"I watched," he corrects. "I watched them break a thoroughbred. And I waited for the moment they loosened the reins."
I turn my head, trying to look at him in the gloom. "Why didn't you just tell me? Why didn't you approach me in Vienna? You could have told me the truth. I would have believed you. I would have run away with you."
Alaric lets out a low, bitter laugh. It vibrates through my spine. "Would you?" he asks. "A strange man approaches you in a park. He tells you your father is a monster. He tells you you are worth billions. Would you have hopped in my car? Or would you have called the police?"
I fall silent. He’s right. I would have thought he was crazy. I trusted my father then. I was a good girl. "So you became the bigger monster," I whisper.
"I became the necessary evil," he says. "I bought the debt. I bought the doctors. I bought the silence. I cleared the board so I could take the Queen."
