“Then let’s get moving.” Scott stood and slipped on his pack. “Let’s try to get ahead of the storm.”
Lily stowed the phone and donned her own pack, then the three of them, plus the two dogs, set out again. The route grew steeper, devoid of trees or even brush. “We don’t have far to go now,” Scott said. “We should be able see Pandora from the top.”
It began to snow, big, soft flakes flitting down. But the scattering of flakes became a deluge, and wind blew the snow sideways. It hit their faces like shards of ice, and the swirling snow blinded them. The flakes piled in miniature drifts on theirshoulders and the tops of their helmets, and soon obscured the rocky ground. At every breath, Lily inhaled snow. “Do you even know where we’re going?” she gasped.
“Just keep climbing,” Scott said. “We should be more sheltered on the other side of this ridge.”
At last, they reached the top of the ridge. They paused and looked down the other side. “Do you see Pandora?” Jackson asked.
Lily couldn’t see anything but snow. All that white could be covering boulders or buildings—at this point, she couldn’t tell.
“I think it’s over this direction,” Scott said, and raised his arm to point.
A thud, like a fist punching a pillow, made a dull, hollow sound. Scott grunted, then sank to his knees. A second dull thud sounded to his right, and Lily recognized the sound of a bullet striking a target. She screamed and shoved Jackson to the ground. “Scott!” she shouted. “Scott, what happened?”
“Stay down,” he said, his voice surprisingly calm.
She stayed down, but she crawled toward him. “What happened?” she asked.
“Stay away,” he cautioned. “I’ve been shot.”
Chapter Fifteen
Scott lay prone in the snow, fighting to breathe, heart drumming painfully in his chest. He braced himself against the pain he expected—but felt nothing. With one hand he probed at his chest, but found no exit wound. No blood. His back hurt as if he had been punched. Careful to stay low, he felt at his back. His fingers found a hole in his backpack, the coffeepot beneath it, dented now. There was still no pain, and he could move freely, now that he had caught his breath.
“Are you all right?” Lily asked from her spot, prone in the snow a few feet to his left. Jackson lay beside her—the dogs were nowhere in sight.
“I think so.” He rose up on all fours. “I think the bullet struck the coffeepot in my pack. I don’t think I’m bleeding.”
“There’s a hole in your backpack,” she said.
“Yeah.” He started to his feet, intending to remove the backpack and examine it more closely, but another shot rang out, sending him flat to the ground once more. A quick glance around told him they were in a terrible position—pinned down on the side of the ridge, easily standing out from the snow. But just downslope was a grove of small trees, and below that even deeper woods. All they needed was a chance to get to cover.
“On the count of three, I want you both to jump up and run as fast as you can for that grove of trees just below us and to the left,” he said. “Can you do that?”
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
“I’m going to fire in the direction I think those shots came from. The shooter will focus on me instead of the two of you and you can get away.”
“Scott!” she protested. “They’ll shoot you.”
“No they won’t.” They might, but he wasn’t going to think about that. “I’ll stay down. You and Jackson have to get away. Promise me you’ll run.”
“All right.” She didn’t sound enthusiastic, but he was counting on her putting the boy’s safety first.
“Jackson?” he asked.
“Yes,” the boy said, his voice a little shaky, but clear. “I’ll run.”
Scott found the gun, checked that it was loaded and clicked off the safety. “On the count of three,” he said. “One, two, three.” He fired twice up the slope. A shot immediately answered, striking the ground to his left. He army-crawled a few feet upslope and fired again. More return fire, though again only a single shot. Was the shooter conserving ammunition?
Scott looked over his shoulder to where Lily and Jackson had been huddled together. They were no longer there. He waited, counting to a hundred. Time to get himself out of here.
He slid the pistol into the waistband of his pants, snugged against the small of his back. Then he grabbed the pack firmly by the sides. “One. Two. Three.” He hoisted the pack over his head. Another bullet tore the pack from his hand. He flung the pack to one side, shoved to his feet and ran. He fully expected to feel a bullet slam into him at any moment, but no impact came. He stumbled through the thick snow in his boots, scrambling for purchase, trying to stay low, aiming for the grove of trees.
He crashed into the copse of trees, snow flying from the branches of pinion trees. “Over here!” Lily cried.
She was crouched at the base of an ancient juniper, the trunk two feet in diameter, feathery branches weighted down by snowforming an umbrella over her. He moved in beside her. “I had to leave my pack,” he said, gasping for breath.
