If they didn’t, four more bodies would be added to Nico’s kill list.
TEN
Sweat stung the cuton Cullen’s cheek as he maneuvered deeper into the trees. There was no way to prevent the three riders from being churned as if they were in a blender set to puree. Tot screamed her displeasure.
“Still behind you,” Archie barked. “Losing ground though. There, drive down into that hollow. Thick trees. No way they can follow.”
Cullen wrestled the ATV down a bumpy slope and plunged them into an army of pines. Some were so close together he had to detour around them, and others had branches that scraped across the body of the vehicle as it squeezed through. South, now southwest, he struggled to keep some sense of direction because ultimately they would need to make it out of their overgrown hiding spot.
If they survived the immediate danger.
He gritted his teeth. When, not if. A thicket of blackberry bushes taller than Cullen appeared, and he didn’t second-guess it but buried the vehicle deep into the thorny vines, praying there was not a concealed rock that would take out the suspension.
With no headlights and only the faintest dawn sunlight, they were practically invisible.
Unless Nico caught the trail of disturbed ash.
Cullen didn’t think Nico was a savvy outdoorsman. Hopefully his brother wasn’t either. And their vehicle was not built for such terrain.
Archie was trying to help Kit quiet the baby. Unknown how far that piercing, shrill cry would carry in the mountain air.
Cullen grabbed the binoculars and craned every which way, trying to track their pursuers. Sporadic points of light told him Simon and Nico were moving to a higher point on the trail where they hoped to get a better view of the hollow.
He didn’t think they’d spot the ATV buried in its thorny nest.
Then again, he hadn’t anticipated John’s murder. Cullen had been caught completely unawares, and the cost could have been even higher with Kit standing right next to him and the baby and Archie only a few feet away.
So focused on your own plans,Cul. Just like youwere back then.
Daniela had tried to slow him when he’d approached the van that day.
“Wait,Cullen. Backupis ten minutes out.”
But he didn’t wait.
And he’d spent long, dark nights trying to figure out exactly why.
The answer stuck in his gut like a burr under a saddle.
He’d wanted to be the one.
The one who saved those women.
The one who enacted the rescue, supremely confident in his capabilities.
He should have waited.
He should have listened.
Tot’s wailing broke off suddenly as she latched angrily onto the binky. The silence was so deep he could hear Archie blow out a ragged breath.
“Safe for now,” he said.
For now.
Cullen picked up the SUV in his binoculars farther up the trail, moving toward a better viewpoint. It stopped periodically, the driver’s side door opening, the slash of a flashlight beam gleaming as one or the other got out to help navigate the treacherous terrain and look for any sign of their prey.
Kit laid Tot on the spot that Nico had occupied and snuggled the sleeping bag around her. “How are we going to get out of here?”
