Cullen fired into the windshield. Once, twice, but Nico kept coming, the whites of his eyes gleaming as he bore down. Inches from impact, Cullen dove out of the way.Nico plowed into a wooden post, sending the mailbox flying. As the SUV passed, Cullen scrambled up and fired again, but the bullet deflected off the rear and Nico drove clear. Undoubtedly he was going to fetch his brother and return to finish the job.
Cullen about-faced and almost ran into Kit as he returned to the trailer. “We have to go,” he said.
She handed him Nico’s gun, then immediately raced to the bedroom for the baby and duffel bag. There was no time to gather further supplies except to snatch the package of water bottles they hadn’t drunk.
She slung on the duffel and hoisted the baby. “How did he find us? Did he spot the bus?”
“Uncertain.” It was more than happenstance how Nico kept zeroing in on their location. “I’m thinking he’s got a tracker on us somehow, but we’ll deal with that later. He’ll have to stop the bleeding. Get another weapon and his brother.” He grabbed the water and shoved a sleeve of crackers into his pocket. “We can’t go out the way we came in. Too easy for them to stop us. We’re slow in the bus.”
“Thelma and Frank had a trail map in the bedroom, and I took a look at it. There are a couple of routes out of the valley, one road winds past the lake. Nico probably won’t expect us to take that one.”
They’d still be painfully slow, but what was the alternative? His gut quivered at the thought that once again they were on the run, away from the location where Gideon would arrive to save them. They could hide somewhere close, if possible. Desperation plucked at his nerves, but he elbowed it aside. “I’ll go first and check. Stay in the trailer until I signal you.”
She nodded. Tot’s hair was sticking up in clumps, and she reached for Cullen.
“Later, Tottie girl.” When he thought of how easy it would have been for Nico to kill her or Kit, his fear turned to fury. He hurried across the road, scanning, but he saw no sign of Nico having doubled back. He signaled to Kit, who sprinted with Tot across the road. He took the baby and buckled himself in while Kit did the same in the driver’s seat.
Once again it required several moments of patience on Kit’s part before the engine throbbed into action. He watched her profile, face set with determination. Though love wasn’t an issue for him and Kit, he could not battle back an enormous swell of admiration. He wasn’t certain he could’ve come up with the idea to use a hanger as a weapon. Courage under fire.
He kept hold of Tot as the bus jostled back onto the road heading in the opposite direction from the trailer park. “There’s a lake access this way,” Kit said. “Hopefully it will be wide enough to accommodate the bus.”
It’ll have to be,or we’ll be on footagain.The morning was frosty, glimmers of ice showing in shallow pockets on the ground. He wished they’d had a minute to warm some formula for Tot or even change her into heavier clothes. He wrapped his jacket around her, keeping her down well below the windows in case Nico or Simon was in a position to take a shot at them.
It was a point in their favor that Nico was likely bleeding with an injury that had to hurt like nobody’s business. He’d need to address that immediately before he passed out. Unfortunately, Kit was forced to keep their speed to a slow creep to avoid areas of thick mud. Twice she had toback up and navigate around fallen logs, an effort made harder due to the fact that the sunrise didn’t actually penetrate the thickening gloom. Once they stopped for him to clear an obstruction, which took longer than it should have. Back aboard, he wondered if the movement he felt was purely the wheels searching for traction or more earthquakes. Or maybe it was his growing angst that they were moving away from the rescue location he’d given Gideon.
They rumbled up the slight slope, trees crowding in on both sides of the path. Below and to the right the lake rippled, pushing debris across its surface as if it were trying to cleanse itself. Kit slammed on the brakes as they came upon a log stretching the length of the road. A log. Odd.
Too neat, too precise. “Turn—” he started as Nico drove from behind a screen of shrubs, stopped on the other side of the log, and hopped out, using the door as a shield to protect himself.
He smiled grimly as if he’d been expecting them and raised a rifle.
Cullen lowered Tot onto the floor, where she immediately started to cry, and pulled his own weapon, breathing hard.Escape options. Now.
Movement by the lake below caught his eye. Simon was in the distance, wrestling with an enormous branch near the water. Cullen discerned their plan. Simon would lug it behind them while Nico covered them with his gun. They’d be boxed in. How could they have emerged from one ambush directly into another?
Should Kit reverse before Simon got the branch into position? If anyone could steer a bus backward down a hill it was her.
Kit’s hand hovered on the gearshift. Cullen glanced from Nico to Simon down by the water. A shorebird pecked at the sandy soil near Simon’s feet, snagging whatever it could find to eat. Nico pointed his gun at the bus windshield, holding the weapon with both hands.
He’d shoot the moment she began to back up.
Cullen wouldn’t have time to draw and fire his own weapon, which Nico fully knew. The moment he showed his gun, Nico would fire a round through the glass and kill Kit, then Cullen and Tot. A standoff if there ever was one.
Nico jerked the weapon toward the bus door. The message was clear.Getout.
And he’d shoot them dead on the spot and take the duffel. Simon succeeded in hefting the branch from the sticky shore. No more time.
Cullen kept his eyes on Nico. “I’ll go meet him. Soon as I step down, you reverse out of here.”
“No.” Her jaw was clenched so tight a muscle danced and twitched.
“No other choice, Kit. You done real good getting us to this point.” There were so many more things he wanted to say, but it was game over. He slid the gun behind his back and tucked it into his belt before he raised his palms slowly and pointed to the door, indicating he was getting out. As he turned, the tires began to bump up and down on the ground, the windows rattling. Another quake.
Nico felt it, too, and grabbed his open door, but he didn’t lose his concentration on his target. He was leaning on one foot, favoring the leg with the wound Kit had given him. Satisfying, but not enough. Neither was the heaving ground sufficient to distract Nico.
The interior of the bus rattled louder. Not a massive quake by the feel of it, but the lake demanded his attention, suddenly boiling and bubbling like a massive stewpot. He peered in disbelief. Kit gasped.
Simon straightened at the shore’s edge, arms still around his dripping bundle.
