Why hadn’t it worked? Had I not hit hard enough?
Camilla lunged back and swung her gun, leveling the muzzle on me. “I said, don’t try anything, and what do you do? You go try something. Now what part of your body are you willing to live without? How about your hands? You need them for your fancy artmaking, don’t you?”
Blanching, I hid them behind my back. They trembled. All of me trembled.
“Pull your hands out.”
“I won’t try anything again. I swear.”
“Pull your fucking hands out from behind your back.”
“If you blow off my hands, you won’t be able to cuff me.”
“If I blow them off, I won’tneedto cuff you. Your hands, Nikki.”
“You want my hands? Then you’ll have to go through my body. The second you do, Liam will feel I’m dead, and he won’t come.”
Her nostrils flared. “You’re a real pain in the ass, you know that?” She tossed the cuffs at me, whacking me in the stomach. “Put them on, or Iwillshoot off your legs. Both of them.”
Afraid to reach down and expose my hands, I shuffled around the cuffs, so that my back was to her, then crouched as best I could with bound ankles and picked up the metal bracelets.
“What the hell are you doing?” she barked.
“I’m putting the cuffs on.”
“Turn around.”
After I snapped both loosely in place, I turned, making sure to keep my hands leveled with my heart.
She took a step forward, then prodded the cuffs with the muzzle. When they didn’t clatter off, she settled the gun astride her spine again and stepped forward to squeeze the cuffs until they were jammed so snugly around my wrists I had no hope of freeing my hands.
“That’s better.” Her phone rang. She backed up a step to extricate it. After a cursory glance at her screen, she raised the cheap mobile and said, “Cheese.” After sending off the picture she’d taken of me, she explained, “They wanted proof of life.”
Which meant Liam hadn’t left Boulder yet, or he’d have sensed my heartbeats.
Maybe he wasn’t coming after all.
Maybe he trusted that his new Beta and my brothers would accomplish this rescue mission just fine without him.
I refused to be dismayed if he didn’t show.
After all, I’d prayed to Lycaon he’d stay away.
After pocketing her phone, Camilla pulled her coat open, revealing not only a Kevlar jacket but a holstered gun, the type my cop brother carried—small, black, automatic. “You may want to sit down. It’s going to be a while.”
I remained standing, wondering if she’d picked this spot because of its unobstructed vista of the surrounding land or because she planned on using the ice against me.
Against the pack.
“Suit yourself.” She retreated to the shore and crouched next to it.
The crush of nylon followed by the rustle of a zipper animated the stark silence. Camilla straightened and jammed a bright-orange helmet onto her head, then turned and lowered the visor. The sight of it dried my tongue and propelled me back to a time and place I yearned to forget. The looming tree trunk flickered in front of my lids, the bang of metal reverberated inside my ears, the reek of flames chewing through fuel and flesh assaulted my nostrils.
I forced back the memory by focusing all my gray matter on the ice’s subtle pops and groans, on the water’s sporadic gurgle and muted slosh, until my dire present smothered my dismal past.
A crack, thin as a hairline fracture, veined the translucent whiteness between my shoes. I held my breath, fearful that so much as breathing in its direction might tear my raft apart. But then I glanced back in Camilla’s direction, found her lumbering back toward me, bulky in her makeshift armor.
My limbs might be bound, but I wasn’t weighted down like Camilla. I began to shuffle again. When that didn’t widen the crack, I hopped in place, gritting my molars against the brutal ache in my knee.
