“Good enough,” Colin grunted, sounding not theleast bit winded. “Though I dinna understand how you were able to injure the Nuadian unless. . .”
They didn’t have time for this nonsense. Stabbing Jonathan didn’t mean she was a bad person. It had been an absolute necessity. In doing it, she’d probably saved Colin’s life, for God’s sake. She’d certainly saved him from getting shot.
“I had to. I had no choice.” The excuse sounded hollow, especially in light of her having rejected Jonathan’s use of the same words.
“Has he taken yer blood, Abby?”
“What?” Their conversation had slipped totally into the surreal right along with everything else that was happening. Not just surreal. Bizarre. Nightmarish. Enough so that she half-expected to awaken from this horrible dream at any moment.
Colin grabbed her shoulders, giving her a little shake. “Did he ingest any of yer blood? Answer me!”
The thought of Jonathan sucking on her finger after slicing it open floated through her mind. “I guess he did.”
In response, Colin merely nodded, whatever emotion her answer elicited hidden behind the expressionless mask he wore. He slid his hand from her shoulder and entangled his fingers with hers to pull her along after him in the direction she’d indicated, moving them much more quickly than the pace she’d initially set.
The locals who’d spoken of the caves had said they were small, some no more than a large indentation. Those wouldn’t work. They’d require one of the larger ones to hide in. Right now what she wanted was the largest, deepest, darkest cave in the entire mountain range.
Pulling against Colin’s hold, she slowed her steps once again.
“What’s wrong?”
“Just give me a second.” She bent over, hand at her waist, buying time. Concentrating, she watched the tendrils in her mind’s eye fanning out over the mountainside until one began to glow.
“The largest of the caves is this way.”
She straightened and pointed in the direction she’d seen in her mind, and they were off. Halfway up the rocky slope, she slowed again, checking to make sure they were still headed toward the largest cave. She didn’t have to feign needing a breather this time, not with the pace Colin had set for them.
“We have to keep moving to stay ahead of Flynn,” Colin cautioned, his eyes scanning the area behind them.
“I know.” Except that the farther removed she got from what had happened, the more she wanted to believe it was over, like some horrible aberration of reality. Maybe Jonathan had given up. That knife in his leg had to be powerfully painful. Maybe the pain had brought him back to his senses.
“I bet he’s gone back to town. I don’t think he’d stay out here with that wound. I can’t imagine that he’s still following us.”
The sound of her last words hadn’t yet died on her lips when a sharp metallicpoprang out, followed by acrackthat sent chips flying off the rocks less than a foot from where she stood.
“Move!” Colin ordered, dragging her after him. “Stay low to the brush until we’re in the trees again.”
“Was that . . .” She couldn’t finish the thought aloud, not and continue to gasp for air as they ran. It had sounded like a firecracker.
“Bullet,” Colin hissed over his shoulder. “Yer imagination must be rusty.”
Back in the trees, she tugged at his hand, pointing in the direction they needed to go until, at last, they reached the little opening.
“This is somebody’s idea of a cave?” It looked like little more than an opening between some rocks.
“Animal den. Get in and move to the back,” Colin ordered, shoving her to the ground as anotherpopsounded somewhere behind them.
She closed her eyes and forced herself to scramble into the dark opening, shoving back against the cold rocks to make room for Colin.
Only Colin wasn’t crawling in behind her.
“What are you doing?” she hissed, afraid to raise her voice but equally frightened of being left alone as his legs disappeared down the trail past her hiding spot.
Moments later his body reappeared in the opening, the light from outside almost completely blocked as he crawled in backward, tucking a bushy limb in the opening behind him.
“Misdirection,” he explained, scooting in next to her and looping his arm around her shoulders. “It will slow him down, but it willna do more than buy us a bit of time at best. We must leave this place, Abby. It’s the only way.”
The eerily familiar words rattled her. As if she didn’t know already that they needed to get out of here.
