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“Yeah, did you grab food?”

He tossed me a protein bar. “I grabbed a couple of these. You probably already burned off the fries and milkshake from last night.”

My cheeks warmed and my heart kicked up, affected by the mere mention of milkshakes. “I think milkshakes are my new favorite dessert,” I said while ripping into the foil of my protein bar.

“I think they’re my new favorite, too,” Fox echoed.

Shooting him a cocky grin, I nudged his elbow playfully. “You can show me more of your favorite desserts tomorrow. When we’re at the safe house with my sister.”

“Okay.”

“Maybe...” My heart pounded against my sternum, but I forced the words out. “Maybe I’ll reward you for all the help you’re giving me. Anything you want.”

With that, I charged ahead so he wouldn’t see the way my face flushed.

Chapter 34

Every dropped pinecone, chipmunk rustling, and whistling breeze in the branches was a threat. I gasped and jumped more times than my fried nerves could take, fearing every little sound in the woods could be Gavin Winter on the hunt to finish off the job.

We didn’t make the progress I hoped to. Needless to say, my crumbling body couldn’t keep up an adequate pace, and we stopped every few minutes to listen to the woods, making sure no one was on our tails.

By the time Fox got us to the right-of-way drop, a good hour or so out from the cabin where they kept Everly, the sun kissed the horizon at the end of daylight hours. I dropped my skis down and wiped the back of my hand across my forehead. Several hours ago, I had unzipped my coat, desperate to shed a layer or two when the day proved to be a mild one.

In the distance, a bubbling stream echoed through the woods, overflowing with melting snow. Green tips of moss and ferns peeked through the top layer of white all around us, and motes of flurries shaking loose from the trees glittered in swaths of sunlight breaking through the branches.

Fox stomped around in the snow, clicking his tongue each time his foot left a footprint as deep as his shins. “This snow is no good.”

“What? What do you mean?”

“The higher temps made the top layer melt. We’ll be trying to ski through slush, which makes it hard to control the direction of your skis. Not to mention we can’t see all the rocks and roots that we’ll be plowing through. We need to wait for temperatures to drop a bit, and for the top layer to firm up.”

“Can’t we just walk down?” He gave me an incredulous look. I added meekly, “Scoot down? Slowly?”

Fox shook his head. “You do realize the degree of this drop, right? If you try to walk or...scoot it...you run the risk of rolling down the whole way in a freefall. Trust me, it’ll save time if we just wait a little. I can already feel the temps dropping,” he said, yet was shucking off his coat and top layers that were damp with sweat.

With my lower lip jutted out and a knot in my stomach, I pouted at the top of the hill. Surely there was another way down. “What if you shifted and—”

“Believe me, I wish I could fly us down, but the cover of trees is all we have preventing us from getting caught right now.”

Right. Because his demonic family was on the prowl. My shoulders slumped.

“Come on.” Fox tugged me by the sleeve over into a copse of trees on a flatter plane. A bed of pine needles cushioned each step, and the thick branches above had blocked out most snow from getting underneath. “Sit. Eat something. Hydrate. Rest,” he ordered, plopping down to sit with his back against a tree trunk. “We need to be ready for everything coming tonight, and you haven’t slept since yesterday.”

“Neither have you,” I grumbled. Nonetheless, I dropped down beside him on the dead needle-covered ground. Shoulder to shoulder with Fox, I stripped off my heavy winter coat and pushed down the shoulder straps connected to my snowpants.

I accepted the water and bag of trail mix, keeping my grumbles to myself since he was probably right. He was just looking out for me, and I had to keep telling myself he wasn’t trying to thwart me.

Fox wasn’t like the rest of the Winters. He’d proven that tenfold.

Around a mouthful of his fifth protein bar for the day, Fox said, “Even if we got there earlier, we still would have needed to stop. My plan is contingent on getting there when they’re changing guards, which will be right before dawn tomorrow.”

While tightening the cap on a water bottle, I asked, “What plan? You still haven’t told me about it.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said offhandedly. “We’ll just be sneaking in at the precise moment when they're changing who’s on duty.”

I pursed my lips. Something about the way he said it, or rather, the way he didn’t meet my eye when he said it, made me think I really should be worried. That there was something he was leaving out.

“You don’t really have a plan, do you?” I asked softly.