There wasn’t time to look back. Jade had to find her daughter.
She stumbled out the cabin door, praying to reach Dez before anybody else did. Sapphire had fled the cabin while Jade was fighting Gabriel, which meant she could be anywhere. Jade had to be ready.
And she had to protect her daughter.
She screamed Dez’s name, uncertain if she was making noise or not because she couldn’t hear anything, not the crunching of snow beneath her feet or the sound of her panting or frantic yells.
“Dez!”
Previously, during the fighting, her vision had blurred. Narrowed. Now, her periphery slowly returned to focus. “Dez!”
She scoured the snow for tracks. Where had her daughter gone?
Jade still had the gun. Gabriel would never come after her again, but Sapphire might. She had to hurry. Had to get to her daughter before that woman did.
“Dez!”
There inside some ATV tracks were footprints small enough to be her daughter’s. Racing ahead, she stumbled through the snow heaves until she caught sight of a tiny bundle making her way down the trail. “Dez!”
Her daughter turned around, running toward her. As she came near, Dez’s tear-streaked eyes danced with joy. Jade bent down to embrace her.
“I’m sorry, Mama,” Dez was sobbing. “I knew I shouldn’t go with that lady last night, but she said she knew my daddy, and she seemed awful nice at first. But I was really bad to go with her. Please don’t be mad at me.”
Jade’s tears mingled with her daughter’s while they hugged in the snow. “Shh. It’s over now. Everything’s going to be okay.”
“So we’re safe?” Dez asked.
Jade wiped the tears off her daughter’s cheeks. The last thing Dez needed was for them to freeze to her face.
“We’re going to be.”
“I didn’t know which way to go.” Dez was still crying softly. “I didn’t want to get lost, but you told me to run, and I didn’t want to disobey you again, so I just went.”
Jade looked down. Dez’s pants were covered in snow and ice. She had to get them someplace dry.
“Do you know which way we should go?” Dez sniffed.
Jade’s first instinct was to get them both as far away from that cabin as possible, but she had to be more logical than that. She had no idea what time it was, but the sunlight wouldn’t last much longer. Neither of them had coats, and Dez was already shivering. Jade took off her oversized sweatshirt and wrapped her daughter up.
“What about you, Mama? What are you gonna wear?”
“Don’t worry about me. It’s my job to worry about you.”
She took her daughter’s hand and looked around, trying to gauge by the position of the mountains which direction they needed to walk.
“Are you mad at me, Mama? For going with a stranger last night?”
Jade shook her head. “Don’t be silly. Of course I’m not mad. I’m so happy to find you safe and sound I could give you about a million kisses right now.”
Dez grinned. “Oh, yeah? Prove it?”
Jade didn’t waste her time arguing.