Dammit, he’d missed! The angle was all wrong, and the wind wasn’t helping. Neither was his wounded shoulder, and the snow kept trying to glue his eyelashes together.
Jason clenched his jaw to keep it from shivering and painfully shrugged off the backpack full of cash and ammo he’d been carrying, setting it aside in the snow. He needed to reposition himself to get a better shot.
Inching closer toward the edge of the cliff, he kept well away from the lip. He’d been damn lucky he hadn’t fallen to his death when the avalanche started.
Somehow, the man and woman were both still alive down there. He couldn’t afford to let them live. He wanted this over and done with so he could get off this fucking mountain and find another way out.
Leaning as much of his weight as he dared onto his front foot, he brought his rifle to his shoulder and took aim once more. Shock punched through him when he found the woman aiming right at him.
Just as he went to pull the trigger, she fired.
The bullet came within inches of hitting him in the hip, pinging off a rock right next to him. Instinct made him dive out of the way, landing on his belly in the snow.
Almost instantly, he heard the crumbling sound again. He jerked his head up, stared in horror at the lip of the cliff as it began to shift and buckle.
“Shit,” he breathed, scrambling away on his hands and knees until he could get to his feet. His gaze snagged on the backpack, precariously close to where the snowpack was crumbling away.
His heart lurched. No!
He lunged for it, skidding to his knees in the snow. The straps remained inches from his straining fingers. A different sort of fear shot through him. He needed what was in that backpack to get out of here. Couldn’t make it without it.
Cursing mentally, he flopped to his belly and inched forward, his heart threatening to explode as the ground kept giving way. The abyss coming closer and closer.
His wounded shoulder ached as he reached out, stretching as far as he could. Finally, his fingers brushed the straps. He curled them around it, scrambled to his feet and darted for more stable ground.
The rumbling got louder, the ground undulating beneath his feet. He took three more running steps, then dove for solid ground on his belly, skidding across the snow with the backpack clutched tight in his fist.
Shaking all over, he rolled to his side just in time to see another slide tumble down the cliff face behind him.
BRAXTON FELT LIKE he’d been hit by a truck.
He was dizzy, still trying to get his bearings when Tala wrenched away from him and flopped into a prone shooting stance with her rifle to her shoulder. Biting back a curse, he shot a hand out, intending to grab her and haul her behind whatever cover he could find, but it was too late.
The pop of her shot punched through the air. He jerked his gaze upward just in time to see the shooter dive away from the bullet and disappear from view.
“Missed him,” Tala muttered, anger clear in her voice. She kept her cheek pressed to the stock, watching, ready to take another shot.
A cracking sound wrenched his attention back up to the cliff edge just as the lip began to give way again.
Christ.
He lunged forward to grab Tala by the back of her jacket, yanking her out of the way milliseconds before the plume of debris hit beside them.
They hit the snow just as the deadly river of snow and rock rushed down the hill, mere feet behind them. He wrapped his arms around her and tucked her into his body as they rolled away from it, trying to shield her from anything poking out of the ground.
Her rifle jammed into his chest, and her weight drove it in harder. He sucked in a breath and clamped his jaw tight, still rolling them.
Pain shot through every single bruise and contusion on his back, chest and hips, but he didn’t let go. Didn’t stop. All that mattered was protecting Tala.
After another few seconds they finally came to a stop on their sides, with Tala’s face shoved into his shoulder. The sliding sound of the snow behind them stopped.
Tala shoved up onto an elbow to peer down at him. “You okay?” she asked worriedly, cradling the side of his face in the palm of her glove.
“Yeah,” he muttered, even though everything throbbed and ached. He lifted his head to take a look behind them and blinked until his blurry vision sharpened. The mini avalanche had stopped but the shooter was probably still up there somewhere.
They needed cover. Now.
His back and shoulders felt like they’d been beaten with a hammer. He winced, woozy as hell. He didn’t think he had a concussion but his head was pounding. “Gotta move,” he told her.
“To where?”
He spotted a group of boulders nearby. Not big enough to afford them total protection, but better than nothing. Looking up at the ridge, there was no sign of the shooter.
He put a hand on Tala’s shoulder and pushed her away from him gently. “Get behind those rocks.”
She lifted up onto her hip and looked behind her. Seeing them, she flipped over, put her rifle harness back on and started crawling for the rocks. Unable to walk without her right ski.
Braxton rolled painfully to his hands and knees and followed. He’d lost his pistol in the initial avalanche. All they had now was Tala’s .22 and what little ammo she had left, against a shooter with a high-powered rifle. He was dizzy enough that he wasn’t sure he could even hit anything right now.
Tala scooted behind the rocks and made as much room for him as she could. “I don’t see him,” she whispered, shrugging out of her harness and bringing her rifle into position again.
He leaned to the side slightly to see around the rocks and followed her gaze, a sense of vertigo hitting him. Immediately he closed his eyes, sucking in a deep breath as a wave of nausea swirled in his stomach.
When he opened his eyes a few moments later, the world spun for a few seconds. He shook it off, squinting at the ridge above them.
For a few minutes there was nothing. Just the snow falling softly. Then he caught a flash of movement on the top of the ridge.
His muscles tensed and he opened his mouth to warn Tala, reaching a hand out to flatten it against her back. Ready to throw himself on top of her.
“I see him,” she murmured, the calm determination in her voice impressing him.
Bastard still wasn’t giving up. Braxton lost sight of him for a few seconds. Then a slight shadow appeared in the snow near the edge of the ridge. “He’s moving to the right,” he whispered. “Eighty yards. Wind’s gusting between forty-five and fifty klicks from the northeast. Adjust right to counter.”
Tala tracked the target without answering. Braxton bit back other corrections, not wanting to distract her, itching to take the shot himself in spite of the vertigo. And when the asshole suddenly rose onto his knee to take a shot at them, Tala honed her aim and pulled the trigger.
Hit. Braxton heard the round strike. Saw the shooter disappear from view.
Tala raised her head slightly, rifle still to her shoulder. “Did I hit him?” she whispered.
“Damn right, you did. Low center mass, right.” He stayed low on his belly, watching, acting as her spotter as the tense seconds ticked past. Nothing happened. No more movement. No shadows. “He’s down.”
“Dead?”
“If he’s not, he will be soon.” At any rate, Braxton didn’t plan to wait here a minute longer to find out. “Let’s go.”
She locked eyes with him, her forehead creased in a deep frown. “Go where? Neither of us can ski.”
“We’ll move out on foot.”
“But I can’t, I—”
“I’ll carry you.”
“No.” She shook her head, adamant.
“Yes. We’re leaving, now.” He shoved to his feet and reached for her, seizing her wrist and pulling her upright. A wave of dizziness hit him. He swayed a second, then the world righted itself. “Hurry.”
She hesitated another moment, then slipped her harness back on and grabbed hold of his shoulders when he pulled her toward his back. “Brax, are you sure…”
“Get on,” he said gruffly, still woozy and nauseated and not wanting to waste energy on arguing.
Tala gingerly wound her arms around the front of his neck. He leaned forward at the waist slightly and held his arms back a little, bracing himself for the coming pain.
Tala jumped up. He caught her under the thighs and sucked in a breath as her weight landed against his bruised back, lighting up every sore spot. “Are you okay?” she demanded, holding on tight with her arms and squeezing his waist with her thighs.
He didn’t answer, merely turned and began walking down the slope with her clinging to his back, concentrating on keeping them both upright. And with every step he hoped the building site was a lot closer than he thought it was.
He would get her out of here safely if it was the last thing he did.
****
He was hurting bad. Tala knew it by the way Braxton held himself, by the shallow breaths he took as he carried her, slogging through the thigh-deep snow.
He could only go fifty meters or so each time before he had to stop and rest. She would slide off him and give him a minute to catch his breath, taking her rifle off her back and watching their six, just in case.
There was still no sign of the shooter. If she’d hit him center mass, then he was probably dead by now. Tala couldn’t believe she might have killed a man today, but she wasn’t sorry. She’d done what she’d had to in order to protect her and Braxton.
“Okay,” Braxton said, his lips pressed into a thin line as he slowly straightened and gave her his back again.
She slung her rifle harness on and hopped up on his back, her thighs quivering with the effort of keeping her legs locked around his waist. Her stump was still driving her insane with that blend of deep bone pain and electric shocks that sizzled up the back of her thigh.
She hated that she couldn’t walk on her own, that she was slowing their descent down and exhausting Braxton when he was clearly already in pain.
But he didn’t complain. Didn’t swear or mutter, only the occasional low groan escaping him as he trudged downhill. All the while, she held on tight, trying to make it as easy on him as possible.
At least the wind and snow had eased up finally, no longer slicing at them like an icy blade. She was still cold, but being plastered to Braxton’s broad back helped, and every step took them closer to the bottom of the mountain.
Now that the storm was dying out she could at least see around them, but not far enough to orient herself. With the map and GPS spotter gone and no cell service, she had no clue where they were at this point. The avalanche had messed up her sense of direction, and nothing about their current surroundings was familiar because of all the new snow.
All she knew was they needed to move downhill to reach the valley, and then hopefully they’d be able to call for help or at least be able to figure out where the building site was. Rylee and Tate must be going insane with worry right now.
She jerked when her cell phone began buzzing against her chest. “My phone,” she said to Braxton, unwrapping one arm from his chest to tug at her jacket zipper. “It’s working.”
Braxton stopped. She slid off him, holding onto his shoulder with one hand to steady herself as she reached into the front of her jacket and beneath the sweatshirt and Lycra suit to retrieve her phone from inside her sports bra. It was still buzzing when she pulled it out.
Over a dozen messages showed up, most from Tate. Some from Rylee.
Relief punched through her, so powerful she sagged a little. “The last message is from Tate, sent thirty-five minutes ago. He and Mason were leaving the building site on snowmobiles, heading up to look for us at the last position the GPS spotter marked us at.”
She tried calling but he didn’t pick up. So she typed back a quick response saying they were okay but in need of a ride back to the building site. She couldn’t give them an exact location, but they were somewhere between the last known position and the building site.
She looked at Braxton, hope a painful pressure rising inside her ribcage. She wanted off this damn mountain as soon as possible, to get Braxton checked out. “They have to be close.”
He nodded once, opened his mouth to say something.
A loud crack sliced through the air, and shards of bark exploded from the tree less than a foot from Tala’s left shoulder.