Kavenski said something too low for Cara to hear over the rush of the wind and the thrum of her frantically beating heart. The car shot forward just as the gun went off. With a sharp crack, the back-seat window shattered, the safety glass crumbling around a gaping hole.
“Cara!” Kavenski yelled, reaching toward her as if he was going to retroactively ward off a bullet with his bare hand.
“I’m okay!” She was screaming the words, unable to believe that she hadn’t been hit. “It missed me! I’m not hit!”
Cara couldn’t stop twisting her head around and staring at the shattered window, knowing how close that bullet had come. The broken glass made her feel even more vulnerable as the SUV started catching up to them again.
Forcing herself to face front, she realized that Kavenski was still trying to check her over for injuries while he drove. “Just drive!” she ordered, gesturing toward the windshield. “I’m fine.”
Even though his expression was grimmer than she’d ever seen it, he turned his full attention back to the road. Bracing for the next turn, Cara felt her arms shake as she clung to the door with one hand and the dash with the other. A part of her randomly wondered if there was such a thing as overdosing on adrenaline. If so, she had to be approaching her limit—if she hadn’t already shot by it.
Their car flew around the sharp curve, centrifugal force pulling her toward Kavenski. Her arm ached with the effort of holding on to the door handle, the cliff edge too close for comfort. From the way that he kept glancing at the narrow shoulder, Kavenski didn’t seem too happy about their position, either.
As they rounded the final part of the turn, the car skipped sideways, the tires squealing as they sought to find traction. Cara’s fingers tightened as she cringed back against her door, certain that they were going to fly off the road and tumble to their deaths. Metal screeched against metal as the side of the car scraped against the guardrail, and Cara hoped desperately that her text to Molly had gone through. If she was going to die on this mountain, she at the very least wanted all her sisters to know that she loved them before she was literally flung off a cliff.
The car bounced off the guardrail toward the center of the road, straightening and shooting forward. Cara blinked several times before the truth sank in. “We’re not dead?”
“Not yet,” Kavenski answered through a set jaw, his fingers pale as he gripped the wheel.
Sinking as far down in her seat as her seat belt would allow, Cara stared through the damaged windshield, willing the town to pop up in front of them. Instead, a dark shape appeared, and her spine snapped straight. The shattered glass, held together only by the inner film, mottled the scene in front of her, making it impossible to make out any details…except that it was getting bigger—fast. “What’s that?” she asked, her voice trembling.
“Truck.” The way Kavenski snapped out the word made it sound like a warning, but there was nothing she could do except sit there and watch the distorted blob get larger and larger. She sent a frantic glance to her right, checking if, by some miracle, the lane next to them had opened up, only to see the masked driver pushing the SUV faster and faster until the two vehicles were almost parallel. Despite the driver’s face being covered, she could still see the gleeful look, the cold amusement that she and Kavenski and some innocent truck driver were all about to die. There was nowhere for their car to go.
Kavenski suddenly braked, making Cara lurch forward before the seat belt and her grip on the dash stopped her. The first SUV shot past them, but the second managed to stop, filling the right lane as effectively as the other one had. The truck in front of them blared its horn, long blasts that turned wavery in Cara’s ears as time seemed to slow. The semi was getting so close that it filled the windshield, blocking out everything else. She could only stare and listen to the thrum and hiss of air brakes as she waited to be obliterated.
As she braced her feet against the floor, both hands in front of her on the dash—despite knowing that none of that would do any good when they were hit head-on by a freaking semi truck—the car jerked to the left. The unexpected movement startled Cara out of her fatalistic paralysis, and she turned her head to look at Kavenski. The car shot toward the edge of the road, flying over the miniscule shoulder and over the edge of the drop-off, just as the semi hurtled by behind them.
They weren’t going to be obliterated by the truck after all. No, they were going to be smashed to bits at the bottom of the cliff.
Cara’s frightened scream somehow turned into an inhale instead, ripping against her throat and getting trapped inside her lungs. The tires bounced off the rocks, picking up speed with each jounce. When her terrified mental scream eased enough for her to think, she realized that they weren’t in the free fall she’d expected. Instead, they were on a steep rocky slope, one that she would hesitate to hike down, much less drive.
“Did you just hurl us off a freaking cliff?” she demanded once she’d recovered enough to speak. Her voice still held a terrified squeak, but she felt that higher pitch was fully justified. “I thought the whole goal was to not fling ourselves into the void!”
The car hit a sapling, shooting them to the right. “Better this than…” He paused as the car hit a particularly big rock and they went airborne for a horrifyingly long moment. The car landed again, bouncing hard enough to make Cara’s teeth clack together, and then continued hurtling down the mountainside. Kavenski picked up where he’d left off, as if there hadn’t even been a pause. “…being hit by that semi.”
Cara watched, terrified, as rocks and evergreen branches flew by her window fast enough to blur. At the moment, this didn’t seem like a much better alternative than instant death. At least that would be over fast. Watching their downward slide was too terrifying, so she turned and latched her gaze on Kavenski. In just the short time she’d known him, she’d started to rely on his unflappable expression to calm her down. Whether they’d be crushed to death at the bottom of the cliff or not, her screaming and flailing wasn’t going to help. Staring at him, she could almost believe that he was still driving on a gravel road—well, a really bumpy, terrifyingly treacherous gravel road.
There were subtle signs of tension in him, now that she was looking so closely. He had a death grip on the wheel, and his jaw was clenched so tightly that there were white streaks underneath his tan complexion. But even as they basically tumbled uncontrollably down a mountain, he was still in control, fighting to keep the car going in the general direction he wanted it to go.
Dust, thick and choking, billowed up from behind the car and drifted into the broken rear window. Releasing the dash with one hand, she covered her mouth and nose with her arm, trying to breathe through the fabric of her hoodie to filter the air slightly. The right side of the car lifted, bucking underneath her as it hit ground again. A loud bang echoed across the cliffside, and the jolting became a hundred times worse.
“Blown tire?” she asked, her voice still embarrassingly high-pitched. Just when she’d started to think that things might miraculously work out, something like this happened.
“Yeah.” His voice matched his grim, determined expression as he jerked the wheel sharply. The car obeyed somewhat, but the flat tire didn’t allow him to maneuver well enough to miss a large pine tree altogether. The car flew closer, the right rear corner smacking against the tree. It bounced off, sending them sliding in a diagonal trajectory that Cara was pretty sure wasn’t even close to where Kavenski had originally planned to take them.
The car lurched and jerked, ricocheting off larger rocks and gnarled trees as if they were in a giant pinball game. Kavenski twisted the wheel to muscle the car back into a nose-first position, but it was too late. Momentum had taken over, sending them on an uncontrollable dive down the slope.
Cara grabbed on to the door handle with one hand and reached out with the other, needing the comfort of human contact during what could be the last moments of her life. Releasing the wheel, Kavenski grabbed her hand, tightly enfolding it in his huge mitt.
The car rotated until it was completely sideways, skidding down the mountain driver’s side first. Smaller pieces of earth and rock bounced along with them, a tiny landslide knocked loose by their careening vehicle. A larger boulder protruded out of the side of the hill, and Cara stared at it through the driver’s window. As they got closer, she held her breath, hoping that they would slide right by, but they weren’t that lucky. With a loud crunching sound, the front of the car slammed into the huge rock.
The force of the hit spun the vehicle again, turning it so that the trunk was heading downhill first. Cara swallowed a scream and clung to Kavenski’s hand. Somehow, it was even more terrifying to fly backwards down a mountain. She didn’t have to worry about that long, however. As it smacked into trees and rocks, the car flipped around in nausea-inducing changes of direction until a sharp ridge of rock brought it to a sliding stop.
She didn’t even have enough time to take a relieved breath before the car was moving again, this time flipping onto its side. The metal groaned, and small rocks and bits of safety glass rained over them through the smashed windows. Unable to hold back her shriek of terror, she released Kavenski to grab her door handle with both hands, clinging for dear life as the car slid for what felt like forever before toppling over again, this time landing upside down. The air left her lungs in a rush, not giving her enough oxygen to scream. Instead she clung to her handholds, mentally shrieking as the car was tossed around like a toy.
All the blood rushed to Cara’s head as she reached up—no, down—to brace her hands on the ceiling. Her body was squashed and confused, gravity pulling her down while her seat belt held her strapped to her seat.
The car continued to slide, picking up speed, bouncing over rocks and dirt like a three-thousand-pound saucer sled. The upside-down view through the broken windows was blurred and surreal, and Cara couldn’t catch her breath as they flew down the slope. Sharp bits of wood and stone pinged against her skin, and thick dust made it even harder to breathe. It felt like they’d been hurtling down the mountain forever. Cara squeezed her eyes closed, mentally chanting At least we’re still alive. At least we’re still alive.
The car jolted with a protesting creak of metal and plastic, slipping twice more before coming to a shuddering stop. Cara froze, her eyes still locked shut, unable to believe that they’d truly come to a halt. She held very still, waiting for the car to start moving again, to plunge them off a final cliff. As they’d crashed down, flipping from side to top, she hadn’t really believed they’d survive. Now that the car wasn’t moving, she didn’t dare believe the nightmare was over.
It was unbearably quiet—even the engine must have been killed at some point—with only the light patter of pebbles that had followed them down the slope landing on the body of the car and the slight whine of the wind disturbing the utter peace. A tiny bubble of hope rose in her, expanding until her entire chest was filled with elation.
They’d done it. They’d survived.
A rough voice cut through the silence. “Cara? You with me?”
It felt strange to speak, as if the trip down the mountain had taken fifty years and she’d forgotten in the meantime how to form words. When she first tried, a cough escaped instead, forcing the coating of dust and dirt from her throat. Her second attempt was more successful. “I think I still have all my pieces.” It was hard to tell, though. She tried to do a mental inventory, but her upside-down position was messing with her senses. “I need to get down.”
“Hang on.”
She laughed weakly at that and then wondered how she was able to find amusement in the current situation. “No choice but to hang on, really.” Her voice cracked on the last word, and she coughed again.
A click from the driver’s side was quickly followed by a heavy thud, and Cara forced her eyes open. The light was strange in the remains of the car, too bright in places and completely dark in others. She focused on Kavenski, who was untangling himself out of the heap he’d landed in after letting himself out of his seatbelt.
Seeing him freed made her feelings of claustrophobia worse, and she fumbled with her own seat-belt latch, forgetting his request to hang on. The car shifted slightly, tortured metal groaning, and she gripped her seat belt with both hands and froze, her fear of being trapped overwhelmed by a more immediate fear of imminent death. A strangled whimper escaped her throat as she turned to look through what remained of her window.
There was only empty space.
A single tree trunk kept them from falling into the chasm. It wasn’t like the fairly steep but survivable slope that they’d just traversed. This drop would be straight down to the river below. There was no way they could live through that.
The car creaked again, and Cara very carefully turned her head toward Kavenski to see him inching toward her across the car ceiling that had been turned into an unsteady floor. Her terror must’ve been obvious, because he started talking in a tone more soothing than she’d thought him capable of.
“It’s going to be okay, Cara.” In a crouch, he shifted another inch closer, and the car rocked ever so slightly, as if they were in a sailboat on a still lake…right at the top of a waterfall. She gripped her seat belt tighter and concentrated on not losing her mind with fear. “Just stay calm. I’m almost there. We’ll get you free and then both get out of here.”
She wanted to tell him to knock it off, that his gentle tone was too weird to handle, and that it was freaking her out, but she didn’t know if she was capable of saying anything at the moment. Instead, she concentrated on his face, on the eternally calm expression that was marred by dirt and a few streaks of blood.
“Good job,” he said, as if she’d done anything except hang there frozen and stare at his face. “I’m just about there.” He was close enough to touch her shoulder, and he pressed her up slightly, taking a little pressure off the areas where the seat belt kept her secured. Shifting over again, he reached for the latch, the maneuver forcing them to press so tightly together that her cheek was flat against his thigh.
The car creaked as something snapped, making the passenger side dip. Cara’s stomach swooped at the movement, and she released her grip on the seat belt to clutch at the man in front of her. He’d gone still, which scared her almost more than the rocking car.
“Okay.” His voice was rougher than it had been a few seconds earlier. She actually preferred that to his unnaturally gentle tone. “Going slowly isn’t working. We’re going to get out. Get ready to move fast in three…two…one.”
As soon as he got to one, she heard the click of the seat belt and then the pressure across her chest and waist released. Before she could drop onto her head, however, he was yanking her back into the space above the driver’s seat, both of them tangled in a mess of limbs. There was a thump and then the sound of breaking glass, and the car rocked more violently than it had since they’d stopped sliding.
Cara’s breath caught, turning from what would’ve been a frightened noise to a choked cough. She stared at the squashed and twisted doors, and she knew that they’d be impossible to open.
“It’s okay.” He sounded a little winded as he shoved her headfirst through the opening where the driver’s side window had been. As soon as she realized what he was doing, she tried to help, grabbing at the rocky ground outside to haul herself out of the car. The trip down the mountain had flattened the car, leaving the window openings narrow and misshapen, but she was able to fit through with some wiggling. As soon as her feet cleared the window, she turned around and saw that Kavenski had his arms out and was working to get his broad shoulders through. Grabbing handfuls of the back of his coat, she pulled on him, her stomach twisting as the breadth of his chest filled the entire opening.
She set her jaw. They’d made it this far—through bullets and a cliff dive and a grenade, for Pete’s sake. She wasn’t about to lose him because he was too much of a muscled tank to fit though the smashed window. Getting a better grip at the base of his biceps, she used all the strength she had to haul him out.
His body moved, but it was in inches. The car shifted again, and the crack of wood breaking echoed across the slope, amplifying the sound so it was even more terrifying. Cara redoubled her efforts.
“We’ve got this,” she told him in a hoarse voice. “I’m not letting you go.”
Kavenski didn’t pause in his efforts to escape the car, but he did give her a narrow-eyed glance.
“What?” she puffed, her muscles straining. She hadn’t expected torrents of gratitude, but his look had been more exasperated than grateful.
“Inspirational…speaking,” he gritted out as he dragged himself forward, his muscles vibrating with the strain, “isn’t…your thing.”
She opened her mouth to retort, their back-and-forth strangely reassuring in a crazy way, but then the sound of splintering wood filled the air again. This time, the car lurched sideways, away from them, yanking Kavenski along with it.
Taken by surprise, Cara stumbled forward, pulled by her grip on him, but then she planted her stocking feet and resisted being towed along. Kavenski caught at the rocky ground, searching for handholds, and his fingers locked into a narrow crevice. She tightened her hold and threw herself backward, putting all her weight into being an anchor while she wished she were bigger and stronger, feeling like a hummingbird trying to save an eagle.
With a horrible grinding, tearing sound, the car toppled forward. Cara held on and watched, terrified that Kavenski was going to be dragged along with it. His hips and then legs slid free as the hunk of twisted metal and shattered plastic tumbled over the edge of the cliff. Cara toppled backward, and Kavenski followed her down, landing on her with enough force to drive the remaining air from her lungs. She didn’t care about breathing at that moment, though. She just appreciated the feel of his huge, intact, alive body flattening her against the rocky ground.
The crash of the car landing far below them was as loud as the grenade had been, but somehow worse as the sound bounced around the peaks. Cara flinched at every echo. It had been too close a call. They’d been so close to being inside the vehicle when it fell, so the sound of its destruction hit Cara hard.
Kavenski’s weight lifted as he pushed himself up. Hovering above her, he inspected her with an intense gaze. “You okay?”
“I think so.” Now that he wasn’t on top of her, she could actually breathe again, but a part of her missed the secure feeling of being pinned by his bulk. “Give me a minute. I have to wait for the adrenaline to subside before I know if, you know, one of my legs fell off or something.”
His huff of air could’ve been just an acknowledging grunt, but Cara liked to think that it was a laugh. He rolled to the side so he was lying on his back next to her, and it felt oddly intimate, as though they were in a bed together—if the bed was a sheet of rock.
As her heartbeat started to steady, her aches and pains let themselves be known. Her entire body felt as if she’d been tossed into a cement mixer, but she couldn’t feel any pain that stood out more than any other.
“Everything still attached?” Kavenski sat up and then rose to a crouch, as if he could tell she was mentally cataloging her injuries and ready to report.
“Yeah. Sore, but nothing needs immediate attention.” She started to sit as well, but it was harder than she’d expected, her muscles protesting any movement. Flopping back down, she allowed herself one miserable groan before making her next attempt.
Kavenski offered a hand up, his mouth twitching in that way that was equivalent to a grin from anyone else. She gave him the flattest stare she could manage while scrambling to her feet with his help, hiding her pleasure at getting him to smile.
His humor disappeared quickly once she was standing. “We need to get moving.”
Everything rushed back. “Right. They’ll be looking for us.” She peered up the slope, but she couldn’t see the road. That was good, though. If they couldn’t see their pursuers, hopefully she and Kavenski couldn’t be seen, either.
“Most likely.”
“Won’t they think we’ve gone down with the ship?” She waved in the general direction of the cliff without looking at it. Their close call was too fresh in her mind.
“At first. They’ll eventually check out the wreckage and know that we weren’t in it. Abbott tends to be…thorough.” Kavenski was back to his expressionless, almost harsh way of speaking, and Cara was strangely glad. That soothing voice had been disturbingly unlike him, and she mentally filed away the fact that if he pulled out his gentlest tone, they were probably very close to death.
Focusing on the subject at hand, Cara looked around. The part of the slope they were on wasn’t too steep for them to traverse on foot, but it would be difficult in just her socks. She dropped her gaze to her feet.
Kavenski pulled off his coat, silently eyeing the rips now decorating the sides where they’d caught on the edges of the car window. The sight reminded her that he’d gone through an even more traumatic event than she had. “Are you hurt?” she asked, feeling guilty she hadn’t immediately checked. The man was so stoic that he could be missing a body part, and he’d probably just rub some dirt on it and walk it off.
In response, he flipped his hand in a dismissive gesture, which Cara took to mean that, like her, there was nothing life-threatening wrong, although she guessed he had to be even sorer than she was. As she studied him, looking for signs of more minor injuries, he pulled a folded knife out of one of his pockets and flipped it open.
Her attention caught, she watched as he used the knife to hack off both sleeves of his coat. Although she couldn’t imagine why he was mutilating his outerwear, she kept her mouth shut, figuring she’d eventually figure it out if she kept observing. Once the sleeves were removed, he put on the remains of his coat, which now looked like a hacked-up vest, and put away the knife.
When he pulled out a few zip ties, Cara couldn’t help but flinch. He met her gaze. “Don’t worry. They’re not for tying you up this time.”
This time? Somehow, his words weren’t as reassuring as he’d probably meant them to be. Warily, she watched as he banded the cuff of the separated coat sleeve and pulled the tie tight. He did the same to the other sleeve and then held them out to her.
She accepted the sleeves but held them in front of her, eyeing them uncertainly. “What am I supposed to do with them?”
“Put them on.” When she didn’t immediately follow his command, he gestured impatiently toward her feet.
Looking back and forth between the sleeves and her socks, it finally clicked what he was aiming for. “Oh! They’re boots…well, sort of.” Still not sure how exactly they were going to work, she lifted her foot and pulled one of the sleeves on so the zip-tied end was by her toes. When Kavenski didn’t tell her she was doing it wrong, she put the other one on as well. Immediately, she felt warmer, the insulated fabric making her skin tingle a little painfully as her feet thawed.
Crouching next to her, he pulled the top of the sleeve up past her knee and then secured it with a zip tie. “Too tight?” he asked.
Having his hands on her legs, even for such a practical purpose, made her heat up in a way that had nothing to do with sleeve-boots. Every touch from him instilled such a sense of comfort that she wondered how she’d ever thought him capable of cold-blooded murder. “No.” Her voice came out low and husky enough to make her cheeks heat up.
Either he didn’t notice her face turning red or he was content to ignore it as he added a second zip tie right below her knee, checking wordlessly with her once he’d tightened it. By the time he’d secured the second sleeve, she was feeling very warm, and her heart was beating in double time.
She shook off her reaction as he moved away, telling herself firmly that it was neither the right time nor the right place nor the right man to get silly about. To distract herself, she took a few practice steps. Although her improvised boots didn’t have a hard sole to protect her from sharp rocks, they provided a layer of warmth and cushion her socks didn’t offer. Also, they were much more waterproof than fuzzy fleece.
“These are great. Thank you.”
Kavenski just dipped his chin slightly in acknowledgment before turning his gaze to the area around them. Cara felt a sudden surge of gratitude.
“Thank you for coming to get me,” she continued, feeling a little awkward when his silent attention returned to her. “From the kidnappers. I don’t really mean anything to you, so you could’ve just run, and then they would’ve killed me, so I appreciate the rescue.”
He studied her for long enough that she was having a hard time not shifting uncomfortably under that steady stare. “It wasn’t an option.”
“What wasn’t?”
“Running. Let’s go.” He started off, and she followed, wanting to question him more but too busy keeping up while getting used to the strange feeling of her sleeve-boots. The footing was uncertain, with loose pieces of shale to slip on and protruding rocks to trip over, so she kept her focus on their path, darting occasional glances at Kavenski’s back to make sure she wasn’t falling too far behind.
He must’ve been pacing himself to her speed, because he was always right in front of her when she looked up, and she knew he could move faster than her with his longer legs and regular boots. She wondered if he knew where he was going or if he was making an educated guess. Knowing Kavenski, he had a full topographical map of the mountains in that robot brain of his.
She snorted a laugh, and he glanced over his shoulder at her, his eyebrows drawn together in either question or condemnation. “Sorry. Just amusing myself back here.”
After he turned back around, she gave a small hop to get over a medium-size rock in her way. As she landed, her sweatshirt swung, and something hard in the front pocket bumped against her hip.
“Oh!” she said as realization hit her. Reaching into the pocket, she pulled out Kavenski’s phone. He’d turned around at her first exclamation, and she held the cell out to show him. “I forgot I had it on me. I can’t believe it didn’t fall out in all the commotion.” Commotion didn’t seem like the right word for their terrifying, life-threatening experience, but it made her feel strangely better to reduce the event to something no more scary than a hectic day at home. Pressing the button to turn on the phone, she held her breath, watching the screen intently as she waited for it to light up. There were several cracks zigzagging across the front, but she was still hopeful. After all, her twin was always cracking the screens of her phones, and they continued to work…well, until Charlie dropped them in the toilet or ran over them with a car or something.
When the screen stayed dark, Cara’s shoulders drooped with disappointment.
“Nothing.” She offered the dead phone to Kavenski, who glanced at it before slipping it into one of his coat—well, vest—pockets. She appreciated that he hadn’t tried to turn it on himself, but just trusted that she hadn’t been able to make it work. When he turned and started walking again, she fell in behind him with a silent sigh. A working phone wouldn’t have done much good for them out here anyway. Even if they managed to miraculously get a signal, it wasn’t as though they could call for a Lyft.
The slope they were walking on grew steeper, and Cara was forced to concentrate all of her attention on keeping her footing. The material of her makeshift boots wasn’t too slick, and the lack of soles allowed her to grip with her feet to help keep her on the path, but she would’ve given quite a lot for a pair of hiking boots, especially when the sharper small stones dug into her feet.
Kavenski kept looking back more and more to check on her, and she wondered if that was because of the treacherous footing or because she was muttering invectives under her breath as she did her best to keep up without sliding down the slope.
A cluster of loose shale sent one of her feet slipping down the incline, almost making her lose her balance. Kavenski whipped around as the small rocks rained down the stone slope, but she caught herself before she tipped over.
“I’m okay,” she said, making sure her next steps were secure as she caught up to him. She didn’t want to fall, but she especially didn’t want to topple over while Kavenski was watching. For some unexplainable reason, she wanted him to think she was competent and brave, rather than a damsel in distress. He’d done the bulk of the rescuing so far, but she wanted to do her part to ensure their escape.
Despite her assurance, he was still eyeing her as if she was about to fall off the cliff at any moment. When she came to a stop next to him, he finally looked away. Cara glanced up, too, realizing that she’d been so focused on not dying in the car and then having to pay close attention to where she was putting her feet that she hadn’t really looked at what was around them.
Her breath caught as she took in the view. It felt like being in a sporting goods commercial. The exposed rock that they were crossing looked over an entire panorama of mountain peaks, sloping down to a thick skirt of evergreens and blaze-yellow aspen trees before finally reaching the winding river at the base of the valley. The air was thin and chilled, but it felt clean, and the sun shone merrily down on the gorgeous view. Cara squinted at the clear blue sky, feeling a bit aggrieved. It was much too nice a day, considering all of their near-death experiences.
“What’s wrong?” Kavenski asked. His focus had returned to her while she’d been taking in the view.
“Nothing important,” she said, feeling a bit sheepish. “It’s beautiful out here, but I wish it were a planned hiking trip, and not me in pajamas with sleeves on my feet.”
His grunt sounded like he agreed with that sentiment. “It’s just going to get steeper if we continue across here. We’re going to head for those trees, instead.” He pointed to where the scattered evergreens first cropped up, appearing to be rooted in sheer rock. Cara could appreciate that tenacious clinging to life after the day they’d had. The slope seemed too steep to walk straight down, though.
As if he could read her thoughts, he added, “We’ll switchback down.”
It was still intimidating, but Cara gestured for him to lead the way. He seemed comfortable in the mountains, while she’d only taken a hike or two on groomed trails. Most of her wilderness time had been spent in the fairly flat national forest bordering their backyard, so she was willing to cede control to the more experienced of their twosome. She followed his path exactly as he wove back and forth, creating a zigzagging line that would eventually lead them down the slope.
Focusing on her footing again, she lost track of how many steps they’d taken and how many turns they’d made. When every glance at the trees just showed a frustrating lack of progress, she kept her gaze trained on the rock in front of her feet, with only occasional checks to make sure that Kavenski was still right in front of her.
He was another distraction. Her gaze would catch on his tall, well-built figure and get stuck there, mesmerized by the play of muscles under his cargo pants. It wouldn’t be until her foot landed on a particularly sharp pebble or she stubbed her toe on an outcropping that she would realize that she was staring again. She’d never been so fascinated by a man before, and it was disconcerting, especially since she should’ve been completely focused on their terrifying situation. After priding herself on relying on logic and reason, even in relationships, it was uncomfortable to realize that she was just as susceptible to losing her mind over a tight pair of buns as the next person.
Not the time or the place for crushing on someone, Cara told herself. And definitely not this someone.
She’d been concentrating so hard on not looking at the trees—or Kavenski’s muscled bits—that the brush of pine needles against her shoulder took her by surprise. They’d made it to the trees without falling to their deaths, so Cara took that as yet another win.
“Where do we go from here?” she asked, looking around. The trees blocked some visibility, but she felt so much more secure with something to grab onto in case she slipped or, worst-case scenario, something to block her from falling off a cliff.
Kavenski pointed, which didn’t really tell her anything. Falling in behind him again, she trudged along, keeping an eye on her footing. It was still very rocky, although more dirt and pine needles covered the stone. She dodged around patches of snow, not wanting to test how waterproof her improvised boots were.
Even though she looked around as much as she could when she wasn’t staring at the ground in front of her, she had no idea where they were headed. It all looked the same to her, and the lack of any signs of civilization—no roads, buildings, or even power lines—made her uneasy.
“So…” she started when she couldn’t stand not knowing any longer. “Do you actually know where we’re going, or are you just improvising? Because I feel like we’re at the beginning of one of those survival movies where we think we’re following the path, but we get lost and have to spend the winter fighting mountain lions for scraps.”
She was pretty sure she heard a snort, although it was hard to tell since Kavenski didn’t turn around. “We’re headed east.”
After waiting a few steps for clarification but only getting silence, she gave him a verbal nudge. “East is good. Langston is east…I assume. Do you have a specific destination in mind?”
He gave her an offended look over his shoulder, but she just gave an exaggerated shrug.
“Can you blame me for asking?” She waved in the direction of her feet. “I’m wearing sleeves on my feet, after all.” She was also getting thirsty, tired, hungry, ached all over, and she had to pee, but she didn’t want to whine too much.
“The town of Red Hawk,” he said, facing forward again. “Specifically, the Red Hawk police station.”
Oh, right. That had been their original plan before Kavenski had driven them off a cliff. “That’s right! It’s only, what? Five miles away?”
“Five miles on the road.”
“Oh.” She looked around with fresh dread at the wilderness stretching around them. This time she was glad that the trees limited her visibility. She’d rather not see exactly how far the nothingness went. “I don’t suppose we’re taking the shortcut.”
His laugh didn’t sound very amused. “Nope.”
With a sigh, she settled in for a very long, very rocky walk.