Every creak or rustle behind her was one of her kidnappers. Each time she heard a noise, Cheyenne took a deep breath and forced herself to keep moving forward, trying to make her steps as light as possible. She walked with her head turned to one side, straining to use her left eye as she never had before. Now that it was lighter, she could see just enough to keep from blundering into tree trunks, but not enough to avoid low-hanging branches.
Her chest ached, and every few minutes she found herself coughing. Each time it was harder to stop. She wanted to lie down. If you froze to death, didn’t you just go to sleep and never wake up? That way, it wouldn’t even hurt. The idea seemed appealing.
A tiny cold dot landed on her cheek, then another in her eyelashes. Snow. It fell faster, softly freckling her face. At home, she hated snow. All her familiar markings, the different textures of grass and gravel, asphalt and concrete, were obliterated. If the snow was deep enough to cover the curb, she had to stay home, because she couldn’t tell one block from another.
Here in the forest, the snow presented a different problem. Soon, with every step, Cheyenne would leave a footprint.
And then it would be a simple matter for them to track her down.
COMING CLOSER BY THE SECOND
Cheyenne had been walking by herself for about half an hour when she heard something moving in the woods behind her. Not making any effort to be quiet. And this time there was no doubt as to what it was.
A human. And coming closer by the second.
Panicked, Cheyenne began a blundering search for shelter. She found a clutch of something that still had leaves, some kind of low bush. Pushing aside branches, she scrambled in. She paid no attention to how it scratched her face and neck, or the wetness that soaked through to her knees. And still, when she was in as deep as she could get, she wondered if her silver coat was shining through a thin patch, or if her shoe was sticking out.
The footsteps came closer and stopped. She could hear someone’s harsh breathing. A man’s. She knew it wasn’t a lost hunter. And it certainly wasn’t someone come to rescue her or they would have been calling out for her. That left only three choices. But which of the three men was it? Roy, TJ, or Jimbo? And did it really matter? Or would she be dead no matter who it was? She remembered TJ’s rank breath when he straddled her. Maybe the real horror would be how long she was alive before she was dead.
It was so hard to hold absolutely still while every molecule of her being screamed that she should run away. How much snow was on the ground? Did her footprints lead straight to her, like an arrow? She was barely breathing.
And then Cheyenne felt it. A cough. Forcing its way out of her throat. Her eyes watered. She bit her lip. She couldn’t cough. She couldn’t. A cough would be her death sentence. The coppery taste of blood washed across her tongue as she bit down harder and harder.
Then the cough pushed its way up out of her chest, tore through her throat, and shattered the silence.
And the footsteps charged toward her.
“No!” Cheyenne screamed. “No! No!” Strong arms lifted her off her feet, and a calloused hand went across her mouth. She struggled, kicking and flailing, but all she did was tire herself out. And she was already so tired.
“Cheyenne!” a voice said. “Sh, sh. Calm down.”
She started to cough again. He dropped his arms and stepped back, leaving her standing.
Cheyenne coughed so hard that she staggered sideways. Finally she managed to gasp, “You’re alive!” In a weird way, it was a relief to know she hadn’t killed him.
“No thanks to you.” His voice was matter-of-fact.
The reality of her situation set in. “Oh,” Cheyenne said. “Right. They sent you out after me, didn’t they?” She realized there was no use running anymore, no use fighting. She had done her best. She had done more than she had ever thought possible. But it hadn’t been enough. “Go ahead,” she said. “Do what you have to do.” She took a deep breath and braced herself.
“What are you talking about?” Griffin asked. “Go ahead with what?”
Cheyenne didn’t understand why he was stretching this out. He must want revenge for her attack. “You’re going to shoot me, right? Just get it over with.”
“Why do you think I’m going to shoot you?”
“Oh, don’t pretend. TJ told me I was going to die. You guys have to kill me so I can’t lead the cops back to you.” She swallowed. In a few more seconds, she would break down and start to beg. And that’s how she would die, begging and choking on her own blood. No. She wouldn’t. She tried to make her voice light, as if this wasn’t really happening. Maybe she could pretend right up until the very end. “So go ahead. Do what you need to do. Just make it fast.” She took a deep breath and then closed her eyes so that she was in complete blackness. She tried to picture her mother’s face.
There was a long silence. When it was broken, it was not by a gunshot, but by Griffin’s voice, weary and disappointed.
“I’m out here trying to help you, not kill you. I came after you on my own. But I don’t think TJ and Jimbo and my dad can be that far behind. So we’ve got to get out of here as fast as we can. Get to the road, flag someone down for help, and go to the cops.”
“Wait. You came out here to help me? After what I did to you?”
“When I first woke up I was pretty pissed off. I’ve got a bloody bump on top of my head the size of an egg, and it throbs every time my heart beats.” Griffin’s voice was tinged with bitterness. “I was actually planning on helping you get away. If you had given me a few more minutes, my alarm would have gone off. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t know if I could trust you not to let it slip. Besides, part of me couldn’t believe they would really do anything that drastic. Not really. But then after you hit me with that wrench, I realized that everyone is capable of violence. Even you. Even my dad. And that I was naive to think that they would really let you go. So my choices were to sit at home and wait, or to find you and help you escape. You know, wandering alone out in the woods in the middle of a snowstorm when you’re blind and have pneumonia is not a really good escape plan.” He let out a long, exasperated sigh. “How could you really believe that I’m some stone-cold killer?”
“What about that gun you held to my head in the car? Remember?”
“Oh. That.” His voice sounded oddly embarrassed. “That wasn’t a real gun.”
“That was actually the cigarette lighter from the dash.”
Cheyenne remembered the circle of cold metal pressed against her temple. “A cigarette lighter?” She had been so scared.
“Sorry.” He took her arm. “Come on. We’d better start moving before they catch up with us. You can tell the cops that I helped you. And that I never meant for this to happen.”
Cheyenne didn’t move. “Won’t you get in a lot of trouble?”
“I think it’s a little bit late for me to be thinking about that. I’m already in trouble. It’s just a matter of how bad. So let’s get going.”
FACE THE FACTS
Two hours earlier, Griffin had woken up with one hell of a headache. The alarm was buzzing, and he had a blurry feeling that it had been going off for a while.
Before he had lain down beside Cheyenne, he had set the alarm for two thirty. He was sure it wouldn’t be necessary, that he would be too keyed up to sleep.
And that was his last waking thought.
Now the clock said it was 3:12 A.M. He sat up. A wave of dizziness crashed over him. His head ached
