Rebel was handling the terrain better, but she’d looped back for him, sticking by his side. He wanted to tell her to go ahead, but he couldn’t manage to get the command out. And he wasn’t sure she’d obey it even if he did, especially when his bad leg buckled slightly, and his foot slid dangerously forward. He managed to catch himself by angling his free shoulder right into the trunk of a tree. The branches whipped against his face, against Kensie’s legs hanging over his chest. It ripped the shotgun out of his hand, sent it tumbling down the mountain, bouncing off trees as it crashed downward. The path he and Kensie would take if he slipped again.
Keeping his shoulder pressed into the tree, Colter regained his footing. Lungs screaming, heart thundering, he stopped, finally glancing back. Scanning the ridge of the mountain, he saw nothing. No woman with a rifle, no boy with a pistol.
He strained to hear over the racing of his heart, but he couldn’t make out the sound of an engine, either. Not a truck or even a snowmobile, which would be much more agile to come after them and which the Altiers surely had, living so far from resources.
“Rebel,” he wheezed, tapping his thigh.
His dog scooted under the tree with them and Colter eased down, lowering Kensie off his shoulders. Setting her down made his legs tremble violently. When he had her on the ground, he allowed himself to slide down, too, praying he’d be able to get back up.
“Are you okay?” she asked, her eyes huge, before he could ask her the same thing.
“Let me see your leg,” he said instead of answering.
She scooted around, grimacing as she lifted her left calf onto his lap so he could get a look at it.
Her jeans were saturated with blood below the knee. The bullet had ripped a hole through her pants that he didn’t want to open further in this weather. But he could see the swollen, damaged skin that was exposed, and the injury was still pumping out blood.
Colter probed it as gently as he could. There was no exit wound. Probably because of the distance, maybe the angle. He couldn’t tell where the bullet was, if it had lodged right below the entrance or if it had ricocheted around inside of her, redirected by bone until it made a mess.
He had basic medic training, but he didn’t have the supplies to deal with a bullet wound. All he could do was stop the bleeding and get her to a hospital as soon as possible.
The second he peeled off his winter coat, his body tensed up as the cold penetrated deeper. Ignoring it, he peeled off his shirt, then the undershirt he wore beneath. Swearing, he quickly pulled his shirt back on, zipping his coat over it. Then he wrapped the undershirt around Kensie’s leg, knotting it tightly enough to make her yelp.
“Sorry. I’ve got to stop the bleeding.”
Thankfully, it did stop. Not instantly, but his shirt went from white to a pale pink and then didn’t change. He prayed it would stay that way if she had to run on it. Because he wasn’t sure he could carry her out of here.
He wanted to stay under this tree, rest a while. But as Kensie traced a finger over the welts on his face from the branches, he peeked out from underneath the tree. Still no sign of the family on the top of the mountain. But the longer they stayed in one spot without moving, the more the cold would seep into them. The more likely they were to slowly die from exposure.
“Do you see them?” Kensie whispered, reminding him of the problem of running: the possibility that one or both of them would get shot.
“No.”
“They’re not coming after us.” Kensie’s shoulders slumped and moisture filled her eyes. “They’re running. They know we found Alanna, and now they have time to disappear.”
Chapter Twenty
It was starting to get dark.
Kensie peered up at the sky for a split second and lost her balance. Her arms darted out, seeking something to grip, and found a tree branch on the left. It slowed her, but then the branch snapped and her feet slid again, her boots not getting enough traction in the snow.
It had been falling faster since they’d taken shelter briefly under the fir tree where Colter had wrapped her leg. She’d suggested waiting to see if it slowed, but Colter had insisted they keep moving.
He’d looked worried then. He looked even more worried now as his arm shot out in front of her, giving her something to hold.
She grabbed on with both hands. He grunted as he stiffened his arm, stopping her downward slide.
“Sorry,” she wheezed. It hurt to talk. Colter had pulled her hood over her head earlier, knotting it tight, reducing her peripheral vision but helping her retain heat. Supposedly.
But since they’d left the shelter of the fir tree, the cold had seemed to invade her from the inside out, settling in her lungs and even her bones. Her left leg throbbed and the shirt Colter had wrapped around it was now bright red. She was unbearably tired and scared that the exhaustion was less from the trek and more from loss of blood.
She had no idea how long it had been since they’d run from the cabin, just that it was long enough for the sun to settle low in the sky. The three of them were still picking their way down the mountain. She and Colter were using the trees for support. Rebel was better at keeping her balance, but even she was sliding periodically and she’d started favoring her injured back leg.
She and Colter were both limping badly.
