Two feet of snow piled up against the outside of the door, nearly as effective as the padlock for keeping the girls locked inside. Mercy dug at it like a dog, exertion heating her face. Finally the door could open enough for Kaylie to squeeze through. Morrigan was right behind her. Mercy hugged her niece tight to her chest, wishing she’d left the girl back in town. “You need to head through the forest.”
“What about you?” Kaylie pleaded. Her gaze went from Mercy’s bulletproof vest to the rifle slung over her shoulder. “Oh.”
“My mother?” Morrigan whispered, clutching Kaylie’s arm. Her eyes were huge in her delicate face.
“She’s fine,” Mercy promised. “I saw her get out. You two need to start moving. No stopping.”
“I love you, Aunt Mercy.” Kaylie’s voice cracked and she wiped her eyes.
“Love you more.” Mercy ached to hug her again, but time was too tight. “Go.”
She watched the two figures lumber through the snow, Kaylie towing Morrigan behind her.
Mercy darted back to the tree line and continued her trek to get Gabriel in her sights.
Truman stopped and turned off the ATV, not trusting his ears.
More explosions?
Two more far-off detonations sounded, and more smoke rose in the direction of Mercy’s cabin.
Fire.
Mercy? Kaylie?
Images from his past of a burning car flashed in his mind, replaced by the recall of a recent burning barn. His healed burns prickled and stung under the skin of his neck and thigh at the memories, the old injuries echoing in his nerves. Every fiber of his muscles wanted to run in the opposite direction. His heart was thick in his throat as he restarted the ATV, his focus on Mercy and Kaylie. I might be walking into a nightmare. He shut down the terror that tried to take over his brain. Please be safe.
His progress had been painstakingly slow. The vehicle wasn’t capable of much speed, and the snow made it feel as if he were crawling.
Am I too late?
THIRTY-EIGHT
Smoke and flames billowed from all her windows.
Frozen in shock, Mercy’s muscles threatened to shatter.
I won’t cry. It’s just boards and bricks.
But it was more than that. Her cabin was the result of years of backbreaking work. It had kept her centered and grounded.
Now she floated with no tether, anxiety and panic taking her higher. Her aspirations and dreams burning as she watched.
Her soul crumbling, she leaned against a tree, closing her eyes to block the burning of her core.
Knowing she had a fallback position had kept her sane, and her brain threatened to tip over into the dark.
Not now. Don’t think about it now.
Four months earlier it was all she’d had. Now she had Kaylie. Her family. Truman.
Thoughts of Truman brought her back down to earth, helping her focus, and she sucked in deep breaths, exhaling for long seconds, slowing her heartbeat.
Her cabin could be rebuilt. Some supplies were still safe in the barn.
She opened her eyes and pushed away from the tree, dragging her grit and tenacity up from the very bottom of her rattled soul. She had a mission. A deadly one. She drew her handgun and led with it gripped in front of her, tuning out the sounds of the fire.
Just you and me, Gabriel.
She wasn’t sure of his location. There’d been no explosions for several minutes. Just the roar of the flames. They stretched out of her windows and licked the edges of her roof. Steam rose from the shingles, and she had a stab of regret about the expensive solar panels.
Doesn’t matter.
Concentrate.
On her right she was nearly even with the front of the house, but she didn’t see Gabriel or his vehicle.
Shit. Where are you?
She crouched, scanning her surroundings for any movement. Nothing. She moved from tree to tree, her pace slower, more intent on the hunt. Sweat covered her upper lip, and she brushed it with her sleeve. She holstered her pistol and unslung the rifle from her shoulder.
What if he went after the girls?
Fear blossomed in her lungs. She turned to retrace her steps and search for a renegade path in the snow.
Fire shot through her right thigh, and the report of a gun filled her ears. Looking down, she saw a spray of red had stained the white snow. My blood? She took a step, her leg collapsed, and she fell on her stomach, the rifle flying out of her hands and sinking into the snow.
White-hot pain surged up her nerves and exploded in her brain. “Fuuuuuck!”
She scrambled to lift herself out of the snow, but everywhere she set her hands they sank deep, nearly burying her face. The pain flourished, expanding and multiplying. She gasped, inhaling suffocating mouthfuls of white fluff.
Managing to roll on her side, she stared at the blood seeping out of a hole in her leg. It’s not pulsing. No artery hit.
Gabriel shot me.
Anger radiated through her as she thrashed to look in every direction for her attacker.
I’m as vulnerable as a bird with a fucking broken wing.
She frantically lurched to her feet. Get to the barn. Unable to dig out her rifle, she drew her handgun. Her thigh was a hot, throbbing electric wire, and with every step she nearly blacked out.
The barn was out of the question.
She flung herself at the base of a gigantic pine, its trunk wide enough to stop a truck. Placing her back flat against the tree, she gripped her handgun in front of her, using the tree to support her stance. She erratically swung her weapon from the right to the left, searching for her shooter, ignoring her crooked trail of blood.
If I didn’t know it was mine, I’d think a dying deer had struggled through the snow.
Her vision started to tunnel and she grew light-headed. She blinked rapidly, refusing to give in.
“Hello, Mercy.” His voice came from a distance, but she heard every syllable.
Instant sweat coated her spine at Gabriel’s words. She pivoted in all directions, trying to pinpoint his location. He wasn’t to be seen.
“That’s a lot of blood.”
There he is. He stood thirty feet away, between her and the barn, his body behind a pine as wide as hers.
She lifted her pistol in his direction, trying to line up the sights, but the gun weighed fifty pounds and her arms shook with the effort. Her frozen fingers could barely move. I’ll never make a head shot.
He laughed, not even bothering to protect his head.
Furious, she fired six times, sending the bark of his tree flying through the air.
She slightly lowered her arms, the shots ringing in her ears.
“You missed.” This time he kept his head behind the tree.
“What do you want, Gabriel?” She tried to get behind her own tree, but her leg refused to cooperate, pain rocketing up and down her nerves. Her right knee tried to bend backward and she flailed, grabbing at the trunk, the impact knocking her pistol from her numb hand. It sank into the snow an easy five feet away.