More Bitter Than Death: An Emma Fielding Mystery - By Dana Cameron Page 0,99

only goal was to keep on in the direction that I thought would take me to the main road to the hotel, knowing that if I faltered, it was more than a long trudge back through the woods that I would have waiting for me.

The grade rose gradually more steeply, and I realized that I was coming to the road. My foot slipped on the sodden leaves under the snow and I came down hard on my hands, jarring my whole skeleton nearly out of my skin. My teeth clacked together, and a sharp pain and the taste of warm copper followed; my tongue began to throb, and a small sob escaped me as I struggled up the bank. I grabbed at a branch and it snapped under my weight; I slid and made another grab, successful this time, and hauled myself up another few feet. I dug in again, and this time had enough momentum to see the asphalt beyond the snow as I staggered out of the woods.

The snowbank was compacted by the plows and had the same icy glaze as farther back in the woods, but there were coarse handholds that held my weight as I dragged myself up. I could not hear a pursuer, but I didn’t care: I would keep moving until I was either completely safe or I gave out entirely. I rolled down the other side of the snowbank and felt the grit of ice and sand as I slid onto the verge.

I stood up and looked around wildly, trying to orient myself, and staggered into the middle of the street. A blare of a horn made me jump, and as I turned, a big red pickup truck swerved around me, the horn still sounding and the driver an angry blur of reflexive driving and vehement gestures all at once.

I spun around again, not sure which way I should go to avoid the danger that was now already past, when I saw that the truck had stopped a few meters ahead of me. Bracing myself against the driver’s anger, I realized that not only was he not extracting himself from the cab, but also that I recognized the hat that was visible through the rear windshield. A colorful Andean knitted hat with a jaunty peak and earflaps with strings dangling was just about visible past the driver’s headrest, and I realized that it was Meg Garrity who was driving. She was shouting at me, though I couldn’t make out what she was saying for the blood pounding in my ears. All I know was that the familiar TRK GRRL license plate meant my salvation was at hand, and I ran for it.

Meg opened her door and almost got out, but I screamed, “No, don’t! Just get us out of here!” I flung myself at the back of the truck, my feet now feeling leaden and my muscles resisting every demand that I made on them.

Sliding on the ice where there was no salt, and rolling forward on the coarse grains where they were, I threw myself up and over the drop door of the truck, getting a facefull of plastic woven sacks full of sand. My feet still dangling outside the bed, I slapped at the rear panel, and the truck lurched away.

“Go! Go!” My grip was less sure than I imagined, and I slid back, almost falling off the truck altogether, my elbows slamming into the drop door and saving me, even as one foot dropped off the bumper and bounced the toe of my boot along the pavement as Meg sped away. The cold metallic tang of the truck bed, the industrial feel of the sand bags, and the exhaust of the truck were the most reassuring smells I could have imagined at this point.

Meg swerved to miss potholes, but then hit a couple of doozies that knocked the wind from me. Praying that my upper body strength was not as depleted as I feared, I hauled myself up and finally over the back of the truck, coming to rest on the lumpy sacks. I rolled over, watched the gloomy sky fly past overhead, and tried to catch my breath, my chest heaving and my body soaked in sweat that I now could feel running in rivulets down every part of me. The cold seemed to catch up with me, now, and I was shaking.

I heard something that sounded like a human voice, and realized that Meg had slid the rear