that wound down through the trees towards a road in the distance. I gripped Nicoli tighter, the idea of leaving this mountain making me uncomfortable.
Not until they’re all dead. And even then…what’s really out there for me anymore?
Nicoli turned the snowmobile sharply and we started climbing the mountain again, towards the bodies. When we reached them, he circled back around, churning up the snow and covering our footsteps which led to the mine shaft then he drove down the hill once more as he continued to lay the tracks like several snowmobiles had come this way. By the time he’d circled the site three more times and we were approaching the bodies once more, my fingers were growing numb against his coat. I balled them up and flexed them as he drove into the trees beyond the bloody site which was now half covered in snow, trying to bring life back into them.
Nicoli stopped the snowmobile under the cover of the trees, taking my hands and pushing them up the bottom of his jacket where the heat of his body reached me.
He looked over his shoulder as my teeth started chattering, a frown knitting his brows together. “We’d better get back to the cabin. We can’t get off the mountain today. Not covered in blood and frozen to the bone. I’ll get you heated up soon, baby doll. Just hang in there.”
I hugged him tight in answer and he chuckled low in his throat.
Before he started the engine again, a shout went up somewhere behind us in the trees.
My blood turned as icily cold as the wind around me and Nicoli stilled. He slid off of the snowmobile, pressing a finger to his lips as he glanced at me then strode back the way we’d come, pulling a hunting knife from his belt.
I shivered as I waited, cold, hard dread running deep into my veins.
I gazed after him through the trees and a moment later he came jogging back, gesturing for me to get off the snowmobile.
I obeyed quickly and he pushed it into the shadow between two tall trees, grabbing a fallen pine branch and using it to cover the tracks that led up to it.
Then he snatched my hand, pulling me into a run. “There’s too many of them and they’re armed to the teeth,” he whispered to me and I was too terrified to give him any kind of response as we fled.
He led me to a rocky ledge and gave me a boot up before hauling himself up behind me. The snow had slipped from the sheer ridge of rock and we carefully picked our way along it, circling back towards his cabin without leaving any tracks in the snow that could be used to trace us.
Despite his larger strides, I kept pace, the fear of what lay behind us driving me on.
“I will fucking find you!” Farley’s voice roared so loud that birds took off in the trees all around us. My heart juddered and terror snared me, dragging me down, taking away that sense of freedom I’d dared to feel just a moment ago.
I remembered his fists pounding into my body, the way his large hands had wrapped around my throat, the way his breath had tasted on my mouth as he watched up close. Ash and death and all things bad.
No, he’s coming for me, he’s going to take me back. He’ll make me bleed and break. He won’t stop this time. He won’t stop!
I pulled my hand free of Nicoli’s, scrambling over the rocks and dropping to the ground behind a tree, burying my face in my hands, clawing at my hair as I drowned in the knowledge that he was coming.
He’s close, too close. It’s too late.
“Winter,” Nicoli hissed, his hands closing over mine where they were locked in my hair. “Look at me, baby doll. I’m right here. Just look at me.”
My breaths were becoming ragged and a vice was closing around my heart. I couldn’t look up, I couldn’t do anything. I was going to die. My heart was beating too fast, Farley was too near. And if he was near, that meant the others were too.
“They can’t be far, the blood’s still fresh,” Farley barked and it was in the same furious tone he’d used against me. Every strike punctuated with a word that was intended to hurt deeper than his fists ever could. Worthless. Empty. Voiceless. Nothing.
A gunshot split the air apart and I curled tighter in