by Elise Noble
Ridley backhanded me, and I glimpsed his famous temper. Those cruel eyes gleamed maniacally as we fought for the upper hand. I got a knee to his balls; he grunted in pain and hit me in the face. I shook off the stars and stamped on his foot; he punched me in the stomach. I was losing, I knew that, but I just had to hold on for long enough for Rune to get away.
“You bastard,” I hissed.
“Die, bitch.”
He knocked my legs out from under me, and we grappled on the wet ground. It felt surreal, almost as if someone else were stuck in this nightmare and I was just watching. How long had we been fighting? It seemed like forever, and my strength was ebbing. I used one last effort to roll, but that backfired when Ridley got his hands around my neck. I couldn’t breathe as his weight pressed down on me.
And the worst part? I’d never get to say goodbye to Alaric. To tell him I loved him one last time. To fuck him in my wedding dress.
I closed my eyes. I didn’t want the last thing I ever saw to be Eric Ridley’s sneering face.
Then he howled, a blood-curdling sound more terrifying than the animals we heard at night. In Ridley’s own words, what the…?
My eyes sprang open to see Rune clinging to Ridley’s back. He let go of my throat to claw behind himself, and I shoved him to the side with everything I had left.
“Now we run,” Rune shouted.
She hauled me up, and I caught a glimpse of the syringes sticking out of Ridley’s shoulder as we darted into the forest. A few seconds passed, and then I heard him crashing through the trees after us.
We ran. I twisted my ankle and a branch smacked me in the face, but still we ran. Rune cried out in pain as she tripped over a rock, and we kept going. Oh, hell! The ground disappeared out from underneath us and we slid down a muddy slope, landing in a heap at the bottom. The relative silence as we untangled ourselves made me pause. I couldn’t hear Ridley anymore.
“Come on!” Rune said, tugging at me. “We can’t stop.”
“Shush a second. Where did he go?”
I had visions of him creeping up behind us, ambushing us when we least expected it.
“Perhaps he’s dead.”
“Dead?”
“I gave him insulin.”
What? I thought she’d just stuck him with a bunch of empty needles.
“How much?”
“Maybe all of it. I’m not sure how much went in.”
“All of it? Oh, hell. What about you? You’ll need insulin. And how many glucose tablets do you have left?”
I might not have known a huge amount about type 1 diabetes, but I’d been reading up on it, so I was aware that stress and bursts of strenuous exercise could cause a rise in blood glucose. Rune’s body didn’t make the insulin to regulate the sugar level the way it should. Later, in the hours following, that level could drop precipitously, and she’d need carbohydrates.
“Three, and I had to do it. You need to go back to Alaric. I’ve never seen him as happy as when he’s with you.”
Oh, that sweet, sweet girl.
“Rune, you’re the one who needs to go home.”
She shrugged and tried to pull me along. “We have to carry on.”
“What will the insulin do? If he just got a little?”
“It’ll lower his blood sugar. If he got an overdose, he’ll get dizzy and confused. His vision might blur, and he’ll be jittery. But if he realises what I gave him and eats something sweet, it could be enough to counteract the effects. Come on, can you walk?”
My ankle hurt more with every step, but I nodded anyway. We had no choice.
“Yes, but which direction? What if we end up going round in a circle?”
“It’ll be dark soon, so we can use the sun and the stars to keep us straight as long as it doesn’t cloud over. But I don’t know where we are. I don’t know which way to go.”
I heard the panic in her voice. Rune, I realised, liked to be in control. She liked order. There was an immense amount of knowledge locked up in her head, and a missing piece upset her.
“As long as we go in one direction, we have to hit civilisation eventually. A road, a trail, something like that. I think it’s a tiny bit warmer here than in Richmond, don’t you?”
Rune nodded.
“So Ridley probably drove us south. Which means we want to head north to go home.”
I had no idea whether my logic would pan out, but Rune seemed happier now that we had a plan.
“Okay.” She pointed at the dense wall of green. “We have to go this way.”
Now we were in a race, not only against Ridley if he was still out there, but against time. Would we make it to safety before Rune got sick?
CHAPTER 48 - ALARIC
ALARIC PACED THE hotel room. Emmy was doing the same, and they’d had to synchronise to avoid bumping into each other. She’d apologised a hundred times for Beth and Rune being snatched, and Alaric had never seen her so stressed.
“It should have been me who got taken.”
“It shouldn’t have been any of you.”
“It was Blackwood who went after Kyla Devane.”
“And it was Sirius who led everyone to Kentucky in the first place.”
Alaric and Beth had befriended Harriet, and Alaric had wanted to see justice for Piper Simms as much as anyone. They’d all underestimated how unhinged Ridley would turn out to be. It just so happened that Beth and Rune had ended up paying the price.
The search team had spent the day canvassing the area served by the cell tower in Sevierville, but apart from a barista who thought Ridley might possibly have bought coffee and a panini to go on Friday, maybe, they had no leads. Ridley was as much of a ghost as Dyson.
The similarities between this week’s events and those of eight years ago didn’t escape Alaric. Both times, he’d been happy and lost everything. Both times, he’d found himself alongside Emmy searching for a needle in a haystack.
The main difference? This time, Black was being more cooperative. When the Emerald pay-off disappeared, he’d opened an investigation, but although he’d made the right noises, Alaric hadn’t failed to notice his lack of enthusiasm. This time, he’d thrown the whole of Blackwood at the problem and cleared his entire schedule to head up the search himself.
Not that it was doing much good. Daylight was fading now, which meant another night without the girls Alaric loved.
“Rune’s a tough cookie,” Judd said from his spot by the door. “We know she is. And Bethany’s no pushover either.”
He’d flown in to help, as had Naz and Ravi. Naz was assisting the tech team back in Virginia, while Ravi was going through every property associated with Ridley, just in case he’d left a clue behind. But so far, no dice. Ridley hadn’t sent proof of life either, and every minute that ticked by, another little piece of Alaric’s heart died. He’d worked so fucking hard to rebuild his life, only for it to fall apart again. He wasn’t sure he could do it a second time.
“Message from HQ,” Dan said. “They’ve been monitoring the local police communications, and a camper reported hearing a shot fired in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Said it sounded like a rifle or a large-calibre handgun.”
“Are the police looking into it?” Black asked. “Isn’t hunting banned in national parks?”
“Great Smoky Mountains is the exception, according to the research team. They have a wild hog control program. The cops said it’s most probably the rangers chasing one down.”
“What weapons do the rangers carry?”
“A .38 as standard.”
“Who shoots a wild hog with a .38?” Emmy asked as she flopped back onto the bed. She’d been catnapping earlier, and Alaric had kept a very wary eye on her because her sleepwalking problem was no joke. She’d once destroyed his TV on a nocturnal meander, made all the more alarming by the fact he’d been watching it at the time. “I’d want a .44 Magnum, or better still, a shotgun, especially in the dark. But even if I had a twelve-gauge, I wouldn’t be skipping through th
e woods tonight because it’s pissing down.”
“Want to check it out, Diamond?”
Grasping at straws? Perhaps. They’d already had three false alarms today—footprints around a derelict gas station that was most likely just kids, a stolen RV they’d found at a local chop shop, and one homeless gent whom they’d scared witless when they burst into a tumbledown shed. A member of Emmy’s team had dropped him off at Target with five hundred bucks and an instruction to buy himself food and clothing.
“Sure beats sitting around here,” she said. “Right now?”
Black nodded his agreement. “You, me, Ana, and Pale.”
Pale. The guy from the gas station. He’d turned up too, along with a different girl—a redhead this time—and an even more garish Hawaiian shirt. Did the guy own any footwear but flip-flops? The chick was still out canvassing along with twenty or so other people. They planned to hit the dive bars, the flophouses, and the late-night convenience stores. The dealers. The fixers. Ridley had to get supplies from somewhere, and maybe he’d tapped into the shadow economy.
Pale hadn’t said much, and nobody had mentioned his background. Alaric could take a stab at it from the name—for years, he’d heard rumours about the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, a band of elite assassins. It wouldn’t surprise him in the least if Black was a member, but this guy looked like the love child of a hippie and a hobo, so Alaric was by no means certain that his guess was correct.
And he’d be damned if Pale was going to look for Rune and Beth while he stayed behind.
“I’m coming too.”
“That’s not a good idea,” Black said.
“I don’t care whether you think it’s a good idea or not. I’m telling you I’m coming.”
“You don’t—” Black started, but Emmy held up a hand.
“If we need to question campers, having an extra person along might be useful. But Alaric, if we have to go into the forest, Black’s right—we’re trained for this, and you aren’t.”
“Even him?” Alaric pointed at Pale.
Black nodded.
“Please, work with us on this?” Emmy asked.
Deep down, Alaric knew what she said made sense. Yes, he’d once have been an assassin by trade, but he’d specialised in the cleaner side of things. Investigation, infiltration, and a quick double-tap to the head when the time was right, not jungle warfare.
He also knew how hard Emmy and Black trained. Whatever bust-up they’d had the other week didn’t seem to have affected their working relationship, and if anyone could find Ridley in the Smoky Mountains at night, it was them.
“Okay. I’ll let you take the lead.”
“Yeah, I saw him,” the guy in the plaid shirt said, peering out from under an RV awning. The rain fell at a steady drizzle. “Yesterday? Day before? Comin’ out of the shower. But I ain’t seen him since. Is he the asshole shootin’ out there? I told the cops it weren’t no ranger. They use shotguns for huntin’ the boar around here, and I know a shotgun when I hear one.”
“We’re not sure,” Black said, wiping raindrops off the photo. “You’re certain it was the same man?”
“Always was good with faces. What’d he do?”
“You haven’t been watching TV?”
“Don’t own no TV. Destroy your brain, those things.”
“He’s wanted by the police. Did you notice what vehicle he was driving?”
His friend waved a beer can. “Green sedan. Drove it over yonder.” He waved at the far side of the campground. “I tried to tell him that wasn’t the way out, but he cussed me somethin’ proper and kept goin’.”
“What’s over there?”
“Don’know. I’m just here for the fishin’. Hey, Hank! What’s along that track over there? The one with the ‘no entry’ sign?”
A third guy wandered out of the RV, his wide-brimmed hat decorated with fishing lures. “Go a mile, and you’ll find an old house. The NPS used to store supplies there, but people kept breaking in so they abandoned the place. Ain’t nothing there now but rats.”
He’d got that part right.
“This is where we part company,” Emmy murmured.
More than anything, Alaric wanted to charge down the track with his gun drawn, but he’d agreed to hold back. He didn’t break his word. And this was one time being acquainted with Black could actually work in his favour. If anyone could defeat Ridley, it was that asshole.
“Just be careful.”
“Always am. But if Ridley gets past us and heads back this way, would you mind shooting the fucker?”
As if she had to ask.
“It’d be my pleasure.”
CHAPTER 49 - EMMY
BLACKWOOD USED A modular system for its gear, packed away in custom bags designed by Bradley. When he wasn’t busy shopping and decorating, he did have his uses. We selected the essentials for tonight’s excursion—first aid kits, survival equipment, emergency rations, water canteens, tech goodies, and of course, appropriate weapons.
Usually, my weapon of choice was a Walther PPQ, but tonight, I’d swapped it for an AR-15 fitted with a combined night-vision and thermal-imaging scope as my primary weapon. As a backup, I carried a P99 with tritium night sights plus a laser sight on the under-barrel accessory rail. We practised regularly in low-light conditions, and it was my favourite combination.
“Is my face okay?” Ana asked.
I smudged warpaint over a patch she’d missed. It was oil-based, which meant it shouldn’t wash off in the rain. “Mine?”
“Good.”
Black and Pale were ready too. I’d been a little surprised when Pale volunteered his services, but quite frankly, he owed us for that dodgy alibi he’d provided for Black, so helping with the search for Ridley was the least he could do. And if nothing else, it would be interesting to see how Black’s old partner in crime operated. He’d semi-retired until he got talked back into the game not so long ago. Before we left the hotel, I’d quietly questioned whether he was the best man for the job, but Black had given a firm nod.
“That asshole moves like smoke through the trees, and wait until you see him track.”
I found out what Black meant as soon as we started down the rutted path. I knew Pale was there in front of us, but I couldn’t see him, not unless I used my night vision. The guy just blended. I understood at once where Black had learned his night combat skills, and holy hell, I needed Pale to teach me how to skulk like that.
Moving carefully, it took us a smidgen over an hour to confirm we were on the right path. Ridley had tried to hide the Toyota under the trees, but he hadn’t done a great job of it. The tail lights gleamed when the clouds let the moon show for a moment. The licence plates had been changed, but the prison guard’s uniform he’d stolen was lying on the back seat. We spiked the tyres just in case he tried to get away, then carried on to the old house. It had been beautiful in its day, two storeys with a small front porch and white siding, but now? It was a house of horrors, all shattered windows and yawning holes in the woodwork. We split into pairs—me with Ana and Black with Pale—and crept to opposite corners. From our positions, we could each see two sides of the house. We watched. Waited. Ten minutes passed, and then twenty. I controlled my breathing. Kept my heartbeat steady.
“Nothing stirring over here,” Black said softly in my ear. We used satellite technology for operations like this, and our headsets linked to each other as well as to Alaric and the team at Blackwood’s headquarters.
“Quiet here too.”
“Pale’s going in for a closer look.”
I switched my scope to thermal and saw his shadowy form melt out of the treeline. It seemed unlikely Ridley would have access to the same technology—jacking a car was one thing, but finding a handy-dandy military-grade scope right after he escaped from jail? Surely not.
Even so, I was tense as Pale approached the building.
Why didn’t we just use thermal imaging to see who was inside, you ask? Because this wasn’t the movies
, and that shit didn’t work in real life. Infrared couldn’t see through walls. It couldn’t even see through glass. For that, we’d need a handheld radar system, something like a RANGE-R or a Xaver. Did we have one? Yes. The problem was that they had a limited detection range—twenty metres max, depending on what kind of barrier was between the target and the device—and they worked best if you were right up next to the wall. Pale couldn’t use it, not right away. He couldn’t afford to get distracted so close to potential danger.
“Someone’s been here in the last day or two,” he said, pausing at the corner nearest to me. “There’s flattened vegetation. Syringes too. Could’ve been junkies.”
“Any sign of life?”
“No. I’ll try the radar, but there’s a basement.”
Which we’d have to check out in person. Another quarter-hour passed before we considered it safe to approach, and the only signs of life we’d seen were the aforementioned rats, skittering across the front steps and running up the walls.
We’d drilled through building clearances a thousand times in the kill-house at HQ, and it seemed Pale had a training facility somewhere too. The four of us stacked up outside the front door, a pair on each side. When we went in, two of us would break left, two would break right, and we’d sweep the building, being careful not to cross fields of fire. Our primary goal at that point was to neutralise Ridley.
And we’d have achieved it if he’d been there.
There was evidence of his presence—food wrappers, empty drinks bottles, a sleeping bag—but no sign of the man himself.
Black and Pale materialised through the basement door. While Ana and I had searched upstairs, they’d done downstairs.
“Anything?” I asked.
“Somebody was imprisoned down there, and recently. We found empty jars, water bottles, a copy of today’s Washington Post, and a sweater that looks the right size for Bethany.”
Shit. Had we just missed them? If so, where were they? Ridley hadn’t moved them by car. Not only was the Toyota still there, but we hadn’t seen any fresh tyre tracks and our campsite buddies swore they hadn’t seen another vehicle heading in this direction.
