And then it got worse.
Colt led me over to a van, its rear doors standing open. The man who’d been inside scrambled out and stood to attention. “All ready, sir,” he said.
Inside the van, I could see a tangle of colored wires and then a solid wall of crates, filling almost all the space. I couldn’t figure out what they were until Colt shone a flashlight inside. Then I saw the hazard warning symbol stamped on each one: explosives. The ones they’d stolen from the mining company. My mind shredded. Clearly, they were preparing to blow something up, but what? There were no government buildings in our tiny town. Were they going to drive into Denver and blow up an FBI office or something? How can I warn them?
“Get going,” Colt told the man. “Once you get there, set the timer for thirty minutes and get back here. We’ll be ready to go.”
The man nodded, jumped in the van and sped off through the snow. A pickup followed close behind: to bring the man back, I realized. But where the hell were they going? The road they were on didn’t lead to Denver, it climbed up to….
I slowly looked up. Through the falling snow, I could just catch glimpses of Mount Mercy as it towered over the town.
Everything reversed in my head. Corrigan, Earl and I... we’d all put explosives together with far-right militia and assumed they were going to blow up a building. But we’d been wrong all along. I knew now why Colt’s gang hadn’t bothered to wear masks. The phone lines had been down since before the robbery. No one outside the town knew his gang was even here. And now, no one ever would.
Colt was going to blow up the side of the mountain and bury the town under millions of tons of rock. Everyone who knew he’d been here would die. When the snow melted, the authorities would discover what looked like a terrible natural disaster: a small town swallowed up by a landslide that had been feared for hundreds of years. My mind reeled. No one would even know the money was missing! How long would it take to excavate the town, let alone dig down to the vault beneath the bank? Years? The authorities might not even bother, once it was clear there were no survivors. The government would assume its gold was still there under the debris and leave it be.
Colt would be free to build his army. No one would be looking for him, or keeping an eye on the CGF. Not until it was far too late.
I felt his gaze on me as I figured it out. I couldn’t stop myself twisting around to stare at him in horror and he gazed back at me steadily, eyes utterly cold. I’d been right: he was going to kill me as soon as I’d patched him up. No way he’d leave a witness alive, after all that effort. But that thought was tiny, insignificant. I was one person. He was going to murder everyone in town. Rebecca. Krista. Adele. Lina. Corrigan. All the patients, all the townsfolk. Every one of them, wiped out.
And there was nothing I could do to stop him.
55
Dominic
THIS IS ALL my fault. As I stormed back into the ER, I was panting with fear and guilt. All Beckett had ever asked was to be left alone, to stay safely in her quiet, warm OR. Like an idiot I’d dragged her out of it, and now she was out there, somewhere in the freezing darkness, with a psycho who’d kill her in a heartbeat.
Bartell and the others had gotten Earl’s heart going again. That was good, but I needed to find Beckett, now. I was going out of my mind and I had no idea where to even start looking.
Wait: Seth. Seth might know where his father was holed up. I frantically searched the darkened ER for him, then heard his voice coming from Exam One. I grabbed the curtain to wrench it aside, but froze when his words sank in.
“I know this is crazy.” Seth’s voice was a mirror of his dad’s, deep, but mellow, full of emotion where Colt’s was starkly bare. “I know I don’t know you well. Hardly know you at all. I know you got no reason to trust me, after what my dad did.” He took a deep breath, as if trying to keep his voice level, but I could hear the fear. “But you gotta come with me. Right now. Or you’re going to die.”
A soft moan of dread. Taylor. “Are they coming back here?”
“No. No, they’re gone, for good, but—Look, Bethany, there’s no time. We’ve got to go, right now.” The terror in his voice cut me to the bone. I recognized it because I felt it myself. He was worried about Taylor the way I was worried about Beckett. But why? Taylor was safe in the hospital.
I needed answers. I jerked the curtain aside. Seth was standing there with his hands on Taylor’s shoulders, both of them looking up in shock as I appeared.
“Your dad has Beckett,” I told Seth. “Where are they? And what the hell’s going on? What’s going to happen?”
Seth took a quick, ragged breath, grabbed Taylor’s hand and pulled her towards the hallway. “I’ll tell you,” he said. “But after we’re safe.”
But Taylor snatched her hand back. “No! Tell us what’s going on!” She looked around at the ER. “Is this place in danger?”
“Bethany, please! There’s no time!” Seth was sweating, now, his face pale.
“No! Tell us!”
Seth hissed in a frustrated breath and ran his hands through his hair. For a second he was silent, his eyes flicking between us, judging our expressions. But we just stared back at him, resolute.
“My dad is going to bring down the side of the mountain,” he said in a rush. “He’s going to bury the town.”
“What?” Even though there were several walls between me and it, I automatically looked up towards the mountain and the dark mass of rock poised over the town.
“I didn’t know!” said Seth. “I swear! I only knew about the robbery and—I didn’t think people would get hurt.” He grabbed Taylor’s hand again. “We’ve got to go, now!”
Taylor was still trying to take it in, her eyes huge and scared. “What? No! We’ve got to warn everyone! Evacuate the town!”
“There’s no time! But if we go now, we can make it. Bethany, please!” Seth pulled her closer and, when she didn’t start walking, he hooked a hand around her waist and dragged her along.
She shook her head and struggled out of his grip. “No! I’m not leaving everyone to die! There must be something we can do!”
Seth closed his eyes for a second and I could tell he was silently cursing. This is why he hadn’t wanted to tell her.
There were tears in Taylor’s eyes. “You were going to just get me out of town and—and not tell me and—”
“I just wanted to save you!” yelled Seth.
She shook her head. “I never would have forgiven you.”
He stared back at her, his jaw set... and nodded. He could have lived with that... as long as she was safe.
Taylor bit her lip, blinked back tears and looked away. “There must be some safe place,” she croaked. “If we got everyone out of town….”
“I keep telling you, there’s no time!” said Seth. “If we marched everyone up the road towards Denver, way up into the hills, maybe we’d be safe there, but that would take hours.”
I shook my head. “Most of the patients couldn’t manage the journey. And even if they could, what then? They’re in the hills in a blizzard with no shelter. The only way to save them is to stop your dad.” I grabbed Seth’s shoulders and made him look at me. “Can you tell me where he is?”
Seth nodded weakly. “In a camp in the hills. I was meant to meet him there.” He gave me directions, then gave Bethany one last, pleading look.
She shook her head. “I’m staying here. The patients need me.”
Seth gave a single, solemn nod. Then he put his hand on her cheek, pushing her hair back from her face. “Then I’m staying, too.”
Taylor looked up at him, blinked back fresh tears, and I saw her melt.
And then I was off and running, thanking God I’d brought my pickup back from the forest. I’m coming, Beckett. I’m coming.
56
Amy
THE HELICOPTER was hidden in a clearing not far from the camp, camouflaged with branches and netting. As Colt’s men loaded their guns and supplies, I carefully s
tripped the bandages away from the pilot’s eyes. And then I did something that made my guts twist with guilt: I prayed that he’d been permanently blinded. If he couldn’t fly, Colt was stuck here in town and he’d have to call off the plan….
The pilot gingerly opened his eyes. Blinked. Nodded. Shit.
“Not perfect,” he muttered. “But I can get us out of here and set us down in Denver.”
“Good enough,” said Colt. “Let’s load the gold. We can go as soon as Tucker and Reynolds get back from setting the bomb.”
He stood and picked up a bag, grunting with the weight. And then he suddenly slumped forward, going down on one knee. When his men helped him up, there was a fresh scarlet stain on the snow.
“I need to operate on you,” I told him.
“You can do it when we get there,” he grunted. He tried to pick up the bag of gold again, but went pale and wavered, leaning on the pilot for support.
“You won’t make it,” I said. My heart was hammering. I wasn’t lying, but just talking to him scared the hell out of me. I’d seen how unstable he was, how quickly he could turn to violence. It would be safer just to get in the helicopter with him: if he died on the way, I’d still be safely away from the landslide and maybe I could talk his men into letting me live. But everyone else would be dead. I had to convince him to delay things. I didn’t have any plan beyond that: I just had to hope Corrigan was looking for me. “You’ve already lost too much blood. The exertion’s making it worse. Another few minutes and your vitals will crash. I need to stop the bleeding now.”
Colt turned and gave me the full force of his glare. It was like falling into a pit so deep and dark you’d never be able to climb out of it. You found yourself searching desperately for some shred of compassion and there was absolutely none. All I was to him was a tool, something to fix his injuries so he could go on with his plan. And he was challenging me, willing me to back down, to say the surgery could wait,...
A week ago, I would have buckled, climbed into the helicopter with him and wept while everything I knew and loved was wiped off the face of the earth. Now... I took a deep breath and stared right back at him. “I need to stop the bleeding,” I repeated. “Now.”
He held my gaze for another breathless second... then he pulled a radio from his belt and thumbed a button. “Change of plan,” he said into the microphone. “Set the timer for an hour.” Then he lay down in front of one of the pickups so that its headlights lit up his leg.
“Here?!” I shook my head. “Let me take you into town, we can find a building, a bed—”
“Here,” Colt told me. “Or not at all.”
I knelt beside him, heart hammering. The pilot climbed into the helicopter and started doing his pre-flight checks. The other two men took up positions around Colt, ready to kill me if I tried anything. The wind whipped the falling snow against my face and it was so cold, my hands were shaking. This is insane. I searched through the bag I’d brought and pulled out a needle.
“No needles,” growled Colt.
“You need anesthetic.”
“No! You think I’m letting you dose me with something? Knock me out?”
“This isn’t a cowboy movie!” I snapped. The fear was making me lose it. “You can’t just lie there and grit your teeth! If you thrash around, I could nick another artery and you could bleed out!”
Colt’s lips drew back in a snarl. He pulled something from his belt, too fast to follow—
I went silent and meek in a heartbeat. The gun’s barrel wavered and twitched an inch from my forehead. Oh God, oh God—
“Get to work,” he said. “And you better hope you got steady hands.”
57
Dominic
THE PICKUP slewed around the bend, wheels clawing for grip. The fresh snow, on top of the hard-packed, frozen stuff, combined to make the roads like ice. Driving this fast was insane, but I couldn’t slow down. Any minute, I expected to hear the thunder of explosions that would mean the end for the town. Colt would be gone and Beckett with him. And once she’d outlived her usefulness, I knew what he’d do to her.
I skidded around the next corner. I was up in the hills, now, and climbing fast, a steep drop to my right. Another few minutes and I’d be at the camp.
As I came around the next bend, I turned the wheel... and nothing happened. The steering went light and the pickup just coasted on in a straight line... right towards the drop.
Shit! I hadn’t put my safety belt on. I grabbed for it. Missed.
I bounced completely out of my seat as we went over the edge. The whole car dropped out from under me and then crashed up into me again, jolting my neck and slamming my teeth together so hard I felt one of them crack. We tobogganed down the hill doing sixty, bouncing off rocks. The brakes did nothing: the wheels were clogged with snow. I scrabbled again for my safety belt and prayed we didn’t roll over.
The world outside was moving so fast, I could barely focus on it, but I glimpsed dark shapes rushing up in front of me that must be trees. Fuck, fuck! I wrenched the safety belt across me—too hard, it jerked to a stop and wouldn’t move. I heard twigs snap and scrape as the car plunged into the forest. Ahead, what looked like a really big tree was coming up.
I closed my eyes. Forced myself to let the safety belt relax... then pulled it slowly across my chest and locked it in.
I expected a crunch but it was more of a bang, an explosion of metal slamming into wood. I heard glass shatter….
And then nothing.
58
Amy
IT WAS impossible.
Colt had rushed me out of the hospital in my scrubs and the bitter wind cut straight through the thin fabric, clawing away my body heat. My head throbbed and ached from the cold and my hands were numb and clumsy. Snow kept blowing into my eyes, blinding me, and the headlights weren’t anything like the overhead lights in an operating theater. Half of the wound was in deep shadow and every time I glanced up, I was dazzled.
I’d cut away Colt’s jeans and opened up the wound, but the more I saw, the worse it looked. The bullet that hit him must have hit something else first because it had dug into his leg in two separate pieces, lodging deep inside. Every time I tried to move the closer one, Colt cursed in pain and the gun barrel against my forehead twitched. I couldn’t even see the other piece, yet.
I took a deep breath and shut everything out, drawing on all the focus the ER had taught me. I imagined Krista was still okay, joking and teasing and passing me my instruments as Brahms played in the background. I imagined Corrigan’s warm hand on my back, chasing away the cold, telling me I could do it. And slowly, very slowly, I started to make progress, easing the bullet fragment millimeter by millimeter towards the surface. Finally, I had it where I could reach in and grab it with the forceps—
Colt gave a howl of pain and bucked, his leg jerking so hard his foot caught me in the ribs. There was a bang that seemed to split the forest in two and I felt searing pain down one side of my face. I fell backwards, winding up on my ass in the snow.
Colt lay there glaring at me, hissing between his teeth. I put my hand to my scalp and slowly explored.
I’d brushed a nerve with the forceps. Colt had jerked and the gun had gone off. If I hadn’t been knocked to one side by him kicking me, the bullet would have killed me. As it was, it had missed me by a few inches, so close the muzzle flash had scorched my hair.
“Get back to it,” grated Colt.
I struggled forward onto my knees. But when I looked down at his leg, my insides turned to ice water.
When his leg had moved, the muscles had spasmed and pulled the bullet fragment even deeper inside, undoing all my work. Worse, the bleeding had sped up. A stain was flowering around him in the snow, pale pink at the edges, vivid red closer in. Every inch it expanded was more precious blood gone.
“What’s wrong?” Colt rasped.
I started working again, the barrel of the gun pressed against my temple. But I already knew it was useless. Th
ere was too much to fix and not enough time.
Colt was going to die. And as soon as he realized that, he’d kill me.
59
Dominic
I OPENED MY EYES. The first thing I saw was the gnarled trunk of a huge tree, lit by the flickering light of the pickup’s one remaining headlight. It was closer than should have been possible.
The pickup had smashed into the tree so hard, the front of the car had almost wrapped around it. The tree trunk was about where the windshield wipers should have been. I would have slammed headfirst into it if the safety belt hadn’t stopped me. I was dusted with broken glass and I had a broken tooth but otherwise, I was okay.
The damage was so bad, the doors were jammed shut so I had to climb out through a window. I looked up at the hill. The road was barely visible, high above me. The slope between me and it looked damn near vertical...and I was going to have to climb it on foot.
I started climbing. With each step, my feet sank knee-deep into the snow. My scrubs were soaked in seconds, snow clinging to me through the thin fabric and sending a deep chill into my bones. It was too steep to walk so I went on all fours, shoving my hands deep into the drifts to grab at the grass and tree roots beneath them. I wasn’t wearing gloves and my hands went steadily numb. Then the pain started, a burning, prickling agony. Closing my fingers on a root felt like grabbing a hot pipe. And the road didn’t seem to be getting any closer.
I gritted my teeth and pushed on, hauling myself up the hill a foot at a time. My legs screamed, the muscles forced beyond exhaustion. The pain in my hands turned white-hot and I knew frostbite must be close.
It took everything I had. By the time I finally hauled myself over the edge and rolled onto the road, I was heaving for breath and soaked with sweat. As I lay there, the vicious wind lashed my body, chilling me in an instant and leaving me shaking so hard, I wasn’t sure I could stand. The moon had gone behind a cloud and, with no flashlight, it was almost totally black. Would I even be able to find the camp?
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