His question was met with tense silence.
Nina swallowed and tried t break the frigid tension. “I’m so sorry, Jake.”
“I don’t want your apology. You all–”
“I couldn’t loosen his seatbelt,” Emily said in a voice as flat as death. “It wouldn’t loosen.”
Everyone stared at her with similar expressions of in horror. Nina felt her heart clench. The other woman sat hunched under Jake’s arm. Removing her hands from her face, Nina saw the devastation in Emily’s large brown eyes.
“I’m so sorry, Emily,” Angela began. “It’s–”
“Like I said before,” Jake cut in angrily, “we don’t’ want apologies. We–”
“Leave it, Jake.”
It was Emily who spoke; her words were soft even as her eyes were vacant.
With obvious effort, Jake clamped down on his lips.
“Did you manage to grab the candles?” she asked him.
“Yeah.”
Nina watched them. Ben was dead. She couldn’t believe it. Only hours before, he’d graciously allowed Hazel to go in and speak to Jake before takeoff.
“Parker’s waking up,” Shayna said flatly.
They all watched Parker’s eyes flutter several times before finally staying open. “W-where–?” he stuttered. His gloved hands flexed restlessly.
“You’re okay, Parker,” Neil assured him.
Parker fought to speak, his voice low and scratchy. “W-what’s going on?”
“The jet crashed.”
What little color Parker had drained away. “Oh, God. I knew–” He coughed violently, spitting out dribble as he did so. “Hugh. I–”
“Don’t try to talk,” Neil advised him.
Justin glanced at Jake. “You have a first aid kit?”
“Ben had one.” Reluctantly taking it from Ben’s rucksack, Jake tossed it to him without a word.
“I know what to do,” Emily stated without inflection and took the kit from Justin.
Taking out a thermometer, she kneeled on the snow and gently forced it between Parker’s stiff lips as Parker’s eyes darted around. ”Twenty-eight degrees,” she reported. “The ideal is between thirty and thirty-eight.”
“We’re not in an ideal situation,” Justin pointed out. “I don’t think any of us are particularly warm right now, despite the warm clothes we’ve got on.”
“I’ve never been so cold in my life,” Angela said, and comforted herself by pressing against Shayna who wrapped an arm around her.
“Justin.” Parker’s voice hitched. He began to sit up, but Angela and Neil urged him to stay down. “Thank God you’re all right, Justin,” he croaked. “Where’s Hugh?”
Justin let out a breath. “Right here, he’s breathing but it’s faint.”
“B - but he’s alive?”
“More’s the pity,” Jake muttered.
“How’s the arm, Parker?” Angela frowned at his left arm.
His face twisted in agony. “Something fell on it. The jet–”
“Crashed because of your brat of a son,” Jake interjected. “He’s the reason we’re all in this crappy situation.” He swung his eyes around the group as if daring anyone to dispute his words.
No one did.
Parker’s gaze shifted to Jake. “I - I remember…Hugh…Hugh broke into the cockpit.” He wheezed out a breath. “W-where are we? What fell on my arm? Something …struck it.”
“Do you have stuff in there for his arm?” Justin asked Emily.
Instead of answering, she slowly began to pull what she needed from Ben’s rucksack.
“Thank you, Emily.” His breathing heavy, Parker frowned. “Do you know where we are?” he asked Jake.
“No,” Jake snapped. “I’m a pilot not a mountain guide. My job was to fly you to Salzburg airport. That was it. Maybe you should ask your son where we are. He landed us here.” Jake swept his gaze over the rest of the group. “But now that we’ve got Nina, we have to get moving.” He didn’t try to sound enthusiastic about it. “We can’t stay in this spot.”
“Why not?” Justin asked in annoyance. “We’re all exhausted. Getting out of that jet took everyone’s energy.”
Jake pierced the younger man with a look of pure disgust. “You didn’t go back for anyone. Neil and I did.”
“And what?” Justin hissed. “That makes you Boy Wonder?”
“Don’t start,” Neil implored before Jake could lash back. “Please. Let’s just get through this.”
Not listening to their bickering, Nina’s eyes darted around at the tall dark mountains surrounding them. “Are we still in a danger zone?”
“We need to get moving,” Jake said instead.
“For how long?” Angela wanted to know.
“A while.”
Her mouth tightened at his curt reply.
“What’s that noise?” Shayna suddenly asked, looking around anxiously as she held Luke close to her. “It sounds like…like…”
“Cracking,” Neil finished with a frown.
Nina’s ears picked up the sound then. They all started looking around them anxiously, trying to see where it was coming from.
“What–?” Emily began, and then broke off, her eyes widening in horror.
And for as long as Nina lived, she knew she’d never forget the terror that rang in Emily’s voice when she screamed, “Avalanche!”
CHAPTER SIX
It happened on the other side of the snow bank. Nina estimated the distance to be around three hundred feet from them, yet its deafening roar made it seem only two feet away.
Nina watched it happen in sick fascination, unable to tear her eyes from the tumbling volume of white snow. She’d seen avalanches depicted on TV, of course, but nothing had prepared her for this. She barely heard the anxious shouts from Neil and Jake. Only when Neil grabbed her wrist and pulled her to her feet did her wide stunned eyes meet his desperate ones.
“Move,” he shouted, and she realized that everyone except Parker and Hugh were on their feet.
“It’s going to block any way out of here.” Jake had to shout to be heard over the scream of the avalanche. “It’s going to push us deeper into backcountry.” He looked around frantically. “We need to get moving.”
Neil shook the shoulders of Parker and Hugh. “Wake up. There’s an avalanche. We have to move.”
Parker’s eyes flickered open. “Wha–?” The shocked and pained expression on his face said more than a thousand words. Beside him, Hugh blinked twice and moaned.
Neil helped Parker to his feet, the older man unsteady as he looked around in disbelief. “What’s going on?” Parker asked as Justin tried to revive Hugh.
“Just start walking,” Jake ordered him, jerking his head to the miles of snow-covered ground ahead of them. “We don’t have a minute to waste. Let’s head upslope toward higher ground.”
Neil pressed a kiss to Shayna and Luke’s cheeks and took Luke into his arms. “You have to try to be strong, baby,” he told Shayna.
Face bleak, she merely nodded and prepared to follow him.
“What about Hugh?” Parker asked, struggling to remain steady on his feet.
“I’m helping him,” Justin muttered. “Don’t I always?”
“Jake…” Emily licked her lips. “What about Ben?”
They all stilled momentarily.
“You know we had to leave him, Em,” he whispered, his eyes sending her a thousand apologies “He’s…he’s gone.”
“No.” As the avalanche screamed on, making them all j cast uneasy glances over their shoulders; Emily shook her head with determined resolution even as tears streamed down her pale cheeks. “No. We have to go back and get him, Jake.” Her eyes were pleading on Jake’s. “Let’s go back and undo his seatbelt. We can’t–”
“Em…” Jake’s face, pinched and frozen with cold, made his lips barely move.
“We don’t have a choice.” He took her slim shoulders in his hands. “I’m so sorry. You know it’s th
e last thing I want–”
“We can’t,” Emily wailed. “Please. Don’t do this to me.”
Nina was forced to cast her eyes to her left as the avalanche continued to hammer the ground, making the ground under their booted feet feel as steady as a shredded dishcloth; the frenzy of it making it impossible to think straight.
“We don’t have a choice, Em,” Jake repeated urgently. “We have no choice. There’s nothing we can do for him now. We have to save ourselves now.” He lifted her chin in an effort to make her damp eyes focus on him instead of the horror still clouding her mind. “You can do this,” he told her fiercely. “You can. Ben would want you to. We have to help ourselves now, and we have to hurry. None of us know where going, or where we are. I don’t’ have a compass or map with me, so we have to stick together and do our best to survive. Come on.”
“Help ourselves how?” she cried shrilly. “No one knows we’re here or that we’re stranded. How, Jake? How?”
“We can’t debate it here. Let’s move,” he said. Shoving the rucksack onto his back he all but started dragging Emily along with him. “The rest of us are lucky to be alive. We have to honor that and try to survive. Come on.” He nodded in approval to Neil and Shayna who had already started to walk up ahead. “Let’s follow them.”
Nina grimaced with every step through the snow. They were all hobbling, she saw, especially Parker, but they were moving, and now she had to. She only hoped she could.
Justin supported a babbling Hugh to his side, his body almost bent double under the weight.
Hugh’s complexion was waxy and drawn; his face damp with sweat, and Nina saw he was struggling with one of his legs. “Looks as if he might have caught a fever,” Justin shouted to them over the howl of the avalanche.
Disgusted, Nina looked away.
“Not our problem,” Jake shouted back. “Either dump him or carry him. Your choice.” Even as Justin’s face stiffened, Jake had already dismissed him. “Keep your hand over your nose and mouth.” He demonstrated with his free hand. “It’ll make breathing easier.”
Nina tried to block out the pain of stiffened limbs and aching ribs as she limped away from the rolling tide of the avalanche and toward, what she hoped, was safety.
The wind howled around them, a groaning that permeated her ears and made her teeth continually chatter. She had wrapped her scarf around her neck when she’d changed into her ski gear but wisps of cold air still sneaked underneath it, irritating her.
For every step they took, the wind forced them back two steps. She fell down several times, and Angela had helped her back to her feet.
She wasn’t sure when the avalanche ceased; it might have been an hour or ten minutes. Emily drew their attention to it, her gloved hand shaking in the air as she pointed her finger to the suddenly quiet mountains, that tranquility settling over the area after so much natural destruction. They took the moment to stop and express their relief and take a much-needed break.
Not so much as a bird flew overhead and snow began falling in thick flat flakes, making visibility difficult.
Her sister Hazel’s face flashed into Nina’s mind then, and it was all Nina could do not to weep as fear clawed her throat. Hazel was expecting her to be smooching with Parker’s client and making contacts for their law firm. Heck, her sister expected her to have access to a Jacuzzi.
The current reality couldn’t be further from the truth.
She always called Hazel when she went on a business trip. As Hazel, the only one of her three other siblings currently in London, they always informed the other if they’d be away for any extended period of time. How would she make the call now, when Justin had said earlier that there was no signal?
How on earth had they gone from joking in the VIP area of Gatwick to be battered, bruised, and deserted in the middle of nowhere?
Then with one thought she had her answer: Hugh Drayton.
Was it wrong that she wished him dead? That she’d envisioned, as she’d fallen and stumbled in the thick snow, herself with her hands around his neck, drawing out every last breath he had? If it was wrong to feel this way, she didn’t feel it. If anything, it buoyed by the vision. How could he still be alive and Jake and Emily’s friend, Ben, dead?
Neil and Jake seemed to know where they to head, for which she’d be eternally grateful. She hated to think it, but she wasn’t sure what they would have done if both pilots hadn’t survived the crash.
Realizing that Neil and Parker had stopped, Nina sighed in relief. Tentatively, she rolled her aching shoulders.
“Let’s take a short break,” Neil panted, his chest heaving. His suggestion was met with relieved sights and nods of agreement. Within moments, they had all lowered themselves onto the snow in a small circle. Hugh, more alert now but still groggy, opened and closed his eyes, his head resting on the rucksack Justin had placed behind him.
Justin glanced up at his father. “He’s no lightweight.”
You should have just dumped him,” Jake responded before Parker could reply.
Nina shared his sentiment, as did everyone else it seemed. Only Parker contradicted him.
“That’s not the attitude to have to get through this, Jake.” Parker’s face was haggard, the toll of the last few hours having added ten years to his countenance.
The pilot’s eyes frosted over. “Don’t lecture me about the right attitude,” he snapped. “The reason we’re all in this mess is because of the one your son’s displays.”
“I-” Parker began.
“Forget it,” Jake cut in, and pulling out a large bottle of water, took a swig before passing it to the rest of the group to drink and quench their parched throats.
Nina pressed her chin to her raised knees. Though the avalanche was behind them, the way Jake kept flicking his eyes around told her that they weren’t yet out of trouble. From where she sat, miles and miles of snow was their only company; it seemed they could walk for a month and not see anyone. “How much longer do you think we have to walk for?” she asked Jake.
“A while.”
A similar response he’d given Ange earlier, she noted. Fine, he was angry, she got it, but they all were. None of them had asked to be here. “Jake–”
“The most important thing is to hope there won’t be any more avalanches,” Justin interrupted.
“More avalanches?” Shayna clutched a sleeping Luke tighter to her. “What do you mean?”
Everyone looked at each other.
“Yes, what do you mean?” Neil demanded.
. “Ignore him,” Jake suggested, but avoided everyone’s eyes that had turned toward him. “He was rambling.”
“The hell I was.” Justin’s face flushed with anger. “I’m going to tell them what they need to know so they can be prepared.”
Disdain filled Jake’s eyes. “Prepare them? With what? All we have are the clothes on our back. What you’ll do is send them all into a tailspin of panic.”
“There’s…there’ll be more than one?” Angela asked in a small voice.
“They’re known to come in twos or threes,” Justin answered bluntly. “Each one is usually stronger than the last–”
Nina could only stare at him. Could things get any worse?
“That’s unlikely to happen this time,” Jake said in a clipped tone.
“How do you know?” Parker demanded.
Jake didn’t answer.
“How much longer do we have to walk, Jake?” Emily asked tautly. Tearstains streaked her face and pain and fatigue clouded her eyes.
Jake glanced at his watch. “Forty-five minutes give or take,” he said reluctantly, and expelled a breath as a groan of protest rose up from the rest of the group. ”We have no choice. We’re further from the avalanche area than we were before, but...”
“What’s the time?” Nina asked, though she couldn’t have said why that was important.
Jake consulted his watch. “Just gone four o’clock London time, which means it must be about five o�
�clock out here.”
“And we’re definitely not in England anymore?” Parker asked.
Jake didn’t bother to dignify that with a reply, which just made Parker appear more agitated.
The baby awoke with a gurgle, and Shayna pressed a kiss to his forehead before turning bruised eyes to Neil. “My back hurts.”
Neil rubbed the base of it gently. “I know, baby. I’m sorry. When we find shelter, I’ll give you a longer back rub.”
“What the hell are you doing, Justin?” Jake suddenly hissed as the other man tapped on Hugh’s cheek. “You want him awake and causing more trouble?”
“He’s heavy,” Justin snapped. “I’d prefer not to break my back carrying him while trekking through snow.” But even as he tapped his brother’s cheek, Hugh, only half awake, batted Justin’s hand away.
Steel glistened in Jake’s gray eyes. “Then you should’ve ditched him like I suggested. We’ll have to get going again soon. We need to find shelter for tonight. We can’t sleep out here.”
Nina drew a fortifying breath, mentally preparing her body to shift. Her quads burned with every step she took as they resumed their trek through the snow, and her blood felt as if it had frozen in her veins. Images of the hot bath and warm double bed flittered cruelly through her mind. Parker’s elegant chalet would remain unoccupied while they froze and starved out in the middle of nowhere.
“It’s not just shelter we need.”
Emily’s tense words had them all turning to her. “We haven’t got any food," she clarified. “The food we had got burned with the rest of the jet.”
Jake acknowledged Emily’s words with a grim nod. “I know, but shelter’s the first priority.”
“Luke needs to be fed,” Shayna declared, pulling Luke’s sucking mouth away from her chest. “I’ll need to do it now before we carry on.”
“What? What are you doing?” Justin cried in panic when she placed Luke in Neil’s arms and began unbuttoning her top.
“I’m going to breastfeed my son,” she replied with impatience. “What does it look like?”
Spiral (The Salzburg Saga Book One) Page 5
