by Janie Crouch
He was right. She couldn’t even stand up on her own. “Okay. Be careful.”
She felt like he was gone for hours, although she knew it couldn’t be more than a few minutes. She was shivering and clenched her jaw as her teeth started chattering. Her stomach revolted every time she moved. She touched all around her head gingerly to see if she could find any lumps that would signify some sort of concussion, but couldn’t find anything.
How the hell did someone just sleep through a train crash that killed at least two people? She remembered dreaming about sheep. About feeling like she was being carried and hearing Ren’s voice. Had that been after the crash? When he was getting her out?
Her brain just felt so sluggish. She knew sitting in the snow wasn’t helping—physically or mentally—but was afraid to move in case she couldn’t find Ren again. The dark and smoke just seemed so all-encompassing. And until her brain started working again, she didn’t want to be alone.
But Ren had already been bleeding before he went back to try to help the train engineers. What if he was hurt worse than she thought? What if he was trapped somewhere right now and couldn’t get out without help?
She couldn’t sit here and do nothing.
She took a few steps into the smoke, coughing as it became thicker. The fire seemed to be getting louder.
“Ren?” she yelled between coughs. “Where are you? Let me help!”
She couldn’t hear or see anything. The smoke was too thick.
“Ren!”
Which way should she go? She took a few steps in the direction of what she thought would be the front of the train and where he had headed but she couldn’t be sure.
“Natalie!” She’d only gotten a few more steps before she heard him behind her. She turned and ran back in the direction she’d come, arms in front of her in the smoke.
“Ren. I’m here!”
She felt his arms come around her. “Thank God,” he whispered against her hair. “I didn’t know where you were.”
“I couldn’t just stay and do nothing. I was worried you might be hurt.” She reached up and touched the blood that had dried on his temple.
He kept one arm around her as he led her farther away. “I’m fine. But we’ve got to get out of here. There’s definitely some explosive materials, not to mention we’re going to have to find some shelter.”
“Is everybody...” She couldn’t bring herself to say it.
“They are. I’m sorry, Natalie. It looks like everyone was killed in the initial impact. Somehow we both made it, but we’re going to have to get moving if we’re going to keep it that way. We’ve got to go. Right now.”
He pulled her, half walking, half running, before wrapping his arm around her and leading them into darkness. She had no idea where they were going, but Ren was determined to get them away from where they’d been.
She understood why a few moments later when a loud fireball burst behind them. Natalie let out a little shriek and fell forward, only saved from falling face-first into the snow by his arm around her.
“Oh, my gosh, was that the train?” She could finally see him a little more clearly now that they were coming out of the smoke.
“Yes, that’s why I wanted to get us out of there. But I didn’t expect the explosion to be quite that big. Are you okay?”
It was so out of character for her, but she just wanted to lean into him. Into his strength. She didn’t know this man at all. Didn’t know if he could be trusted. But it didn’t stop her from resting her forehead on his chest for just a moment.
They’d almost died. Surely it was okay to take just a second and rest here against him.
After a breath she pushed away. She realized he had both her larger backpack and the smaller one.
“I found both your bags—they got thrown from the passenger car. I couldn’t find mine, but at least I got my coat.”
He set her backpacks on the ground, and Natalie immediately knelt and opened the bigger one, pulling out a dry sweater. No point in putting on dry pants, they were just going to get wet again as they walked.
But at least they were alive. Unlike the others. Tears filled her eyes.
“Hey, you okay?”
“Yeah, I just can’t believe this is happening. That everybody’s dead and we’re not.”
He nodded. “I know. Me, too. But we’ll have to process it later. Right now survival is the most important thing.”
He was right. She would cry for these strangers, but it couldn’t be right now. Like he said, survival was the most important thing. That thought helped cut through the fog in her brain a little more.
Survival.
She had been doing that for six years. She had survived everything Damien had done to her, and she would survive this crash. That was what Natalie did: survive.
Already, she felt a little better, a little clearer, a little stronger. She clenched her jaw against the chattering of her teeth.
“You’re right. Survival is the most important thing.” She began digging through the backpack again.
“I don’t guess you have hiking boots in there?” Ren asked.
“No, only the tennis shoes on my feet.”
“Yeah, me, too. But that’s better than nothing. Get as warm as you can, and if you’ve got an extra sweater to wrap around your head, that will help, too. The body loses a lot of its heat from the head. I have an extra pair of gloves, so use those.”
She did as he suggested and handed him a second sweater. He looked a little surprised before taking it and wrapping it around his own head.
“Thanks.”
“Do you know where we are?” she asked. “I have no idea what state we’re even in.”
“I’ve taken this trip a few times, and based on how long we’ve been traveling since our stop, I’d put us just over the Utah/Colorado line. But it doesn’t matter what state we’re in. Either way we’re high altitude and not near anything. This was the worst possible place this could’ve happened.”
“Should we stay near the train? Won’t someone come looking for us?”
He gave her the smaller backpack and put the larger one on himself. “Eventually they’ll come when we don’t show up at our next scheduled stop. But that is more than eighteen hours from now. Then by the time they figure out something’s actually wrong and get someone out here...we’ll die from exposure.”
“Oh.” Natalie fought not to get overwhelmed. One hour at a time. She just needed to take it one hour at a time.
And at least she was in absolutely no danger from Damien up here. That thought made her smile.
“Want to share your happy thoughts?” Ren tapped the corner of her lips. “I wouldn’t mind a little good news.”
“Nothing. We’re alive. That’s what matters. But I guess I shouldn’t be smiling.”
He pinched the tip of her chin gently. “No, it’s okay to smile. We are alive. Let’s just keep it that way. We need to find shelter for tonight and we’ll take stock of everything tomorrow. Food. Water. Figure out a plan.”
“Okay. I have a sleeping bag, some protein bars and a water filtering system.”
“You do?” Incredulity painted his tone. “Were you on your way to a camping trip or something?”
Yeah, explaining camping equipment when she had no clothes that could be used for that type of activity wasn’t easy. “I was sort of relocating and had this stuff in my bag.”
“It’ll definitely come in handy. Let’s get going.”
Natalie took a couple steps, then had to stop as dizziness assailed her again.
“You all right?”
“Yeah. I must have hit my head in the crash, although nothing feels tender. I’m just woozy.”
He began to walk again, but kept her close to him as they moved. “Shock. Altitude. Cold. A lot of things could be affecting you. And yeah
, I’m sure we’ll both be totally sore tomorrow.”
“Better sore than dead.”
She felt his arm tighten around her waist. “Always.”
Chapter Six
Ren led them, in a slightly roundabout way, to the overhang he’d found when setting up for this operation last week. He and the team had cleaned it out—not wanting to accidentally find themselves bitten or attacked by something—then carefully made it look as if it had been undisturbed.
Not that Natalie would notice. He didn’t think she would notice if there was a couch and television in the small cave. The drugs he’d given her, a tiny injection once she’d fallen asleep to make sure she wasn’t conscious when the train “crashed,” had affected her a little more than expected. She still seemed woozy and confused, clinging to him a lot more than he suspected she normally would.
Ren would continue to foster that closeness as long as he could. Maybe by the time the drug was completely out of her system her body would already be used to his nearness somewhat. The closer he could get to her, the more information he’d be able to glean.
He’d planned on wrapping the both of them within his coat inside the little cave. That, along with the random pieces of dry timber he and the team had placed inside that would allow him to make a fire, would’ve made for an uncomfortable but not miserable night.
She had a damn sleeping bag. She’d definitely caught him off guard with that one. Were she and Freihof planning to go on the run, literally, where they would need camping gear? A water purifier? Who carried that around if they didn’t plan to use it?
Of course, she’d also had stuff that made no sense if she was going somewhere on foot. Paints and brushes. He’d just left them in the bag.
They stepped in a particularly deep drift of snow and it came past her knees. Natalie stiffened almost to the point where her back was bowing. Ren looked over in concern.
“Natalie, what’s wrong? Are you hurt?” The drug shouldn’t be causing a reaction like this. She looked like she was in pain. Not just pain, but complete agony.
“I just... The snow hurts. It hurts.” Her voice sounded odd. Distant. “Please. I’m sorry. I’ll be good, just let me out of the snow. It hurts.”
What the hell?
He pulled her a few steps forward until she was out of the drift, trying to figure out what was going on. He’d been monitoring their time in the snow, knowing frostbite was a possibility, especially in tennis shoes. But they hadn’t been walking long enough for it to be an issue—it shouldn’t be causing her pain. She hadn’t said anything about it until the drift.
He ripped off his gloves and grabbed his phone to turn on the flashlight. He leaned Natalie—who still looked dazed and frightened—against a tree. Lifting her foot, he checked for any holes in her shoes that he hadn’t known about or some sort of wound that had caused her such distress. She was still breathing so deeply she was in danger of hyperventilating.
There was nothing on either her leg or foot that should be causing her pain. And while she was cold, she definitely wasn’t anywhere near numbness or frostbite.
He shifted the light back up to look her in the face. Her lips were pinched with pain, her eyes closed. “No more snow. Please, no more snow. I was wrong. You were right.”
“Natalie.” He put his hands on either side of the sweater she’d wrapped around her head. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
“No more. It burns so bad. Please,” she whispered. Tears were streaming out of her eyes.
Ren didn’t know exactly what was happening, but he knew it wasn’t part of his plan. They weren’t far from the cave so he whisked her up in his arms and cradled her against his chest.
“Okay, Peaches, no more snow. I’ve got you now. You’re not in it anymore.”
Her arms came up to wrap around his shoulders, and he pulled her more tightly against himself and farther from the ground. He began walking quickly toward the cave.
Was this some sort of weird phobia? Maybe just a reaction to stress? After all, she thought five other people had died tonight and they’d narrowly escaped with their lives.
She definitely didn’t know that if she’d taken another couple dozen steps toward the train when she’d decided to come help him with the “rescue” that she would’ve seen Ren talking to Philip and Madeline, both very much alive. The three-member train crew? Also totally unharmed.
As a matter of fact, if she’d come out of the circle of smoke, she would’ve seen the train hadn’t crashed at all. It was all a very elaborate smoke and light show. One car had been burning so she could feel the heat, and be scared enough not to come closer.
Damned if she hadn’t come anyway, trying to help. Ren had barely caught her in time.
After blowing the carefully laid explosives once he’d given them the signal through a single text, the rest of the team had left and were probably already down in Riverton, the Colorado town that was only about six miles away.
Ren just hoped he didn’t have to bring them immediately back up here because Natalie was having some sort of nervous breakdown or allergic reaction to the drugs. The first he could possibly still use to his advantage as long as it didn’t get too murky. But the second would require immediate medical attention, effectively bringing the mission to a halt.
She still had her arms wrapped tightly around his neck, trying to hold as much of her own weight as she could, as if that was very significant to begin with. He’d regularly carried more weight for much longer in the special forces. Ren just kept her close and moved quickly toward the cave.
“Here we are, Peaches,” he said. He set her down inside the overhang that sheltered them from the wind on three sides. He’d planned to make a big production of searching it to make sure it was safe, but she seemed much more concerned about the white stuff on the ground outside than she did about anything else. He clicked his phone flashlight back on to make sure nothing had taken residence in the last few days.
“Yeah, this will be good,” he continued. “Get us out of the elements so we can get some sleep.”
She looked around, slowly taking everything in, one of her hands still grasping his shoulder.
“See?” He took the sweater covering her head and pushed it down slightly so she had more freedom of movement of her head. Strands of her light blond hair flew everywhere. “No snow in here. Do you think you can crawl in?”
She nodded and let go of him to slide inside. He took off her backpack and pushed it toward her. She wrapped her arms around it and pulled it up to her chest. But at least she had lost that utterly hollow look in her eyes.
“I think there’s enough dry wood in here for us to start a fire. It won’t be much of anything, but it will be something. Give a little light. Warmth. But there’s no snow in here, okay?”
“Okay,” she whispered.
He smiled and began building a small fire in the far corner so the smoke would go outward instead of toward them. She was still cradling her backpack.
“You should probably eat one of your protein bars. Your blood sugar is bottoming out, which is making everything much harder on you.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll have one in the morning, but right now I’m fine.”
She nodded. “I’ll get out my sleeping bag, too.”
“While you’re at it, why don’t you try your cell phone? I know you said you didn’t have a signal before, but you never know, sometimes you can just catch the right spot and find a signal. I’ve already tried mine but it didn’t work.”
Maybe she would make it easy and call Freihof right here and now. Omega had provided a cell signal booster to this area and had an agent monitoring the local 911 dispatch. So if Natalie tried to call someone—hopefully Freihof—the call would go through, but a call to 911 would just disconnect.
It was option one in giving her time to contact
Damien, and the easiest. He hoped she’d take it.
But she didn’t.
“No, that’s okay.”
Now that the fire was going, their little dwelling was already becoming more comfortable. Ren took the sweater she’d given him and unwrapped it from his head. He tried to keep any annoyance from his voice.
“You don’t want to even try? You never know. It’s worth a shot.”
She just shrugged and took a bite of her protein bar. “No, I don’t have a phone.”
What? “Not at all? Not even a really cheap one? Even eight-year-olds have a phone these days.”
“Nope. Not me.”
“Then how do you contact people? Your friends?” Maybe she’d ditched her phone before she left. Damn it, now he wished he hadn’t told her his phone had no signal. He could’ve offered it to her to use to make a call.
“I haven’t had one in years. I don’t really like talking on one, I guess. And I don’t have a lot of friends. I work a lot.”
Ren didn’t buy it. She either already had a radio-silence plan in place with her ex-husband or she didn’t trust Ren and was hiding her phone until she could contact Freihof in private. Omega would intercept that call if it came.
“Wow, that’s crazy, but I’ll bet it makes your life more peaceful.”
“Will your parents worry about you? Your brother? Since your phone won’t work?”
“No. I don’t check in with them every day. When they hear about the train, they’ll worry. But like I said, it will be days before they backtrack to where the accident happened. And hopefully we’ll be in civilization before then.”
She got that worried look on her face again.
“Is there someone who’ll be waiting for you?” he asked. “Worrying? Were you going all the way to Saint Louis?”
She shook her head. “No, there’s no one who’ll be concerned about me for a long time.”
He crawled closer as she got the sleeping bag out and began to unzip it. “You should leave it zipped up,” he told her. “You’ll stay warmer that way.”
