Risk It All

by Katie Ruggle

  It clunked faintly against a tree trunk before dropping to the ground in a rustle of dead leaves. Immediately, a hail of bullets peppered the area where the rock had landed, and Henry held a fist behind him without taking his attention off where the gunfire had originated. Despite the terrifying situation, she couldn’t hold back a tiny, proud grin as she soundlessly bumped his fist with hers.

  She found the next rock by her feet, slightly smaller than the first one, but heavy enough to travel some distance. Cocking back her arm, she hurled it in the same direction, trying to send it even farther away from them than the last one had gone. It made it only a few feet past the first stone before it landed in a clump of brush, but it spooked two sage grouse. The birds exploded from the undergrowth in a flurry of wings, moving so suddenly that Cara flinched back.

  Turning, Henry grabbed her hand and took off through the trees. She followed, moving as quietly as possible, dropping behind him whenever the path narrowed, but never releasing her grip. Behind them, the gunfire grew gradually quieter and more distant, and Cara hoped that the sage grouse hadn’t been hit.

  The snow was thin on the ground in the more heavily wooded area, and Cara was grateful that they weren’t leaving clear prints for Abbott to follow. She was also very thankful that she had decent boots to run in rather than the jacket sleeves from the day before. The trees thinned too soon, and the snow lay thicker on the ground. Dropping her hand, Henry led the way toward the edge of the trail, where the wind had blown the rocky surface clear. Trying very hard not to peek over the edge to the steep incline below, Cara kept her gaze locked on the back of Henry’s jacket, pretending as if nothing could happen to her when he was there.

  As if to mock that illusion, a bullet pinged off the rocky ledge by her feet, right as the distant bang echoed in her ears. With a yelp, she jumped over the next section of path, startled by the closeness of the unexpected shot.

  “You hit?” Henry whirled around, looking intensely worried.

  “No, just spooked,” she answered, her breath coming in short huffs from the adrenaline and exertion.

  His expression barely lightened as he urged her to move in front of him. Even though she hated that he’d put himself in danger for her again, she didn’t take time to argue. Instead, she tore as fast as she could down the path. Another shot echoed across the silent slope, and Henry grunted.

  Terrified, Cara twisted around. “Were you hit?”

  “Grazed,” he said, but she wasn’t reassured. With how tough Henry could act, grazed could mean that the bullet barely brushed against his heart.

  Before she could press the matter, he’d grabbed her and urged her into a crevice in the rock before planting himself in front of her. It wasn’t large enough to be a cave, more like a depression in the rock face, but it hid them both from whoever was shooting at them—although it was a tight squeeze. Cara’s face was pressed against his back, and she was right up against the wall of the crevice. In that position, she couldn’t see anything, but she trusted that Henry would get them out of this situation alive. After all, they had a pretty good record of surviving whatever Abbott had thrown at them so far.

  Despite this, her heart still thundered as they waited, pressed as closely together as possible. Everything was quiet except the rasp of her breathing, and she tried to take shallower, silent breaths. There was the slightest scuff of a boot against rock outside their improvised shelter, and Henry lunged forward so quickly that she almost fell forward at the loss of his support.

  Pivoting to face the way they’d come, he raised his gun and fired three times in quick succession. Cara’s body jerked with each loud bang, but the silence that came after was even more nerve-racking. She didn’t dare move or say anything. All she managed to do was keep her eyes locked on Henry’s grim profile until he turned back to her.

  “Let’s go,” he said in a low voice, reaching for her hand. She grasped it, falling in behind him, unable to stop herself from peering over her shoulder. “Don’t look.”

  His words came too late. Cara had already seen the two fallen figures just ten feet from their hiding spot. One of their faces was turned toward her, and she recognized the features of the second kidnapper, the one who’d almost shot her at the cabin.

  “Is one of them Abbott?” she asked.

  “No.” Henry tugged her forward, forcing her out of her paralysis, and she tore her eyes away from the fallen men as she stumbled after him. Her feet started working automatically, even as her brain tried to process what had happened. Gradually, the numbness faded, and she kept her mind on moving as quickly as possible along the path behind Henry. She knew she’d need to deal with her reaction later; now was not the time. They were still in survival mode.

  From behind, Cara could see the torn spot at the top of his left sleeve where the bullet had creased his skin. A little blood stained the fabric around the hole, but it wasn’t much. He’d been telling the truth when he’d said that the bullet had only grazed him. Relief coursed through her, warming the spots that were still numb from the violence and horror. Henry was okay, and that was the most important thing right now.

  “I think we’ve lost them.”

  Even as quiet as it was, Henry’s voice made her jump. Giving a nervous glance over her shoulder, she asked, “Are you sure?”

  He tipped his head as if considering the question—or listening for approaching footsteps. “Fairly sure. We should keep moving, though.”

  They continued walking for what felt like an eternity, but couldn’t have been more than an hour. The early-morning sun still frosted the new snow with pinkish-gold light, giving everything a glow that seemed too perfect to be real. The wind had died down to nothing, and the air felt powdery and almost warm on Cara’s cheeks.

  “I feel like I might have too many layers on,” she said, keeping her voice low as she followed Henry down the trail. She felt a pang of guilt for making such a selfish complaint when two men were dead behind them, but then she reminded herself how many times those guys had tried to kill her. They wouldn’t have mourned her or Henry for a second.

  “See how you feel now that we’ve stopped running,” he said, giving her an assessing look over his shoulder. “If you’re still warm, you can take off a layer.”

  “Okay.” They’d moved to a trail a safer distance from the edge, and her feet sank into the six inches of powder with each step. It was so light and fluffy that walking through it wasn’t much harder than if there hadn’t been any snow at all. For the second time that morning, she offered mental thanks to the boot gods as she tried to imagine how miserable she would’ve been if she’d tried to wear Henry’s coat sleeves on her feet again. It had been bad enough on dry, mostly snow-free ground when they weren’t running for their lives.

  As they left the open area and began winding through another patch of trees, the snow on the ground thinned, since most of it had been caught by the branches. Keeping an eye out for any movement—from either humans or wild carnivorous animals—she jumped at every scratch of pine needles against their jackets and the shush of snow falling from the trees.

  “Are you sure you know which way to go?” she asked, more to fill the eerie silence than because she doubted him.

  “Yes.”

  That didn’t help. He needed to contribute to the conversation, or she’d be stuck giving a monologue just to keep herself from freaking out whenever a squirrel made the tiniest noise. “How do you know?”

  “Because we need to go east.”

  It took her a few seconds to get it. Once she did, she felt a little silly. “Right. Toward the sun.”

  Rather than mocking her, he just gave a grunt of agreement, which she appreciated. What she didn’t like so much was that they’d fallen back into silence, and the tiny sounds were starting to make her tense up again. Maybe it’s good to be able to hear everything, she thought, scanning the area around them. We wa
nt some warning before someone starts shooting at us again or a mountain lion starts gnawing on our heads. Somehow, that thought wasn’t as reassuring as it should’ve been.

  After they walked quietly for a while, the trees started to thin, and the ground grew snowier under their boots. Cara was forced to concentrate on where she placed her feet, so she could only give an occasional quick upward glance to make sure that Henry was still right in front of her and hadn’t been carried off by an eagle or something while she’d been staring at the ground.

  As the tree cover tapered off completely, the trail they were on grew narrower and more sloped until it blended into the rock face altogether. The snow hadn’t been able to pile onto the angled surface, so the stone was mostly bare, but that didn’t help much. The soles of her boots slid across the smooth, hard surface, sending a surge of panic through her. She caught her balance and managed to stop her slow, sideways skid, but she didn’t want to take another step forward.

  The ground under her feet sloped dramatically, making her stomach lurch. It reminded her of standing at the top of the hill when she’d gone snowboarding for the first time, and she was sure that it was too steep to survive the plunge. This time, though, the exposed rock wasn’t a groomed ski trail. If she fell, she would most likely die.

  “Hey.” The unusually gentle note in Henry’s voice brought her attention away from the slope that could easily kill her with one misstep. While she’d been preoccupied with staring downhill, he’d moved closer and was standing right next to her. Her gaze locked on his face, which was a thousand times more reassuring than looking at the rocky slope. “You can do this. We just need to make it over there, and it levels off somewhat.”

  When she just stared at him with wide eyes, unable to take that next step that could send her sliding down the mountain, he reached over and took her hand. “Wait,” she protested, her voice sounding higher than normal. “Now I’ll just pull you down with me. We both don’t have to die.” She tried to make it sound as though she were joking, but she couldn’t hide her all-too-serious worry that her clumsiness would kill them both.

  He raised his eyebrows in mock-offense. “You think you’d be able to pull me down? Please.” Still holding her hand, he turned and started to make his way across the sloping ground. Pretty sure that he’d just drag her across with him if she didn’t move of her own volition, Cara took one shaky step and then another. The tread on her boots gripped the surface of the rocky ground, and she relaxed a tiny bit as she followed Henry, her fingers clinging tightly to his. It was easier, she quickly found, to keep her eyes on his back, rather than looking down. The lack of trees made the area look dizzyingly huge and empty.

  It was hard to believe that her feet could grip on such a vertical slope, and every muscle in her body was tight with the fear that just one bad step could sent her plummeting down. The steepness of the ground made her light-headed when she glanced down the hill. It appeared almost vertical, and every bit of physics knowledge in her screamed that there was no possible way for them to stand on such a slope. She swayed a little, her head spinning with fear and vertigo. Henry’s hand tightened on hers.

  She took it step by single step, trying not to think about how far she still had to go. With each successful movement, she felt her confidence grow. Henry had been right. She could do this.

  Just then, her boot slid on some loose bits of shale. Her leg pulled to the side, making her body lurch, and she knew she was going down. This was it. The slope looked steep and endless to her panicking mind, and she was furious with herself at the same time. After everything—bullets and car chases and hand grenades—a little bit of loose rock would be the end of her. Her throat clenched on a held-in scream as she braced for the moment she started falling. Her feet slid faster, sweeping out from under her as her free arm pinwheeled, trying to grab something, anything that could keep her from plummeting to the rocks below. Her shoulder wrenched as her body dangled over open space, nothing beneath her feet but emptiness.

  She swung in midair, dangling from Henry’s hand.

  Before it even registered that she wasn’t going to die, he hauled her upright. She managed to get her feet underneath her, although her legs shook violently, barely supporting her weight.

  “Okay?” he asked as she panted for breath.

  Ignoring the way her legs trembled from residual fear and adrenaline, she gave a nod, not wanting to speak and hear how shaky her voice was. She was also sucking in too much air in long, heaving inhales to be able to get an intelligible word out. As she calmed, her breath came more easily, although her legs still felt wobbly.

  “Ready?” He didn’t even sound breathless, and he was the one who’d been holding her entire body weight.

  Again, she nodded, her steps tentative as she followed him across the slope, clinging even more tightly to his hand than before. She carefully placed each foot, testing every step before daring to put her entire weight down. Only when she had her breath back and thought she’d sound somewhat normal did she say something. “You’re really strong.”

  He shot a slightly bemused look over his shoulder. “Thanks?”

  “You’re welcome.” That didn’t seem right, though. “I mean, I should be thanking you for keeping me from falling down the mountain.” She pictured herself tumbling end over end, cartoon-style, picking up snow as she went until she was stuck in the center of a huge snowball that smashed into the rocks below.

  His only response to that was a barely audible grunt, which made her smile. He was really bad at accepting any kind of gratitude, which she found oddly endearing. It made her want to heap gratuitous praise on him just so she could watch his discomfited reaction. Glancing at their locked hands, she resisted the urge, grateful enough for his reassurance and help that she didn’t really want to tease him.

  Her foot slipped again, just a few inches, but it was enough to remind her of their precarious position. Forgetting about poking at Henry, she focused on where she was placing her feet, not looking up until she walked right into his back and realized that he’d stopped.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked, looking around now that their feet were planted and she didn’t have to worry about taking a dangerous step. They’d reached another thin patch of trees, where the ground—as Henry had promised—wasn’t sloped as severely as the section they’d just crossed. The sun was brighter, and the patches of snow covering the tree branches were dripping onto the rocky ground below, making it sound as if it was sprinkling.

  “Nothing’s wrong,” he said, although the way his eyebrows drew in toward each other contradicted his words. “Just trying to decide on the best way.”

  Peering around him, Cara saw what he meant. If they continued straight, they’d run into a patch of loose, broken pieces of shale. After nearly being taken down by a few poorly placed pebbles, she could only imagine how treacherous crossing that would be. The other route took them up above the trees, and she made a face.

  “We’re going to have to go up more before we can go down, aren’t we?”

  His look was a little bit amused but even more sympathetic, which surprised her. “Yeah. You okay?”

  “Sure,” she answered honestly. Having Henry—especially this helpful, even kind version of Henry—there made everything feel achievable. There was something about his calm confidence that kept her from panicking, and holding on to his hand felt like a literal lifeline. As they started up the rocky surface that could generously be considered a trail, she could almost pretend that they were on a fun hike in the mountains. Her only complaints were her aches and pains from the day before and the sweat that was prickling underneath her multiple layers of clothes. With the bright sunshine beaming down and their brisk pace, she was starting to get overheated.

  Reluctantly, she dropped Henry’s hand so she could unzip her coveralls to her waist. He immediately stopped and turned toward her when she released him. As he watche
d, she pulled her arms out of the coverall sleeves and then pulled off her fleece top. Leaving the top part of the coveralls to hang down around her hips, she tied the fleece around her waist.

  “Okay,” she said. “I’m set.” She waited for him to start walking again, but he extended his hand toward her instead. After a surprised pause, she took it, lacing her fingers with his. Only then did he start walking again. On this flat section of rock, she wasn’t in much danger of falling unless she really tried, so she didn’t need him to catch her. Still, she was pleased he’d offered. She liked having that reassuring physical connection.

  Although climbing up was easier than going down, especially when the trail wasn’t sloped, it still took most of her concentration to stay on her feet and keep up with Henry. Every step higher was frustrating in that she knew they’d have to go that same distance down again to get to the river. She tried not to think about that, focusing on one step at a time.

  Once they’d crossed above the area with all of the broken shale, they started making their way down, crisscrossing back and forth across the face of the slope.

  “If we could go straight down, we’d get there in one-tenth the time,” Cara commented as they made yet another hairpin turn.

  Henry gave her a wry look over his shoulder. “Yeah, but the idea is to get there in one unbroken piece.”

  “Good point.” She climbed over a sharp, protruding rock edge. Before she could say anything else, a distant hum caught her attention. Tipping her head, she tried to identify the sound. “Do I hear traffic? Are we close to the road?” She wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. If they could hitch a ride with a kindly Good Samaritan, that would be wonderful, but with their luck, they were more likely to stumble over some of Abbott’s people out searching for them.

  Henry cocked his head as if he was listening. “That’s the river.”