“You’ll warm me up soon enough.”
“In your dreams.” I almost puked. I searched for something that might help me. But there was nothing but a sea of snow surrounding us.
We were on what appeared to be a snowmobile path. Or once a road narrowed down to a one-way due to the levels of snow. Middle of nowhere. No options. No nothing!
After another twenty minutes of walking, my toes, lips, and fingertips were numb. The wind sliced through my thick coat like newly sharpened razors. The frigid air stung my nostrils and slapped my face.
I really wasn’t going to make it much longer. Not without losing some toes.
The road tilted downward, and there was a ditch to my right. Maybe if—I acted before I thought it through, so tired of thinking. I had to do something!
I fell to the side, and I heard Nicco huff. “Get up.”
“Can’t…feet…frozen.” Not completely true, but close. They hurt like a son of a bitch, but…if he got close enough I could—
He leaned down, and I kicked out, hitting the gun in his hand with my boot. It fired, a patch of snow blasting in my face. Instantly my ear rang, bursting pain resonating through my skull. He lunged at me, but I kicked him back, using my strongest assets against him: my legs.
I rolled over, working through the dizziness ringing in my head. My eardrum had to have burst from the blast. Warmth oozed out. My chest tightened.
Focus. I scrambled to the ditch, finding the hole in the snow the gun had made.
Yes!
Nicco caught my boot, and I kicked with my free leg, but he deflected. Another kick, and he pulled hard, yanking my boot off. He fell back, which gave me a few precious seconds to scramble deeper into the ditch. My foot stung, burning with icy pain.
I buried my hand in the snow, feeling for the gun.Please. Please. Please.
Finally my frozen hand met something hard. I grabbed it, along with a handful of snow, and yanked up.
Rolling onto my back, I pointed the gun at him. “Stop right there!”
Nicco froze, the smirk slightly smaller on his face.
Finally.The trigger against my finger sent a surge of power through my body.
I pushed to my feet, keeping the weapon trained on him, and backed away.
“You don’t have it in you.” He reached for me.
“One thing you taught me was ruthlessness, Nicco.” I squeezed the trigger, and his bellow bounced off the trees surrounding us.
Blood spurted from his hand. I’d managed to clip his last couple of fingers on his right hand.
Good.
I made it to the packed snow path and started back the way we’d come, still facing him as he rolled around on the ground, holding his bleeding hand.
The sound of snow crunching had me turning around, gun raised. The black car jolted to a stop, skidding to the right where the front bumper banged against the snowbank.
The passenger side door opened. “Sarah!” Drey’s head popped up. “Sarah!”
“Drey!” I took off running, my foot fully frozen now, but it didn’t fail me. Drey was here. He was alive. He was—
“Gun!” The sound of a gun firing sent me sprawling onto the snow-covered ground, sliding toward the car.
I rolled over. Nicco lay flat on his back, his arms to the side. And there sat another gun near his hand.
Marshal leaned out of the driver’s window of the car Drey just exited. He was holding a gun, and I swear it was smoking, though that might have been my imagination.