He felt hands cup his hand, fingers like icicles after just a few minutes of exposure. She leaned in against him, her height making it easy to bring their faces close. “With the lights out, you won’t be able to find things. I know where everything is.”
She spoke so quietly, her words were mere puffs of warm air in his ear. But he welcomed every sweet whisper, if only because her lips kept brushing his lobe. Even so, half of him wanted to throttle her for taking the chance. The other half wanted to stuff her in his pocket and head for the trees and safety.
He leaned in close, using a hand to embrace her by the waist as he pressed his lips to her ear. “Did you call the sheriff?”
She nodded, rubbing her cheek along his. “He and his officers were called to a bad accident at the junction of Highways 81 and 64 up near Staunton. He says hold down the fort at least an hour.”
Kye didn’t bother to curse. A waste of breath. They were on their own. Anything or many things could happen in an hour.
“Don’t speak. Don’t stop. Stay close behind me. If anything happens, make for the tree line above us and hide. Stay there. No matter what happens. Until the sheriff arrives.” He pushed back from her warm body, reluctantly, and grabbed her hand. He tugged, the equivalent of come on.
Yardley fell into step behind him. A moment later she almost jumped out of her skin when a swoosh of falling snow dumped on their heads from a cracking tree branch far above their heads. She had neglected to pull her hood up and the ice sluiced down her neck, under her neckline, and down her spine, making her gasp and shiver.
Kye’s head swung around, tossing more melting snow from his hoodie into her face. “You okay?” At least that’s what she thought he said. Between the dark and the danger she wasn’t sure he’d even spoken aloud.
He pulled her in close by the wrist. “Move fast.”
All at once he was sprinting across the open space between the bunkhouse and the classroom building. She wore combat boots, the same as he did, and this was her property. She knew every rut, stone, pothole, and scrub. But snow and fear were making it all seem unfamiliar, alien, even hostile. Twice she slipped, her footing almost giving way beneath her, but Kye didn’t slow his speed, pulling her along by his momentum so that she just stumbled forward, her face colliding with his back as she scrambled to right herself.
It was only thirty feet but it seemed like fifty yards as they ran straight out for the deeper darkness on the other side of the open ground. She could hear Kye’s sharp breathing, remembered how he was hampered by the swelling and bandages of his broken nose. But it didn’t seem to affect him. He moved strongly and confidently over strange ground until, finally, they slipped into shadow in the rear of the building. Only then did he turn to her, hands going to frame her shoulders.
“You okay?”
She nodded. No need to tell him she’d turned her ankle a bit. It wasn’t that bad. Nothing she couldn’t walk off. “The keys.” She placed her hand against his chest so he’d know where to put them.
He handed them over and she turned, feeling her way along the back of the building until she came to the first door. All the classrooms opened to the outside. A center corridor gave access from the inside. With K-9s needing frequent breaks, this arrangement came in handy. It also meant that one key fit many locks. She felt along the key ring in the dark, counting the number and then choosing one that felt most familiar. Like trying to read Braille, she ran her hand over the door until she found the lock, using a fingertip to locate the keyhole and then pushing the key in.
She swallowed a little ta-da of achievement when the key turned. He had needed her. This wouldn’t have been so easy otherwise.
They pushed into the dark of the classroom smelling faintly of dry eraser, wooden desks, two-week-old stale air, and the ever-present whiff of K-9, an earthy, not unpleasant musk she loved.
“This way.” She was whispering, though once the door closed behind them she thought they were probably safe enough. She grabbed his wrist this time, the thickness and heat a welcome reminder of his presence, and led him through the configuration of the room. In her mind’s eye she pictured the long desks with chairs pushed in. Much easier to navigate a room with indoor obstacles used to teach K-9 techniques. Once in the corridor she turned left into the utter darkness of the interior space. She ran a hand lightly along the wall, counting doors until she was past the third classroom door. The corridor formed a T. Straight ahead was the cafeteria/social room. To the left was the supply room containing ordnance.
She tugged Kye left, strong and solid, reassuring at her back.
She wasn’t certain in what order she heard things. It was as if the night suddenly wrecked itself, like a car crashing.
A shout. Shots fired. A scream.
Kye’s voice sounded strangled. “Lily!”