Dominik twisted around to pat him on the back. “Thanks, Jose.”
Reese’s heartbeat accelerated. The prospect of reuniting with . . . God, with who? She didn’t even know who had survived the outpost attack. She’d been too scared to ask Dominik before, but now she had no choice.
She took a breath and met his gray eyes. “The people who were with me at the outpost . . . do you know if they survived?”
He nodded.
“Who?” she whispered.
“Most of them, I think. I didn’t catch any of the names Hudson told me, except for someone with a D? David maybe?”
“Davis.” Relief hit her. Davis had been with Nash, so that boded well for Nash surviving. But what about Beckett? Sam?
Rylan.
Sloan.
“Did Hudson say exactly how many survived?”
“Five or six?”
“Was it five or was it six?” Reese demanded, swallowing her panic.
“I don’t know,” he said irritably. “I’m sure you’ll find out soon enough.”
The chopper dipped to the right as the pilot changed course slightly. As far as Reese could tell, they’d been traveling west for most of the flight. Now it seemed like they were going northwest. Her heart dropped, because that meant the mountains. Connor’s place, she deduced. But why not Foxworth? Her people would be there.
I’m going to set your little town on fire . . .
Her pulse sped up as Ferris’s words returned to her. Was Foxworth gone?
She peered out the window, but they were too high up to make out any distinguishable landmarks down below. She didn’t see any plumes of smoke to indicate a fire, but for all she knew, her town could be burning.
It became hard to breathe in those last minutes of their journey. The helicopter started its descent, and sure enough, she saw the snowy mountain caps. She’d been to Connor’s camp only once, but she recognized the landscape. As the chopper dropped lower and lower, she glimpsed the roofs of wood cabins peeking from the trees.
The helicopter set down in a clearing that appeared to be several miles from the cabins she’d seen from the sky. There were no vehicles or people waiting. Reese gulped again, because if Sloan and Rylan were alive, they’d be standing there waiting for the chopper to land.
The bird lurched as it touched down. One of Dominik’s men threw open the doors, and everyone climbed out. The still-spinning rotors created a tornado of wind that whipped Reese’s hair around her head.
Twenty feet away, the second Enforcer chopper was landing. Beyond that, the third. Enforcers streamed out of the birds, and for a second she found herself reaching for a gun that wasn’t holstered to her hip. She had to remind herself that they weren’t her enemies—they were her saviors. These men, these deserters . . . they were outlaws now.
Dominik had a phone to his ear and was murmuring into it. She was tempted to yank it out of his hand and demand to speak to Sloan. Or Rylan. Or, hell, even Connor, just so he could tell her whether her men were alive. But Dominik ended the call before she had the chance.
“We’re two miles out, but we have to get there on foot because the trail is too uneven for vehicles to drive on,” he told her. “This was the only place we could land.”
She nodded.
“Are you up for it?” he pressed.
“What do I look like, a pussy?”
He chuckled. “No, you look like a woman who hasn’t had a real meal in twenty-four hours.”
Reese shrugged. They’d given her an energy bar on the chopper and she’d chugged at least two bottles of water, but even though she was still hungry, a two-mile hike wasn’t going to kill her.
“Let’s go,” she said, already charging past him.
Still chuckling, Dominik followed her toward the brush.
There wasn’t much talking during the trek toward Connor’s camp, but it wasn’t quiet. Thirty-odd men walking through the slush in heavy boots created a lot of noise: twigs breaking, rifles pushing away branches, the undergrowth of the forest cracking beneath their feet.
The men matched her rapid pace. They were all eager to reach civilization, but Reese wondered if the Enforcer deserters knew what they were in for. They certainly wouldn’t encounter the same luxuries they had on their compound. Connor’s camp had a generator. It had lights, plumbing, lots of game in the woods. But those weren’t the kind of conveniences that these men were used to, and if the generator ran out of fuel, all those luxuries would go away.
The woods thinned out about a mile and a half into the hike. After another quarter mile, Reese saw the first cabin. And then another one. She walked faster, feeling energized despite the fact that her stomach now hurt from exertion and no sustenance.
She stumbled through the trees and reached a path that winded past several more A-frame cabins that looked abandoned. She knew this had once been a wilderness resort where families had come on vacation. As the path widened, she suddenly heard voices. Far more than she’d expected, since Connor ran a small camp of less than ten people.