“I see her—”
Ten somersaults down, the ground flattened again and she landed hard and dizzy. She scrambled upright. Kept going. Hurtled through prickly undergrowth with outstretched hands, branches breaking against her palms, slashing bare skin. Then the terrain dropped again, and again she fell— Their voices growing distant: “I . . . I lost her.”
“There, there—”
Sliding on her back now. Fir trunks whooshing past. Right. Left. Right. No stop this time. The slope kept going, and so did she, slip-sliding over ramped snowdrifts, accelerating to dangerous speed. She raised her arms, trying to slow herself, but hit another rock shelf. Another impact punched the air from her chest, rag-dolling her sideways. Up and down lost all meaning. Her world became a violent tumble-dryer, an endless, crashing kaleidoscope.
Then it ended.
It took her a few seconds to realize she’d even stopped rolling. She’d landed sprawled on her back, her eardrums ringing, a dozen new bruises throbbing on her body. Time seemed to blur. For a dreamy moment, she nearly blacked out.
To her left, a fir tree made a strange little shiver, dropping an armful of snow and peppering her with wood chips.
Then she heard an echo from uphill — like a whipcrack — and she understood exactly what had happened, and she staggered upright and kept running.
*
Ashley blinked away the Beretta’s muzzle flash and aimed for a second shot, but he’d lost her amid the brush and studded boulders. Too much tree cover.
He lowered the pistol. Smoke curling in the air.
“Did you get her?” Lars asked.
“I don’t think so.”
“She’s . . . she’s getting away—”
“It’s fine.” He followed her downslope, descending carefully, finding footholds on snow-crested rock. “We’ll catch her at the bottom.”
“What if she gets back inside and tells Ed—”
“She ran the wrong way.” Ashley pointed downhill with the gun. “See? Dumb bitch is going north. Deeper into the woods.”
“Oh.”
“The rest stop is back that way. South.”
“Okay.”
“Come on, baby brother.” He tucked the pistol into his jacket pocket and extended both arms for balance, his boots on slick stone. He found his LED flashlight upright in the snow where she’d dropped it.
As he scooped it up, he noticed something in the distance, something incongruous — the white shadow of Melanie’s Peak. The same eastern landmark as always, cloaked in low clouds, but now it loomed on his right horizon. Not his left.
Which meant south was actually . . .
“Oh.” Suddenly he understood. “Oh, that bitch.”
“What?”
“She . . . she must have turned us around. She’s running back to the building—”
*
Darby was within eyeshot of the rest area now.
Like a campfire in the darkness, tugging closer with every aching step. The warm amber glow of the visitor center’s single window, the parked cars, the flagpole and the half-buried Nightmare Children— In the woods behind her, Ashley howled: “Daaaarby.”
No enunciation, no readable emotion — just her name, coming in shrieking singsong from the black. It chilled her blood.
She’d bought herself some time. Not quite a ten-minute increment, but enough time to steal the brothers’ Astro (where the keys were still in the door) and attempt a getaway. Fifty-fifty odds she’d even make it out of the submerged parking lot, but hell, those were better chances than her own Honda, and probably the best odds she’d had all night. She thought about poor little Jay as she ran, and it hit her again like a crushing wave, a swarm of terrible thoughts racing behind her, biting at her with wicked teeth— Why did I get involved?
She couldn’t think about it.
This is my fault—
Not now.
Oh, Jesus, I got a kid killed tonight— She was approaching the parking lot, passing a green signboard, when Ashley shouted at her again from the trees, closer behind her now, his voice cracking into an ugly adolescent pitch: “We’re going to catch you.”
The Astro was now fifty feet away. The snow was shallower in the parking lot, and it renewed her energy; she launched into a faster, lighter sprint. She passed an indistinct form buried under swept snow — what she’d initially believed to be Ashley’s car. From this new angle, she glimpsed green metal. Pits of vertical rust. A white stencil. Under the snowpack, it wasn’t a parked car at all — it was a dumpster.
I should’ve known. I should’ve looked closer— She kept running, heaving steps, the air stinging her throat, her calves burning, her joints aching. The kidnappers’ Astro van coming closer.
She wished she’d never stopped at this stupid rest stop. She wished she’d never left her hometown for college last year. Why can’t I be like my sister Devon? Who was perfectly happy waiting tables at the Cheesecake Factory in Provo? Who vacuumed Mom’s house every Sunday morning? Who had “Strength in Chinese” tattooed on her shoulder blade? Why am I like this? Why do I always strike out on my own and estrange people? Why am I out here, miles from home, running for my life in a frozen parking lot in Colorado, while Mom gets treated for pancreatic cancer— The Astro van was now thirty feet away.
Twenty.
Ten.
“And when we catch you, you little bitch, I’ll make you beg for that Ziploc bag—”
She hit the Astro’s driver door with her palms. Snow globs slid off the bumpy glass. Ashley’s lanyard still dangling in the lock, where she’d left it. She opened the door and glanced to the Wanapani building. She could twist the keys in the ignition, right now, and attempt an escape. And maybe she’d make it. Maybe she wouldn’t.
But it would be a death sentence to Ed and Sandi.
Thinking a move ahead, she knew the brothers would then have no choice but to murder them both for the keys to Sandi’s truck, so they could chase Darby down and kill her on the highway.
No, I can’t leave Ed and Sandi.
I can’t get anyone else killed tonight.
She wavered there, gripping the door for balance. Her knees were slushy; she almost collapsed inside. The ignition was right there, close enough to touch. The steering wheel was sticky, duct-taped in patches. A crunchy sea of Taco Bell trash on the floor. Lars’s plastic model airplane. The van’s interior was still as warm and moist as an exhaled breath, the upholstery still reeking of clammy sweat, dog blankets, and the piss and vomit of a dead girl.
The ignition was right there.
No. The snow was too deep. She’d seen the highway with her own eyes. State Route Seven was buried, unrecognizable, all hopeless powder. Four-wheel drive or not, the Astro would high-center in seconds, trapping her on the on-ramp, and then the brothers would run her down and shoot her through the window— What if it doesn’t?
What if this, right now, is my only chance to escape?
The keys chattered in her right hand. She closed a fist around them. She desperately wanted to slide into the killers’ vehicle, to turn the engine, to shift into gear, to just try and drive it, to just please try— Coming closer: “Daaaaarby—”