The distant lights blinked back—same pattern.
He put his hand on David’s shoulder, more for balance than relief. Okay, both.
Brian ran up behind them.
“Keep tracking their movement.” He handed the flashlight back to Brian. “Let me know if they change direction.”
Brian nodded, eyes wide with new understanding.
Liam hurried back to Nimue’s side. She seemed to be unconscious now, the rest of the group huddled together, fear and cold threaded between them.
He brushed dark hair from Nimue’s beautiful face, thumb lingering on her cheek.
“Hold on.” His whisper was a prayer. “Help’s coming.”
Please let it be help.
Please don’t let him have just killed them all.
Everything hurt.
Not just hurt—consumed. Pain wrapped around her like a living thing, pulsing through every cell, every nerve ending. Thiswasn’t like that high school knee sprain that had benched her for weeks. This was different. Deeper.
As if she’d been hit by a freight train instead of falling a few feet onto rocks.
Her eyes felt superglued shut. Thoughts started to form, then scattered like startled birds before she could catch them.
The gold.Had she and Liam fought about the gold? Before the fall or after?
Someone was talking to her. Not Liam’s voice. She couldn’t focus, couldn’t make her mouth work. Her body begged for sleep—sweet, painless oblivion—and she was too weak to fight it.
Sounds drifted in and out like radio static. Shouts. Movement. Some low humming she couldn’t identify. Every time she tried forcing her eyes open, invisible weights dragged them closed again.
Hands touched her face. Gentle. Warm.
Liam.
She liked when he was close. His voice reached her—soothing, familiar—but the words might as well have been underwater. Everything kept fading to gray static.
More voices now. Unfamiliar ones. One sounded like Emberly—soft, careful.
Was she home in Florida?
No. Canyon. She was in the canyon. Wasn’t she? Reality felt slippery, unreliable. Sleep whispered promises of relief, but these voices wouldn’t let her rest.
A woman’s face materialized above her.Not Emberly.The doctor who’d stitched her hand—Meg, maybe? Liam had mentioned her name.
That made no sense. Meg wasn’t with them.
Yet here she was, being supremely annoying by shining a flashlight directly into Nimue’s eyes. Asking questions in rapid-fire succession that Nimue couldn’t process.
Why wouldn’t everyone just let her sleep?
Meg’s voice rattled on—a stream of words that sounded like a foreign language. She wanted to tell the woman to stop, to leave her alone, but her tongue felt thick and useless.
Liam’s face returned. His hands wrapped around hers—warm, steady, real.
“Hang in there.” He leaned close.
