She rushed toward Jack, taking something from her pocket as she moved. She slid open a pocketknife and got behind him. Within a second, he was free, the blood suddenly rushing to his hands and sending painful pinpricks through them.
“We need to go,” she whispered.
“We need the rifle.” He moved to Todd. Up close, it was easy to see the damage done by Steph and her limb. One leg sat at an odd angle, as did his left wrist, and he was bleeding from his head. He was out cold...or worse.
Jack’s hands were almost useless, and getting the rifle loose from the sling was not easy.
“Let me,” Steph said, sawing at the nylon sling with the knife. When it came free, they moved.
With the sling still half attached, Jack cradled the rifle under his arm, noting the filled elastic ammo sleeve on the stock.
Jack’s feet registered every step on the frozen ground. Cold and uneven and sharp through his socks, patches of ice and debris between the trees. He moved through it and kept up with Steph.
She angled through the timber, moving fast and low, staying inside the tree line. He matched her pace and kept the rifle at the ready, hoping his fingers would cooperate if he had to squeeze the trigger.
He’d been cold before, during biathlons, and knew the cold could affect his shooting. He’d never been tied up andhad his hands feeling like lumps and his fingers like useless meat attached to the lumps.
They put the length of a football field between themselves and the injured Todd before they slowed. They hid in a clump of trees, both breathing hard as Steph scanned the area and he checked the rifle, his fingers fumbling with the task. Jack clamped his jaw and forced himself to do the job.
The magazine held five, and a round was chambered. The ammo sleeve held nine. Not bad.
“They don’t seem to be following us.” She turned to look at him.
The relief that hit him was physical. The full-body kind that came up from somewhere deep and moved through him all at once and left him unsteady for a moment.
Steph was standing in front of him with pink cheeks and snow on her jacket.
She was completely fine.
And she had no right to be. She had no right to be standing there, fine and steady-eyed, because he had told her to stay hidden. He had told her clearly and specifically, and she had heard him say it and gone and done the opposite because she’d decided her judgment was better than his. The last time someone he loved made that decision, it cost everything.
Celeste.
He loved her, wanted to marry her, had even picked out a ring and started saving for it. Everything fell apart the moment she decided she couldn’t wait, that she knew better than he did, that the risk was hers to take.
Now Steph did the same thing, taking a risk she had no right to take—one that might kill her. Just like it had Celeste.
Steph was putting herself in danger for him, just like Celeste did.
The rage came up before he could stop it. “What were you thinking?” The words came out low and hard. “I told you to stay hidden. I told you exactly what to do, and you waltzed in there anyway.”
She blinked.
“He had a rifle.” He kept his voice down. He could hear himself, and he couldn’t stop. “You came in there with bear spray and a branch.”
“Jack— ”
“I had it handled.” He knew how that sounded. “I was working the ropes. I had time. You didn’t need to do that, Steph. That was reckless. That was—you could’ve been killed. You understand that? You could’ve been shot before you got close enough to use the bear spray.”
She looked at him.
“I told you to stay put.” His voice was still too low, still too tight, still coming from the wrong place, and he couldn’t pull it back. “That was careless. What you did was careless and reckless and—”
“You had it handled.” Her voice was flat and even. “On your knees. In your socks. In the snow. Tied up.”
He stopped.
She held his gaze and didn’t look away and didn’t add anything to it. She just stood there and looked at him with those steady eyes and waited, and the silence stretched between them and held all the things he hadn’t said and all the things he had. His hands were shaking.
