Page 76 of Mountain Trial

Kat’s heart swelled into something solid, and she realized she would do anything to spare him the anguish he was going through―that she knew exactly what he was feeling, because she felt it too, when she thought about him getting hurt. It was at that exact instant that Kat realized she loved Luc―with a love so strong that she’d never again worry she might not be brave enough to share her feelings.

But first we need to survive this.

Kat looked up into Bull’s dark, reptilian eyes.

Time to double-down.

“I won’t fly you anywhere unless I know he’s safe―you’ll leave him here, uncuffed. Then I’ll fly you wherever you need to go.”

For an instant, she was sure Bull would bow to her will.

Then he laughed, a hoarse, disturbed sound. “Get your ass onto that helicopter, sweet thing. You’ll fly us whenever and wherever I tell you to, because if you don’t, I will use this knife to flay the skin from his body. You think I won’t? It’ll be music to my ears.”

With that, Bull picked up Luc again and shoved him through the aircraft doorway. In a matter of seconds, Dogfish had him strapped into a window seat. With his hands tied behind his back, there was no way Luc could free himself.

“Run, Kat! Please …” Luc begged. Kat didn’t look at him again as she climbed up into the helicopter. Bull followed her instants later with an athletic leap. He closed the door behind them, effectively locking them inside.

“Give me a minute. I need to run through the pre-flight checklist,” Kat begged, pointing at the hundreds of toggles and indicators. “It’s been a while since I flew one of these.”

The EC 145 was a complex machine. Bull and Dogfish didn’t need to know Kat could fly one of these in her sleep.

She turned on the helicopter’s headlights, picked up the checklist and pretended to run through it, all the time wondering what she could do to stop this. She knew this helicopter inside and out. There had to be something she could do.

If Luc weren’t onboard, I could―

“Speed it up, or we’ll start cutting your boyfriend,” Dogfish threatened.

“I need to know where we’re going,” Kat spat, not wanting to betray the panic his words filled her with.

“For now, just head north. I’ll tell you more when you need to know it,” Bull said. Dogfish’s blank expression told her he too didn’t know where they were heading.

No trust lost between these two.

Kat looked down at the radio. If she could―

“Touch that radio and I’ll break your hand,” Dogfish said coldly. He’d moved so silently, she hadn’t even realized how close he was to her shoulder.

Then you’ll have to fly yourself, asshole.

Two small yellow lights appeared on the horizon, blinked for an instant and then disappeared. Kat looked up to see if Dogfish had noticed as well, but he’d turned back to speak with Bull.

Hope filled her. There was nothing in that direction except for the road―and no reason for anyone to be on that road unless they were headed to the hangar.

What if someone saw Luc’s wheelchair out in the snow and called it in.

What if―

“What’s going on? Why aren’t we taking off?” Bull growled. “If I need to go over there―”

Kat raised her palms high in the air in the universal sign for apology. She looked up at the overhead panel and flicked on the standby horizon and the two prime pumps.

“It’s cold. The engine needs to warm up for a minute, otherwise it’s going to seize when we’re up in the air,” she lied.

“We’ll take the risk. Get us out of here―now!” Bull shouted.

Unable to come up with anything else she could do to delay take-off, Kat moved her hand to the throttle―just as the world exploded in light and color.

Suddenly, the helicopter was surrounded by vehicles―police cars, a couple SUVs and a motorcycle.