AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I say nothing, too busy trying to loosen the tape around my wrists.
“Did you know that there’s an old, abandoned gold mine on Cascade Peak?” he asks me.
I shake my head, immediately regretting it as my vision darkens with the movement. I feel warmth trickling down my neck and realize I’m bleeding from being slammed into the wall.
“I ran across it years ago. Just a few keep out signs from the forest service. I spent a long time exploring the mine, looking for something left behind and one day, I finally found some gold.”
He walks into the living room and shuts the light off. Pale light from outside falls across the floor as he moves the curtain to the side to look out. Then he turns his crazed eyes back on me.
“It doesn’t take much gold to make a rich man. Back then I had a job, working with your uncle doing ski patrol. We started looking together and found more and more.”
I feel sick. My uncle knows this guy. Nausea churns inside me as he continues.
“One day, your parents came across our camp. Your mom and uncle had it out. There was yelling, and John hit her. Your dad hit him back. Eventually they confiscated the gold that we hadn’t put away and left, saying if we stopped now, they wouldn’t turn us in.”
He laughs maniacally and leans down in my face. His fingers trace my jaw line before squeezing my cheeks so hard I taste blood from my teeth tearing into them.
“We couldn’t have your bitch mom ruining everything. So, we came up with a plan. I stayed on the peak, waiting to ambush them on one of their shifts. Your dad died fast, like your friend outside.”
He paces from the front door to the back door. It’s like he’s getting off on these long pauses in his soliloquy. The tape around my wrists won’t give, but I can’t stop trying to escape. The chair he put me in has a loose leg I’ve been meaning to tighten but haven’t. I wonder if I could tip over and break it without hurting myself too much in the process.
“Your mom,” he gives me a grotesque smile, “didn’t. I kept her alive for a while. Someone had to teach her a lesson. I wonder how similar mother and daughter can be.” He grabs my chest and squeezes. “You’re much bigger than she was, though.”
I flinch at the pain as his fingers dig into my flesh. Worry for Blake, dread for Cody and West, and horror for my parents swirl around me like a maelstrom. But I know I have to stay calm otherwise I won’t make it out of this.
I glance up at Blue, who is visibly agitated, their feathers all fluffed out. I hear a thump from outside, but this guy misses it. His eyes skim over my body in a way that makes me want to turn inside out and wither away.
The thump sounds again and his head snaps over.
“I thought my parents died in an avalanche,” I say to distract him.
His dull, brown eyes move back to me. “That’s how I covered it up. I dropped their bodies in the bowl below the peak and set off an avalanche. The rocks and snow battered their bodies hard enough that no one ever thought to do an autopsy. Especially when your brother had power of attorney and custody of you.”
Another louder thump shakes the exterior wall of the cabin and, this time, he goes out to investigate. Blue flies down, pecking at the tape around my wrists. I can hear sounds of a struggle outside, fist hitting flesh and grunted curses. Blue finally gets enough of the tape mangled that I can rip it apart. The back of the chair is wider than my shoulders, so I manage to wiggle my arms from behind me to the front and rip that piece off, too. Glass breaks outside as I work the tape around my ankles off.
My head swims as I stand, and when I touch the back of my head my fingers come away bloody. A giant knot is tender to the touch under my hair.
When I make it outside, I find Blake grappling around in the snow with the psycho killer. Blake has him pinned for the moment, but then the guy hits Blake right in the temple and he crumples over. His eyes flare with rage when he sees me standing in the door and he shoots to his feet.
I run for the only weapon I can think of, one of my axes that’s leaning against the side of the cabin. I reach it right before he reaches me. Using my momentum, I turn and swing it like a bat bringing the blade into his stomach.
We both stop and look at the gruesome sight. Blood is already seeping out around the blade and he looks at me with widened eyes as he gurgles and drops to his knees, then onto his face.
I sob and run toward Blake, who’s rolled onto his back. His face is covered in blood and swollen from the fight. I’m running my hands over him delicately, making sure there’s no mortal wounds on his body when I hear footsteps.
Turning, I hope to see the guys, but my eyes find my uncle’s angry face instead. I stumble back as he comes closer, knowing now that he helped murder my parents. At the very least he was an accessory. Who knows what he’ll do to me.
“I’ll leave and never come back if you give me the key to the box,” John says as he stands over me.
“I don’t know where it is.” I scramble back, terrified that he’s going to hurt me but even more worried about Blake. I want to draw him away from where he’s lying unconscious in the snow. “Can’t you just break it?”
“No.” He grabs my arm and hauls me up, shoving me toward the house. “Tried that, but it’s lined with some sort of metal. Get in there and find it.”
“Why are you doing this?” I ask as he pushes me again. “I don’t have the key. I’ve never opened the box.”
I hear a click and then something hard is pressed against the back of my head, right into my wound. “I never wanted to deal with you before, keep whining and I’ll pull the trigger.”
ChapterForty-Two
