He never thought he’d be glad to be back, but for the last thirty miles, his hands had been shaking and his brow had been sweating and the dark road had started to swirl before his eyes. When he moved to take off his seat belt, he was hit by a wave of pain so deep he thought he might pass out. He’d been sitting for too long, and now the adrenaline was gone.
All that remained was a deep, throbbing ache and a sticky shirt, and the relief that they’d made it, even if it was the last place on earth he wanted to be.
“What . . .” Zoe stirred awake then grinned at him, like a little girl who had been having the most wonderful dream. Her hair was a halo in the moonlight, and she looked so pure and innocent that he hated his own hands for how badly they wanted to touch her. “Where are we?”
It was harder than it should have been to tell her, “Home.”
Chapter Forty-Three
Her
The snow was up to Zoe’s knees as she crawled from the SUV and trudged toward the cabin. She could see her breath in the air and smell the pines, and every cell in her body felt alive for the first time. She didn’t know there were that many stars—millions of them glistening overhead. She wanted to make a wish because surely, somewhere out there, one of them had to be falling.
“Coming?” Sawyer called from the porch.
She couldn’t believe it when the key was under the mat. Weren’t safe houses supposed to come with retinal scanners and voice-activated attack dogs and keypads that shoot acid if you type in the wrong code? Evidently not, and Zoe couldn’t help but feel a tiny bit disappointed as she followed Sawyer inside.
She reached for the switch by the door, but nothing happened when she flipped it.
“No power,” he said. “We’re off the grid. I’ll see if I can get the generator going in the morning. In the meantime, there should be some candles around here somewhere.”
It didn’t take long for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. One whole wall was windows, after all, and moonlight filtered through, reflecting off the snow outside—too bright for the middle of the night. The whole place was covered in dust and smelled like it hadn’t known fresh air in ages, and if it hadn’t been for the tall stone fireplace and old furniture, she might have wondered if they’d just unlocked a tomb.
“We should have gas for hot water and wood for fires, and . . . Shit,” Sawyer mumbled and she heard something hit the floor just as he struck a match.
Light flickered, the tiny orange glow washing over the dusty floor as Zoe bent down to retrieve the candle that was rolling toward her.
“Looking for . . .” she started but trailed off as she came eye to eye with the dark stain on Sawyer’s shirt.
Her first thought was that he’d spilled something—that she should give him a hard time for being clumsy. But the stain was wet. And the stain was very, very red. And his face was very, very white. And in the flickering glow of the matchlight she saw it in his eyes—she knew.
So she looked up at him and said, “I’m going to kill you.”
Him
“You’re a real jerk, you know that, right?”
Sawyer did know, but that wasn’t the time to recount all his lies and betrayals and crimes both large and small. He was reclining on the couch, surrounded by at least a dozen candles and one very large bottle of vodka. He just hoped it was large enough.
“Don’t drink all that. I need it.” She grabbed the bottle back.
“Need it for— Son of a bitch!” he shouted as she poured liquid fire into the gash in his side.
“This is from the mountain, isn’t it? You said it was just a scratch.”
“It is a scratch,” he said and she gave him another splash. “It’s—fucking—”
“Language!” she scolded as she set the bottle aside and brought a candle closer to the scratch that . . . okay . . . was a little longer and a little deeper than he might have initially led her to believe.
“You were going to fight ten of Kozlov’s guys—”
“I only saw four. Five. Shit—” Another splash. “Well, now you’re just wasting it to be mean.” He grabbed the bottle back and took a swig. Something told him he was going to need it.
“Walk away, Zoe,” she said in a too-deep voice. “I don’t need your help, Zoe. You’re just a girl, Zoe.”
“Hey, I never said—”
“And then you gave me a Certifiable Movie Kiss and went to take on twenty guys way bigger and stronger and tougher—”