Uncharted by Adriana Anders

Chapter 2

“Let’s do this, baby,” Leo muttered, applying slow pressure to the stick in order to increase the speed and push the little plane straight into the headwind. Five hundred yards. Four.

While taking off this far east was the only option, it put Leo closer to the opposite shore than she’d like. “Come on, Dolores. Come on, old girl. You’ve got this.”

Her eyes shot up to the evergreen wall before her, then down to the controls and back up again. She’d seen aircraft eviscerated by just the tip of a pine tree. She had to get over them. Come on, Dolores!

Another dozen feet and she was airborne. Up, level, hanging just off the water, so low she could still jump without dying. She let the stick slide forward into neutral to get her flying speed up, eyeing that mass of death up ahead. Oh, come on.

Man, was she bad at this patience business. The waiting and teasing and more waiting that an aircraft like this needed were totally out of her comfort zone. Especially now, when she wanted to yank at the stick and make this little lady rise.

Back to climbing position. And climbing. Gaining on the trees… Three hundred yards, two hundred.

Never make it.

The adrenaline was wild. A drug, coursing through her, turning everything bright, technicolor, alive—like there were three of her inside this one skin suit. Three thousand of her. As with every risk, every painful near miss she’d been through, she loved it, lived for it, ate it up. Shivers, heat, and the blood-pumping reality of being alive assailed her the way they did every time she dared the world to end her.

Bring it!she taunted, as if she hadn’t experienced the stench and pain of death, hadn’t soaked in its slow, inexorable ooze, hadn’t tried to stop it with her bare hands—stuffing guts back inside of friends as if their souls weren’t already gone.

“Okay, Dolores. We’ve got this, sweetheart. Come on.” The plane took on a touch more altitude. Not enough yet, but getting there. All she could do was hope that the Chronos team hadn’t caught wind of her departure.

But, oh man, did she love this. This daredevilry, this thirst for risk didn’t come from her; it came from out there—from the elements, maybe, the universe, or possibly even from death itself.

Ten yards, eight… Closer…closer…

“Come on, baby. Come on,” she muttered, firm in her belief that an aircraft had a soul.

A final pull on the stick and the left float grazed the very tip of a pine as she soared into the sky, tilting wildly before finally straightening out.

She turned, craning her neck to see if anybody was in pursuit.

Nothing but mountains and river and the quickly setting sun. Had she truly made it out unseen? The chances seemed pretty slim. How long would it take them to head out after her? With no intel on what they’d been doing back in Schink’s Station, she couldn’t say. Were they five minutes behind her? Thirty? She’d never flown this blind.

Anything could happen.

She let out a long sigh—the only outward sign that her brain and body were buzzing like a million live wires—gave the stick an affectionate little rub, and turned into the mountains to save Campbell Turner and keep that darned virus out of the wrong hands. Again.

It wasn’t until a half hour into the flight—without any sign of the other aircraft—that she truly understood Amka’s final warning about ice.

Parts of the river she followed into the higher mountains looked way too close to breaking up. If the lake was melting too, she’d have nothing to land on.

And even adrenaline junkies wanted to live.

***

Elias’s phone rang in his hands. He almost dropped it, then caught it at the last minute. It was Daisy, calling from the lodge. Finally. He shoved it to his ear.

“Oh man, am I glad to—”

“Don’t talk.” Daisy didn’t sound like herself. Gone was her easy drawl. Instead, she was crisp, curt, all business.

He closed his mouth. The background noise—though light—hit him hard. Music. Probably a song he’d never heard of, from some band so young they’d been barely out of diapers when he’d left. The low murmur of people talking, the loud hiss of steaming milk.

The hum of civilization.

“Hey, Frank!” Daisy said in an artificially happy voice.

Frank? Why the hell was she calling him Frank?

Something shuffled and heavy footsteps sounded. He could picture those feet tromping over worn wooden floorboards, could see the ancient rugs, and when the door toward the restrooms creaked, he envisioned the quiet, dark back hall. “Hang on, let me grab the order from the kitchen!”

Was that yelling in the background?

Unease tickled at the nape of his neck.

“Thank God,” she whispered. “Tried calling you a million times. This is the first time it’s gone through.”

Another shiver, this one deeper. “What’s up?” He had more questions—like Why’d you leave the bar to take this call? Why’d you pretend I’m someone else? And why are you whispering now? He didn’t take the time to ask them. Something was wrong. Something that sent disquiet slithering through him, while the trapped feeling welled up and moved him to the front door. Caution made him scan the landscape twice before exiting. Bo bounded happily up the steps and nudged her face against his leg. He automatically dug his fingers into her fur. It was cold on the surface, hot close to her skin. When she yipped and did her happy little pony jump, trying to get him to play, he tightened his hold, told her this was important.

“Got trouble.”

“Go ahead.” Adrenaline spiked through his chest. It sped up his breathing and made his gaze jump at every little sound.

“They’re here.”

His innards plummeted. Last year, someone had nosed around asking questions. He’d wanted to leave then, but as Daisy and Amka had pointed out, there was no point in going if he hadn’t been found.

The muted sound of voices coming through the phone now told him that by here, she probably meant right there. “Okay. I’m out.”

“Wait!” Her voice was a stage whisper. “Hold on.” The phone shifted. “Be right there!” she yelled. Then quietly, “They’re…”

“What? I can’t hear you.”

“They know… Helicopter landed…overheard and—”

“You’re breaking up, Daisy.” He was yelling now, though it wouldn’t make a damn difference. “Slow down.”

“She’s on her way to get you. Thinks you’re—Shit!” Someone screamed in the background. Daisy’s words and the scream were cut off so abruptly, he wondered if he’d somehow squeezed the life out of the phone.

“On her way?” he yelled, staring at the dead instrument. “Dammit!” Who was on her way? And what did that mean, get him? Help him or kill him?

No response but the high, alarmed kak kak of a gyrfalcon, displeased at being interrupted midhunt. And then, right on time, as if he’d conjured it, came the buzz of an approaching engine—faint but there.

He turned toward it, breathing hard, eyes wide-open, every muscle in his body ready. He should have been scared, should have worried that he’d been found, that everything would come to a bloody head, that it was over and the bad guys had won.

But God help his messed-up soul, he felt nothing but relief.

And, if he was honest, a guilty hint of excitement.