Uncharted by Adriana Anders

Chapter 36

A bell rang just as they finished breakfast.

The sound was a light, musical tinkling, alien to this place. Leo’s eyes flew up to meet Elias’s before the ringing cut off abruptly. “Is that your trap?”

“One of ’em.”

“Animal?”

He let out a light snort. “Could be.”

“And if it’s not?”

“Better haul ass either way.”

In the murky interior, she couldn’t see his face as he rose and put their breakfast things back into the bag. They were fully dressed and already packed, which made for a speedy exit.

“How long do we have?”

“Five minutes. Ten at most.”

Quickly, with a strange calm, they put their things together and got them on their backs. Elias made his way to the door they’d taken this morning, instead of the one leading back the way they’d arrived the night before.

“Wait.” She stayed in place. “You said there’s only one way out.”

“Only one way in. There’s another way out. Up past the overlook from this morning. It’s dangerous.”

“I’d be disappointed if it weren’t.”

With a gruff chuckle, he leaned down and gave her a quick peck on the lips. “And that’s one of the things I love so much about you.” Another peck. “Because I do.” His voice went lower, rougher—half-whisper, half-tearing out his insides. “I fucking love you so hard, Leo Eddowes.”

Emotion ballooned inside her, but she would not freaking cry today. And then, because she’d already shown him her soft underbelly ten times over at least, and, frankly, nothing had felt better in her life, she let herself say it. Let herself feel how real it was. “I love you too, Elias Thorne.”

“Let’s go, then.” He smiled—damn, he was gorgeous—and led the way, jogging back up the steep steps, through the thick undergrowth lining the valley. They hit the peak, breathing harder than the last time they’d done this. She turned to take it in again—just a glance at the orange-washed, snow-covered peaks, the lake, the deceptively smooth-looking slopes, so much beauty, so much danger—and memorized the sight for another day, another time.

They worked their way down, their feet crunching in slippery patches of snow. She lost her footing, caught herself on a boulder, and almost lost her mind when Elias went down on a slick spot. “Never tried this after a big rain,” he muttered with a smirk as he fought his way back to standing. “Snowmelt.”

“Your side okay?”

“Yes,” he said, grabbing her hand and kissing her hard before forging straight back down the narrow, sheer path.

Finally, Leo’s shoulders loosened as the ground flattened out. The tree cover thickened. The sound of rushing water overwhelmed the heavy rasping of her breath. Spine tingling, she glanced over her shoulder, her pulse still going hard after the climb and the descent and the threat of close pursuit. Bo raced ahead and came running back, dancing like she’d found something familiar.

Her footsteps followed Elias’s, bringing them so close to the river that her own sounds were entirely drowned out. He stopped a few feet from the bank. She stared, her brain not comprehending for a few seconds.

The river was narrow here, but wild and high and brown, topped with foamy whitecaps and littered with glacier runoff debris. A tree had fallen across it, creating a natural bridge.

“Uh. No.” She stepped away from the edge, afraid of heights for the first time in her life.

It wasn’t the fifteen-foot drop that scared her. It was the rapids, frothing and roiling, racing around boulders on their way into the valley. Leo took risks all the time, but they were calculated. She liked adrenaline, not actual death.

“I don’t—” She bit back a gasp as Bo traipsed over the log spanning the waterway. It was so perfectly placed she wondered if it had been dropped there by humans. She glanced at Elias. Had he somehow put it there?

Back to Bo, whose tiny dog feet couldn’t keep from slipping over the slick surface. She slowed toward the end, looking less confident as she reached the thinner part of the log.

“You got it, girl. Go on. Jump.”

For possibly the first time in her life, Leo shut her eyes from fear. By the time she opened them again, Bo was safe on the other side and Leo went weak in the knees. Was she having a heart attack? Oh crap, she couldn’t watch Elias cross. She couldn’t take it. “Look, maybe…is there another…”

“This is it, Leo. We do this, and we’re golden.” He shook his head and threw her a side-eye. “Ish. Okay?”

“I’m not…”

“Will you trust me on this? I’ll get you over. But you’ve got to trust me.”

“I trust you, Elias.” She couldn’t control the sob welling up inside her. “I just cannot...” Lose you. “I can’t take it if you fall in.”

“I won’t. I won’t, sweetheart. I’ve done this a million times.” He grabbed her hand. “Come on.” The closer they got to the very edge, the louder the river roared until it overwhelmed her with sound and motion, the wind whipping her hair, the meltwater spraying up to lash them.

“Remember the ice cave?” he whispered in her ear. “Remember sitting there laughing? You were so cute. I hadn’t laughed in years.” She tried to turn back, but he faced her forward again. “Sit down and scoot across. It’s that easy. Scoot and you’ll be fine.”

“You’ll scoot too? No standing up?”

“I’ll scoot.” His eyes did a quick circuit of their surroundings. “Got to do this now.”

She knew he was right. She didn’t have to be a daredevil here. So, she sat and pulled herself forward a few inches at a time. At one point, she turned back and he waved, his big hand so steady, his teeth flashing in a confident smile. She moved forward again just as Elias got down to slide on.

Then everything blew apart.

The first gunshot hit the log right next to her fingers, so close she was showered with tiny splinters. She lifted her hand with a yelp.

Oh God. She had another five feet to traverse—at least.

She crab-crawled as fast as she could and then threw herself forward, suddenly more afraid of the gunfire than the crossing.

The next shot tore up the wood she’d just occupied.

In a heartbeat, she went from frantic to wired—adrenaline hitting her in the usual places, lighting her up like a runway, making her sharp and ready in ways she could never explain.

She crouched behind a tree wishing she could return fire when two men appeared on the other side, high on the slope heading down to the river.

One of the men lifted his rifle again to fire—at her or Elias, she wasn’t sure. In the next heartbeat, something gave.

The saturated earth that held the piece of waterlogged wood currently straining under Elias’s weight just collapsed. Bo barked wildly and leapt back as the bridge went down, the whole thing much too silent for something so terrible.

“Elias!”

The mud slid, painfully slow but too fast. He was there, hanging by one arm, knuckles white where they grasped a branch. Leo screamed when the whole thing sank another few feet, propelling him inexorably toward the rushing water. It was so loud, her scream probably didn’t even reach his ears, but he craned up, the movement awkward and painful looking, and met her eyes.

She stopped breathing, stopped thinking entirely. For a handful of seconds, she was nothing more than blinking eyes and beating heart, pumping blood.

Nothing.

She glanced up for a split second to see the shooter draw closer. He’d kill Elias, kill her. She shifted as close to the edge as she could get without getting sucked in.

“Go! Run!” he gasped, the words barely audible against the racing rapids. “Go, Leo!” He strained to get footing on the side of the river, but his feet slid and the log shifted again.

“No!” Her yell echoed off the opposite bank just as the killer slid to a stop. The second approached slower. No time to think. No time to decide. Only time to do. “Do or die!” she shouted, repeating something Elias had said days ago.

It felt like a lifetime ago.

It felt like the end.

At her words, Elias nodded once. He opened his hand and was gone.

All she could do was jump in after him.

***

“Fucking bastards!” Deegan was irate, his pig eyes frantic and full of rage. Ash wanted to throttle him. Or laugh.

This was a mess. A lovely, odd, interesting mess. If he was smart, he’d turn around and head back to the place they’d just left. There’d been a hot spring there—no doubt exactly what had drawn the fleeing couple to begin with. He could rest his aching muscles for a spell and get the hell out of here.

Then, he’d watched Deegan shoot at them—the idiot—instead of slowly, skillfully reeling them in.

Deegan clearly couldn’t believe his eyes. Even after a minute passed, he was still blinking at the place where their quarry had been. Across the river, the dog barked madly.

“Shut up!” the man yelled and the animal immediately stopped.

“Good dog,” said Ash with a smile. He could have sworn the dog understood him.

It let out another bark—purely to annoy Deegan, who raised his rifle as if to shoot it—and took off into the woods opposite as if pursued by the hounds of hell.

Ash sighed, taking a look around. “Well, now. You must have a plan, correct?” Or not. “Shooting at them was just the first step, I imagine.”

“Fuck you.”

“Look mate, you’ve got us in a right mess, it’s only fair that you shou—”

“Shu’ up, mate. I’m thinking.”

Good luck with that.Ash eyed his surroundings speculatively. Upriver, the canyon was so steep, they’d need rappelling gear to climb. As well as hours they didn’t have, thanks to Deegan’s stupid stunt.

“The big guy.” Deegan was out of breath, his pacing bringing him awfully close to the river’s edge. “That wasn’t Campbell Turner.”

You twat.

“What’s the plan now?”

“You shot at them. You tell me.” Aside from the path they’d come in on—which was treacherous enough—there was no way out but the river. Ash lifted his chin toward the rapids. “Only one way forward as far as I can see. Shall we?”

“What? Fuck off.” Deegan looked more disgusted than anything else. “They won’t survive anyway.”

“Won’t they?” he asked lightly. Possibly not, he reasoned with himself. But then again, those two had led them on quite a merry chase. They were resilient. No, he couldn’t accept that this was the end of them. After a few silent breaths, he gave in to what his insides demanded—pursuit. An answer. And maybe somewhere at the end of this long and terrible road, retribution.

He set his rucksack down and unzipped it. Yes, the couple were likely dead. The job was no doubt over, the trail cold. But…what if they weren’t?

He hadn’t come this far to give up his mission now.

He pulled out what he sought and shot a glance at Deegan, who paced and cursed by the water’s edge, more savage than the dog who’d just taken off.

If there were any chance the other two had survived, Ash wanted to be there. He wanted to know.

“I’m not jumping in there.” Deegan turned from the water and caught sight of the pack raft.

“I am,” Ash replied with a smirk. He held up his oar. “Coming?”

Deegan threw him a dirty look and muttered, “Crazy fucker,” before following him down the steep side to the roiling water’s edge.