Uncharted by Adriana Anders

Chapter 4

Bo disappeared ahead, barking out of control.

There was no room for hope as he rushed down the steep, muddy slope to where the plane had gone down. No prayer, no wishes.

He’d hoped, prayed, and wished enough for a lifetime, and God—or whatever the hell was out there—had ignored him.

Because there’s nothing there.

Right. No God, nothing divine to balance the scales, no justice to make things right. The world was what it was. Nothing but life and death. And more often than not, those things weren’t pretty.

So, while he raced in the direction in which the plane had gone down, he didn’t expect the outcome to be a good one. In fact, he didn’t expect a thing. The only way to live a life like his was without expectations.

He jumped from an eight-foot ledge, landed hard on his heels, and sprinted the last twenty yards to the edge of the woods, where his body stuttered like a cartoon runner hitting a wall.

One bright yellow wing lay across the ice, its tip blown apart like a burst paper bag.

Bo barked again, the sound coming from the right, around the bend, where the glacier overhung the river. He figured that was where he’d find the rest of the plane. On the ice or, more likely, under it. He whistled in response, letting her know he was on his way, and sped on, sliding across the river where the boulders jutted out, past the curve, and through the invisible wall of denial his mind threw up when he saw it.

No. No, God, no.

The nose was gone—flattened against the glacier like a crushed soda can—the cockpit crumpled, as if a cardboard box had been mashed up and straightened again. The other wing was quickly sinking into the water.

As he fought his way over the slick, crackling ice, his mind fed him the weirdest kaleidoscope of images. God, the one people prayed to all the time, was nothing but a spoiled toddler, smashing airplanes into the earth for the hell of it.

Then a vague memory from his parents’ living room, back when he was little and his dad played the classics on repeat: a black-and-white King Kong swatting at model airplanes, which bizarrely morphed into the scene in that movie he couldn’t get enough of even as a kid, where Fay Wray’s breast fell out of her ripped dress and she was left, helpless, struggling against the giant. He’d never been able to look away, for so many reasons. The boob, first of all, ’cause even back then, he’d been a boob man—but also her helplessness, flailing in that enormous ape hand, had done things to him.

Yeah, well, today, he wasn’t panting from excitement as he touched the plane’s perfectly intact, shiny tail, but from his own powerlessness.

If the pilot was dead in there, he’d—

Shit, he had no idea what he’d do, but whatever it was, it would be big. Huge. So cataclysmic that God would feel the aftershocks, wherever the hell he was.

He thought of the secrets he harbored, thought of his sacrifices in the line of duty, to his country, to humankind itself, and then he thought about how maybe humans weren’t worth it after all.

Sucking in a breath that hurt his lungs, he ignored the roar of the nearing helicopter and stepped onto the float, holding on tight as the plane sank another foot into the water.

What he saw through the Cub’s open window stopped him dead in his tracks.

***

“Don’t move.” Leo’s voice was miraculously steady. So was her gun.

With her hands occupied, she blinked in an effort to get rid of the blood dripping in her eyes. It coated her lids, clogged her vision, made breathing difficult.

Everything wavered so much, she couldn’t focus on the bulky creature. Please, God, don’t be a bear. The ground shifted. Or a yeti. “S-said stop.”

“Didn’t move.” Okay, so not a bear, unless they talked around here. She wasn’t entirely prepared to rule out yetis. She could, however, say with absolute certainty that this massive man was not the one she was after. Sure, they were both white, but that was about where the similarities ended. Campbell Turner topped out at five nine. This guy was well over six feet tall.

Great—then who the hell was this? Had her landing somehow attracted the attention of one of those wilderness freaks? Seemed unlikely that one of her pursuers had already reached her, but then again, her head wasn’t on straight. For all she knew, she’d blacked out for an hour. No. No, it was still light out. She squinted at the man. Mountain man seemed about right. He didn’t look like he’d seen civilization in a while.

He raised massive, gloved hands to wide shoulders and wiggled his fingers, as if they itched to reach out, like one of those Wild West characters just dying to unholster their weapon. Though he didn’t, technically, have a holster, since he wore his rifle strapped across his chest. “You, uh, okay?” Like an afterthought, he added a “ma’am.”

“Step back,” she panted. Why was it so hard to speak? To breathe? There was too much pressure on her chest.

Her unfocused gaze skimmed over a thick beard and wild hair, managing to home in on bright eyes that narrowed, picked her apart from the top of her head to wherever her blood flowed, and finally disappeared when he stepped off the float. Whoever this person was, he did not fit Campbell Turner’s description.

Without his weight to anchor it, the plane lurched for a few nausea-inducing seconds before settling again.

Belly heaving, she tried to release the harness and wound up sinking into her seat again, blinded by the pain as much as the blood.

“I’m coming back up,” growled the man.

Her stomach swam. “I can manage.”

“Gotta get you out. Fast. Or you’ll wind up drowning.”

Drowning? What the hell was he talking about? And why would he care?

His weight made everything lurch again. Something fell from her hands with a metallic clunk, her eyes shut out the painful light. She concentrated on sounds and smells and textures. Her stomach settled, thank God. Now if her head would stop throbbing, maybe she could figure this mess out.

If this guy wasn’t Campbell Turner and he wasn’t part of the Chronos team, could he really be a random mountain man who just happened to be strolling by when she crash-landed in the location Amka had given her? Leo didn’t believe in coincidences. At all.

Somewhere not too far off, a helicopter’s blades beat the air, dull but present. Way too close.

“Climb to the front.” Quick as a flash, the man undid her harness and backed out of the cockpit. “Now, dammit! You’re sinking!”

Sinking?

“Put your hand here.”

She started to shake her head and stopped. “Trying not to vomit.”

“No time for that,” barked the angry bass and, hell, the man was right. “Come on.”

It took every bit of willpower she had to set her distrust aside and let him help her onto the float and then to solid ground.

Her feet slipped out from under her and she careened painfully to the ice. Not solid ground at all.

Something wet touched her face. Leo’s eyes opened. She grunted in surprise at the sight of a dog or a wolf, maybe, with those weird, colorless eyes.

“Back up, Bo,” the man said, then leaned down to offer his hands. After a second’s hesitation, she clasped them and let him haul her back up to standing.

“Let’s move.”

Concentrating hard, she slid beside him. After a few slippery steps, the vise tightened around her skull and her stomach convulsed. Dropping to hands and knees on the pocked ice, she gagged. The effort twisted her insides, but didn’t bring up a thing.

The stranger squatted beside her. “You okay?”

Hell if I know.She’d be damned if she’d let him see the self-doubt. With every bit of strength she could muster, she pushed back up to her feet, where she swayed for a few queasy seconds. “I’m fine.”

He rose and flicked a narrow-eyed look over her face. “Who are you?”

“Who are you?”

With an annoyed grimace, he turned toward the darkening forest. “We need to run. Can you do that?”

“Yes,” she lied.

The yeti didn’t look like he believed her either. He opened his mouth as if to protest, and then shut it. Good. She didn’t have the energy to argue at the moment. And she’d like to know just who this guy was before she decided what to do about him.

Was he a friend of Campbell Turner’s? Did he plan to lead her to the other man?

“You can’t keep up.” The yeti leaned down and put his face close to hers. “I’ll have to carry you. Or leave you behind.”

“I’m good,” she deadpanned. No way in hell was she letting this man carry her, no matter whose side he was on. “Lead the way.”

Though every instinct told her not to trust a stranger, Leo had neither the equipment nor the stamina she’d need to survive on her own. Paul Bunyan here, however, seemed to be doing just fine out in the wilderness.

So, she’d follow him, at least until she figured out what the hell was going on here.

And then she’d do whatever it took to get Campbell Turner and the virus out before the other team reached him.

What a day.