Chapter Thirty-Two
Luke
The snow pummels us to the point that had the ground been cold, we’d be in six inches right now instead of one. A good thing, considering we literally hike a solid mile to arrive at our destination. Considering we’re also at a high altitude and the temperature is dropping fast, while the snow shows no signs of slowing down, we need to find what we’re looking for and get back to the cabin. The lake comes into view, Ana points right, and we begin another half-mile walk.
“There it is,” Ana says, tugging my coat and pointing to a deer stand inside a cluster of trees that’s obviously been moved here with the purpose of fishing. Deer don’t exactly walk on water or swim.
With the sun rapidly crashing, our flashlights guide our path forward, and once we’re at the shelter, Ana squats down in front of it. “You coming?”
“Who doesn’t want to crawl in a deer stand in the middle of snow? Of course, I’m coming in.”
She laughs, shines her flashlight into the structure, and then crawls inside. I quickly follow, icy cold snow on my palms, the wind at my back. The space is big enough for three, and Ana and I prop our flashlights up and brush off the snow.
“Now I’m cold and ready for that fire,” she says, looking around at her surroundings and pointing up, toward some sort of tarp covering the steel roof, which seems to serve the purpose of keeping us dry. It would also make a good hiding spot and I reach to the right where it’s anchored on a nail and pull it down.
Something falls down on top of us and Ana reaches for what proves to be an insulated bag. “Jackpot,” she murmurs, as I reattach the tarp to block the snow.
Ana eagerly unzips the bag, and I aim the flashlight at the contents. There’s a notebook and a gun inside a plastic bag, and a tape recorder.
“You weren’t kidding when you said he keeps insurance.”
“A gun,” she says. “This feels dirty in every possible meaning of the word.”
“Did you expect anything less?”
“Maybe it’s not what it seems and Darius was actually one of the good guys. He did leave this for me to find.”
“I won’t be convinced that’s a gift instead of another problem until we inspect the contents.” I ease forward and glance outside, checking the worsening weather. “And as eager as I know you are, we can’t do that here, now. It’s too early in the season and it’s been too warm during the day for me to feel like this storm is going to actually bury us, but we can’t take any chances out here. We need to get back to the cabin before we get buried out here.”
Ana rezips the bag and since I want her hand free should we run into trouble, I grab it before exiting the shelter. Once I’m on my feet, I pull her to hers. Soon, we’re going to find out what Darius knew that we don’t know, and I fear some of it might come as a blow Ana does not expect. If that proves true, we’ll deal with it, as she herself said: better together than apart.
We start the hike back to the cabin, our footsteps already covered by snow, which means no one can track us, but in turn, we can’t see anyone who might be tracking us. Thus far, there’s been no sign of anyone, and I no longer have the sense of being watched, nor has Ana brought up a further concern. Big cats are stealthy predators who will stalk and kill, with the kind of stealthy skill of a damn superhero. The possibility that we were simply dealing with a wild animal is a real one. Not our enemy and not Kurt.
I haven’t allowed myself to consider the idea that Kurt could be the enemy.
Finding him alive under those circumstances would equate to nearly the same pain to Ana as me pulling the trigger and killing Kasey. And that’s not a world me or Ana want to live in. It’s not one we’d both survive.