“I keep telling you, there’s no time!” said Seth. “If we marched everyone up the road towards Denver, way up into the hills, maybe we’d be safe there, but that would take hours.”
I shook my head. “Most of the patients couldn’t manage the journey. And even if they could, what then? They’re in the hills in a blizzard with no shelter. The only way to save them is to stop your dad.” I grabbed Seth’s shoulders and made him look at me. “Can you tell me where he is?”
Seth nodded weakly. “In a camp in the hills. I was meant to meet him there.” He gave me directions, then gave Bethany one last, pleading look.
She shook her head. “I’m staying here. The patients need me.”
Seth gave a single, solemn nod. Then he put his hand on her cheek, pushing her hair back from her face. “Then I’m staying, too.”
Taylor looked up at him, blinked back fresh tears, and I saw her melt.
And then I was off and running, thanking God I’d brought my pickup back from the forest. I’m coming, Beckett. I’m coming.
56
Amy
THE HELICOPTER was hidden in a clearing not far from the camp, camouflaged with branches and netting. As Colt’s men loaded their guns and supplies, I carefully stripped the bandages away from the pilot’s eyes. And then I did something that made my guts twist with guilt: I prayed that he’d been permanently blinded. If he couldn’t fly, Colt was stuck here in town and he’d have to call off the plan….
The pilot gingerly opened his eyes. Blinked. Nodded. Shit.
“Not perfect,” he muttered. “But I can get us out of here and set us down in Denver.”
“Good enough,” said Colt. “Let’s load the gold. We can go as soon as Tucker and Reynolds get back from setting the bomb.”
He stood and picked up a bag, grunting with the weight. And then he suddenly slumped forward, going down on one knee. When his men helped him up, there was a fresh scarlet stain on the snow.
“I need to operate on you,” I told him.
“You can do it when we get there,” he grunted. He tried to pick up the bag of gold again, but went pale and wavered, leaning on the pilot for support.
“You won’t make it,” I said. My heart was hammering. I wasn’t lying, but just talking to him scared the hell out of me. I’d seen how unstable he was, how quickly he could turn to violence. It would be safer just to get in the helicopter with him: if he died on the way, I’d still be safely away from the landslide and maybe I could talk his men into letting me live. But everyone else would be dead. I had to convince him to delay things. I didn’t have any plan beyond that: I just had to hope Corrigan was looking for me. “You’ve already lost too much blood. The exertion’s making it worse. Another few minutes and your vitals will crash. I need to stop the bleeding now.”
Colt turned and gave me the full force of his glare. It was like falling into a pit so deep and dark you’d never be able to climb out of it. You found yourself searching desperately for some shred of compassion and there was absolutely none. All I was to him was a tool, something to fix his injuries so he could go on with his plan. And he was challenging me, willing me to back down, to say the surgery could wait,...
A week ago, I would have buckled, climbed into the helicopter with him and wept while everything I knew and loved was wiped off the face of the earth. Now... I took a deep breath and stared right back at him. “I need to stop the bleeding,” I repeated. “Now.”
He held my gaze for another breathless second... then he pulled a radio from his belt and thumbed a button. “Change of plan,” he said into the microphone. “Set the timer for an hour.” Then he lay down in front of one of the pickups so that its headlights lit up his leg.
“Here?!” I shook my head. “Let me take you into town, we can find a building, a bed—”
“Here,” Colt told me. “Or not at all.”
I knelt beside him, heart hammering. The pilot climbed into the helicopter and started doing his pre-flight checks. The other two men took up positions around Colt, ready to kill me if I tried anything. The wind whipped the falling snow against my face and it was so cold, my hands were shaking. This is insane. I searched through the bag I’d brought and pulled out a needle.
“No needles,” growled Colt.
“You need anesthetic.”
“No! You think I’m letting you dose me with something? Knock me out?”
“This isn’t a cowboy movie!” I snapped. The fear was making me lose it. “You can’t just lie there and grit your teeth! If you thrash around, I could nick another artery and you could bleed out!”