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His fingers found a groove. Sweat blinded him.
Climb.
He flexed his legs, boosted upward, his jaw locked, breath hissing through his locked jaws.
Again.
His legs pushed. Arms guided. Sharp edges lacerated his flesh, blood made his fingers slip. Agony cranked through his injured shoulder, making the world fuzz. The light dulled as heavy clouds rolled in and soft wetness hit his head, stealing his heat. Snow. It settled in cracks and fissures obscuring his path, turning pink under the imprint of his bloody palms.
His hand landed flat on the rocky summit. He stalled on the edge of the precipice, his lungs bound by iron, the tremble from his exhausted knees hitting rock.
He’d bitten his tongue. Blood was metallic in his mouth.He’d reached the top, but he had nothing left.
Griff inhaled through wrecked lungs and thought of Jo—flexed up on his toes.
One last push.
46
Abe Knight spotted the red flash of jacket between green-black branches. “Wyatt!” They’d been searching for hours, see-sawing backward and forward over the route Wyatt’s parents had given them to follow.
Abe showed the change of direction with a raise of his arm and then steered his snow mobile through a minor breach in the forest. He dismounted, weapon ready, still unsure who he’d spotted. He took careful steps, using the thick pine as cover, then took a knee in the soft snow.
It was a woman.
She threw a worried glance over her shoulder as she lurched away from him, obviously spooked by the sound of their engines.
Jo.
Relief washed through him. But she was alone. Fuck. Where was Griff?
He moved from the shelter of the forest to open space. “Jo!”
She spun, almost toppling, then sprinted toward him, her stride ungainly through slushy snow. “I heard gunshots. Gunshots!” She collided with him, her breath ragged.
He caught her in his arms as she sagged against him. “Jo, what the hell—”
Wyatt’s snowmobile careened through the trees, engine revving, spraying snow. He dismounted and raised his rifle in one fluid motion. “Where’s Griff?” Wyatt walked backward toward Abe and Jo, his weapon still raised, his intense dark eyes narrowed.
“He drew them away. He said it was the only way.” Jo clutched at Abe’s jacket, her eyes red rimmed. “He was too fast. I couldn’t find him and then I heard…I heard shots.”
Abe’s exhalation clouded the air. Griff was a fighter, with years of experience in special ops. Abe would put the odds against it being the other man who was dead, but you never knew.
“Fuck. Which way, Jo?” Wyatt lowered his weapon.
She lifted one shaking hand and pointed.
Wyatt’s lips thinned. “Shaker’s Rock.”
Abe handed Jo his spare helmet. “Let’s move.”
Abe gunned the engine, Jo clinging tight behind him as they tore after Wyatt through the dense Alaskan forest, dodging lethal pot holes and branches. Wyatt drove like a man possessed, heedless of danger. Whatever fueled the darkness in his eyes was powerful.
Abe had only just met Wyatt for the first time when he’d touched down in Fairbanks. But the determination to locate Griff and Jo had radiated furnace-like from the man since they first shook hands.
They burst from the trees into snowy scrubland. Abe squinted against the sudden brightness, teeth snapping from the jolting rough terrain. Up ahead, the land fell away into a rocky expanse beyond which loomed an immense granite upthrust that could only be Shaker’s Rock.
The peak’s imposing bulk seemed to dare them closer. Surely Griff couldn’t be up there with his damaged shoulder? Jo’s hold on him tightened, but it was impossible to speak over the roar of the engines. He made do with giving her hand a brief reassuring squeeze. Griff was way too stubborn to die.
