“I meant Eric. I am the picture of normalcy and mental health.”
There was a time pre-Dalton when Anders and I flirted with the idea of, well, flirting. On paper, he’s perfect—gorgeous, funny, smart, sweet. Finding the deeper and darker parts should have made him even more perfect for me. Instead, it made him too good a fit. Even before that, it would have felt like flirting with a brother. So very wrong.
“Nicki doesn’t suspect it’s someone from Rockton, does she?” Anders says.
“She doesn’t seem to, considering she’s eager to get back there. Which might mean she somehow knows it’s not a resident. But more likely, she just doesn’t think it could be. Because that’s not the kind of person we let in.”
Anders shuts his eyes. “I liked Rockton a lot better when I thought I was the only exception.”
“You’re not that special. Sorry.”
He smiles and squeezes my hand under the blanket. “So how are we going to handle this? Taking her back to the very place where her kidnapper might be waiting.”
“Very, very carefully.”
*
We crawl out of the cave at eight thirty the next morning. It looks like 2:00 A.M., not even a hint of gray to the east.
“It’ll be light soon, right?” Nicole says. “I know it takes a while for the sun to come up, but it gets gray long before that.” She manages a smile. “I’m used to gray.”
As she says that, a realization hits, and I turn to Anders and point at my eyes. Nicole has been in candlelight for …
I keep avoiding the question of how long she’s been down there. I cannot comprehend the idea of being in that hole for a year. Even thinking it sends my brain spiraling, unable to process. I hold on to a fantasy that she left Rockton and was living on her own, and her captivity was recent.
However long she’s been down there, though, she cannot be out here in full daylight. It would be like looking into an eclipse, permanently damaging her retinas.
We can work around that. Put on a helmet, the visor tinted. Blindfold her if we need to. But while I look at that darkness and know “gray” isn’t coming anytime soon, I also know how much she wants to leave—needs to leave. If it were me, I’d run until I collapsed. Get away, as far as I could, as fast as I could.
We set out.
SEVEN
The compass leads us back to the path. We find the snowmobiles and dig them out. Then we discover a problem I feared.
“It’s dead,” I say as I try—again—to start Anders’s snowmobile.
“Is that the technical term?” he asks.
I mouth an obscenity, and Nicole chuckles. Dalton has been teaching me basic mechanics, but there hasn’t been time for more than having him explain while he fixes something.
As I head to open the hood, my foot kicks at the snow and the smell of fuel wafts up.
“I think the technical term is ‘out of gas,’” Nicole says.
She’s right. When the machine ended up on its side, it started leaking fuel through a cap that must not have been screwed on properly.
“We can siphon some from the other sled,” Anders says.
“We don’t have a hose,” I say. “And I’m not sure lack of fuel is the only thing keeping her down. You had a collision and a wipeout. Take mine with Nicole. I’ll follow the path on foot.”
Anders shakes his head. “If you walk, we all—”
“No.” I catch his eye and shoot a look toward Nicole. I made her sit while I examined the sled. She’s winded, and there’s no way she can walk to Rockton.
“Then you two take the snowmobile,” Anders says.
I wave the compass. He gestures at the path. I wave the compass again. He sighs.
“I’m not even going to ask what all that means,” Nicole says.
“Casey is reminding me I can’t find my way out of a shopping mall. I’m pointing out that I have a path to follow. She’s not buying it.”
“If it was a straight line to Rockton…,” I say.
“Yeah, yeah. But I’m not leaving you out here. All three of us can ride. I’ve doubled up with Eric.”
“It’s a matter of space not weight,” I say. “Stop arguing, and get on the damn sled. You’ll be in Rockton within the hour. You can send Kenny back for me.”
Nicole is shivering convulsively. She’s wearing my snowsuit and Anders’s sweater, but she’s having trouble regulating her body temperature, a combination of semistarvation and living in a controlled temperate environment. As soon as she sees us looking, she straightens and says, “I’m fine. Just caught a chill. I can walk.”
Anders looks at me. “You’re taking the backpack and my snowsuit.”
“Bag, yes. But that snowsuit? I’ll be lucky if I don’t face-plant every five paces, tripping over it. I’m fine.”
“Nicki? We’re going to switch suits, okay? Mine probably smells more than Casey’s, but it’s a sexy, manly smell.”