As Darkness Gathers (Dark Betrayals Book 2) (7 page)

“A topographical map of the backcountry in Ontario and Québec.”
 

“Qué—” Bryan swallowed, and I grabbed one of the bottles of water. I lifted his head, and he took a grateful swallow. “Québec.”

Timothy clutched the wrinkled map to his chest and scooted over to Bryan’s side. His hands shook as he unfolded it, and he and Clay held it up so Bryan could see. The others gathered closer. The light was fading, and I pulled up my layers of sweaters and fished the flashlight I was required to carry from my uniform pocket. I turned on the small penlight and directed the beam at the paper.

“About . . .” Bryan’s breathing was labored. “About one hundred . . . eighty miles . . . n-north of Ott . . . Ottawa.”

Timothy glanced at the map’s legend and measured with his finger. “Here?” He pointed to an area on the map that was green and white, clustered with blue, and completely isolated. The closest marking of a town was a dot on the map labeled
Val-d’Or
, but it appeared to be about eighty or ninety miles to the west.

Bryan nodded.

I stared at the map, fighting the daunting feeling of hopelessness.
 

We were miles from anywhere.

Tula was the first to speak. “I’m supposed to make a rhubarb pie for the church social, but I’m out of butter for the crust.”
 

I glanced at her, and though she met my gaze, there was a faraway look in her eyes. Mark wrapped his arm around her shoulders, his face grave.

Timothy pulled the map into his lap. When he held out his hand, I placed my penlight in his upturned palm. I glanced down at Bryan and found he’d slipped into unconsciousness once again.

“Here! Right here!” Timothy exclaimed.

“What did you find, son?”

“Our cabin! Dad, look.”
 

Daniel and I leaned over his shoulder, and I felt Clay press close against my back.
 

“Look, we’re in this area.” Timothy tapped the map. “Our fishing cabin is right around here somewhere.” He drew his finger down the paper a little over an inch to the southwest.
 

“About thirty miles,” Clay said, his breath ruffling my hair.

Timothy nodded. “There’s a small mining town nearby. And an inn on the reservoir. We’re not too far, right?”

I lay staring blindly into the darkness.
 

As night had fallen, I’d wrestled the boarding door closed. It had been bent during the crash, and it wasn’t until I’d struggled with it that I realized how much force Clay must have had to use to open it and get Bryan to safety. It wouldn’t shut all the way, and the chilly air seeped in.
 

I shivered, pulling the collars of the two sweaters I wore over my nose.

We lay huddled in a line within the cramped interior of the wreckage, breathing evenly in the pretense of sleep. Clay lay at my back, he and Mark on either side of Tula, but when I trembled again as a finger of cold wind slipped beneath the neck of the sweaters, I felt him shift.
 

There was a rustle, and I rolled onto my back just as he rose over me, holding his weight up with his hands.

“Oh.” The breathy sound escaped before I could halt it, and I thought I caught the gleam of his smile in the dark.
 

His knee came down between mine, and then he rolled to my side, putting his body between mine and the wind. I scooted into the pool of warmth he’d left until I was pressed against Tula. Clay lay close enough that we were touching, and the heat of being sandwiched between two bodies warmed me.

“You didn’t have to do that,” I said, my whisper so low it was almost soundless.

“You were cold. You’ll be warmer this way.”

“But now you might get cold.”

“I’m bigger than you.”
 

I covered my mouth to stifle a chuckle. “That’s your argument?”

“It made you laugh, didn’t it?”

I sobered. “I feel like I shouldn’t be able to.”

He rolled onto his side, his mouth close to my ear. “There’s nothing wrong with still being able to laugh.”

“I was lying here thinking it must be a bad dream, and I’ll wake up any moment. This doesn’t happen in real life, only in Hollywood and novels.”

“You think it’ll never happen to you.”

“Isn’t that what people always say?” I took a deep, shuddering breath. “Thirty miles. That should seem like nothing.”

“But this is rough, unfamiliar terrain heading into deep winter.”

“What do you think I should do?”

He was silent for so long I thought he’d fallen asleep. “I don’t know, but decisions should never be made in the dark. Let’s wait until morning.”

Dawn came, early and bitter, and I was so cold it felt as if my muscles and joints had ossified. I moved stiffly as I crawled toward Bryan. My hands were red and numb, but even so, I could feel how icy his skin was. He didn’t rouse when I spoke or groan when I tapped his cheeks. I couldn’t feel a steady rhythm of his heartbeat, only a faint fluttering.
 

I met Clay’s gaze across the others’ heads and nodded. “If I may have your map, Timothy, I’m going to try to find your fishing cabin and the mining village.”

Everyone looked up from portioning another meal from the bags of pretzels.

“Didn’t you say it was thirty miles? It’ll take you two, three days,” Mark said. “At the least.”

“I think it’s our best option. Either I find it and send help back to you, or rescue comes to you and you send them after me.”

“You could easily lose your way,” Daniel said.

“I’ll have to take that risk. The reservoir on the map is a large one. Even if I miss the cabin and village, if I keep heading southwest, I’ll reach the lake. Timothy said there’s an inn there. And there are bound to be people in the vicinity of water.”

“You can’t go to the picnic alone, darling.” Tula’s confusion had returned upon waking, and her color was worse today.

Clay caught one of her hands where it fluttered in her lap like a frightened, injured bird. “I wouldn’t let her go alone, Miss T. I’m going with her.”

She patted his cheek. “Such a dear, handsome boy you are.”

His responding smile was so gentle I had to look away.

“So you’re just leaving us here to fend for ourselves,” Henry said.

Mark rounded on him. “You’re the one who insists there will be no search party. They’re going to try to find help.” He turned to me. “What do you need me to do?”

“I’m leaving you in charge. Keep everyone together. Ration the food and water. You and Timothy are the—”

“I want to come,” Timothy said.

Daniel shook his head. “No.”

“Dad—”

“No, absolutely not.”

“Dad, listen to me. I know the area around our cabin. I’ll recognize it. I’ll know the way as soon as I see a familiar landmark.” He met my gaze then Clay’s. “I can help. I know I can.”

Clay held his gaze for a long, silent moment. “What about your knee?”

He flexed it. “A little stiff, but it doesn’t hurt.”

“Timothy . . .” Daniel’s voice was gruff with emotion.

“You have to let me do this, Dad,” he whispered. “I have to try.”

Clay’s nod in my direction was almost imperceptible, but when Timothy turned pleading eyes to me, I said, “Okay. Let’s get everything together. We should start out as soon as we can.”

The rain had turned to snow overnight. Little had reached the ground within the thick cover of the trees, but the debris field was mantled in a pristine layer of white.
 

Like a funeral shroud
. I shuddered. It further cemented my decision to go for help.

We packed bags of pretzels and bottles of water in Timothy’s backpack. Daniel insisted we take two extra bottles with us.

“You’d better not be giving mine away,” Henry said from the corner where he’d ensconced himself.
 

“They’ll need it more than we will.”

“Take my extra bottle as well,” Mark said.

The map was tucked with care into a pocket of the bag. I wedged the head of the small axe into a thick chunk of foam and packed it, along with the last roll of gauze and a handful of aspirin. Then I covered the backpack with a garbage bag to waterproof it, made rough ponchos of three other bags by tearing holes large enough for our heads to fit through, and lined our shoes with plastic as well.

Daniel held Timothy in a one-armed hug, reluctant to release him.

“I’ll see you soon,” Timothy whispered as he pulled away.

I kissed Tula’s cheek, and Mark shook Clay’s hand. His gaze was direct, and when he clasped my hand next, I felt how strong his grip was.
 

“Good luck,” he said.

The sky was gray and overcast, but the hazy, pale orb of the sun was visible enough to discern the direction we needed to go. Clay shouldered the backpack, and I forced myself not to look back as we started into the forest.

Chapter Five

It was colder beneath the shelter of the trees. The wind was blocked save for the soughing of the swaying branches in the treetops, but the density of the spruce and pines cloaked us in chilled shadows. The ground was hard and frozen in places; in others, the boggy mud sucked at each step. Any break in the forest had us wading through snow, sometimes knee-deep.
 

Clay had set a steady pace, and we’d fallen into a single file line with me in the rear.
 

I wasn’t sure if the nausea had come from the throbbing in my head or the tight knot of hunger in my stomach. The small bag of pretzels I’d eaten earlier hadn’t assuaged the ache.

We walked in silence. Clay glanced over his shoulder or up at the sky from time to time, but no one spoke. With each plodding step, I wondered if I’d made the right choice.

“We’ll stop here and rest for a few minutes.”

I glanced up, startled by Clay’s voice. I’d been staring at my feet as I walked, but I stopped and looked around. I couldn’t tell any difference in the landscape from when we’d started out, but the outcropping we’d come upon provided a dry place to sit. I did so gratefully, trying not to moan as I took my weight off my feet and eased my legs out in front of me. My boots had been rubbing across the tops of my pinky toes and against my heels.