The knife came at Lance’s eye next. He shifted his head. His arms trembled. Agony seared through his ribcage. Exhausted, hypothermic, and injured, he was nearing his limit. It would be now or never.
“Last chance!” he yelled in the sheriff’s ear. “Drop the knife.”
King’s answer was another sweeping arc of the blade toward Lance’s face.
Lance shifted away, fighting to maintain the hold on King’s neck. If he had two good legs, he’d put a knee into the sheriff’s back for leverage. But with his injuries, he was lucky to be standing.
The knife swept toward his head again. He caught a flash of metal as the blade whispered past his eye, missing his eyeball by millimeters. His eyebrow stung where the sharp point nicked him.
The sheriff grunted and pulled hard on Lance’s wrist, attempting to give himself more breathing room. Lance planted his forearms on the sheriff’s upper back and rolled his arms inward. If he could press on the side of the sheriff’s neck, he could cut off the blood supply to his brain.
But King wouldn’t give up the leverage. With a grunt, the sheriff lowered the knife and stabbed under his own armpit, aiming at Lance’s midsection. The blade kissed his belly with a flicker of heat.
Lance opened his mouth to tell Morgan to run. He couldn’t hold King much longer. He couldn’t maneuver or gain leverage. But he didn’t have any air to shout either. Every ounce of remaining strength in his body pulled against the sheriff’s neck.
The pine trees around him spun. He couldn’t breathe. Tiny stars rushed at his eyes, and his vision began to tunnel.
They weren’t going to make it. The sheriff was a bull. Lance could hold on, but he couldn’t finish him.
A thud sounded next to Lance’s ear, and the sheriff went limp. His body sagged, and Lance saw Morgan standing behind him, the sheriff’s AR-15 raised butt-down over her shoulder. She’d knocked the sheriff out.
It was over.
Relief drained his adrenaline high, leaving him weak and shaky.
Lance released his hold on the sheriff’s neck. The weight of the falling body dragged him off balance and onto the ground. Lance fell sideways. His shoulder hit the snowy grass. He rolled over to his back. Snow fell on his face as he stared up at the dark sky and snowy treetops.
At Morgan.
She stood over the sheriff’s prone body, the AR-15 in her hands pointed straight at King’s head. Dark hair waved around her face, and snow whirled around her. In a moment of almost giddy light-headedness, Lance imagined her as Wonder Woman.
He blamed oxygen deprivation.
“Now what?” Morgan shook. She looked like she could barely hold on to the rifle.
“Cover me. Shoot him if he moves a muscle.” Lance staggered to his feet. After testing the sheriff’s consciousness with a solid kick, he took his weapon and searched his belt for a handcuff key. Finding it, Lance unlocked the cuffs on his wrists. Setting them aside, he worked the sheriff’s coat off. Then he peeled off King’s next two layers before rolling the sheriff to the base of a tree and cuffing his hands around the trunk. He collected the knife from where it had fallen and searched the rest of the sheriff’s pockets.
Lance brought Morgan the coat. After removing her handcuffs, he wrapped the heavy coat around her.
She slipped her arms into the sleeves. Lance zipped it to her chin. Then he dressed in the sheriff’s extra shirts, a thin base layer and a fleece zip-up. They were still warm from King’s body, but Lance didn’t care.
Heat was heat.
Setting the rifle aside, Morgan dug in the pockets of the sheriff’s coat and started pulling out all the supplies a good woodsman packs when going into the forest: protein bars, flashlight, compass, a reflective emergency blanket. “Matches and fire starter sticks. We can build a fire.”
She also found a handgun that was not a police issue. She returned it to the pocket.
“We’ll fill this with snow and let it melt.” She shook an empty water bottle.
“I don’t want to spend the night out here,” Lance said. He wanted to get the hell out of the woods, but his ribs felt like he’d been run over by a car.
“How far are we from the nearest building?” Morgan asked.
Lance scanned the area. “I’m honestly not sure. It seems like we covered some ground, but I’m betting we didn’t get that far. Could be a few miles.”
“We’re both hypothermic and likely risking frostbite,” Morgan said. “Getting warm has to be our first priority. I vote for a makeshift shelter and a fire. Then we reassess our physical condition. Right at this moment, I wouldn’t make it another mile.”
Lance nodded. She was right. Breathing was becoming more painful.
She glanced at the sheriff’s prone body. “He’ll freeze to death if we leave him there.”
“Probably.” Lance didn’t care. “After everything he’s done, he deserves to freeze to death.”
“That’s exactly what King would say.”
Damn.
She was always right, but the moral high ground felt as attainable as Mount Everest.
“Fine. But you get warm first.” Lance began looking for dry wood, not an easy task in the snow, when it felt like a truck was parked on his chest. But he scoured the underside of a fallen log for enough to get a flame going. Morgan, dwarfed in King’s coat and gloves, brought some dryish sticks and pine needles to the spot under the fir tree, where they were sheltered from the worst of the snowfall. If Lance could get the fire going and eat a protein bar, maybe he’d find a way to pull a few branches over them for better protection from the elements.
But Morgan was already on it. “I’m stealing your bootlaces.”
She arced two branches over them, forming a fir tree lean-to that blocked the wind. She tied them in place with his laces.
In twenty minutes, they had enough flames to warm their hands over. Lance added some twigs and coaxed the flames higher. Then he grudgingly spread the emergency blanket over the sheriff.
Huddled around their tiny fire, they ate the sheriff’s power bars and drank melted snow. Lance leaned back against the tree, pain and exhaustion finally besting him now that the acute danger had been neutralized. He balanced the AR-15 across his thighs, the muzzle aimed in the sheriff’s direction. Morgan had King’s service revolver in her hand and the extra handgun in her pocket. She leaned on his shoulder. Twenty feet outside their small shelter, the sheriff didn’t move.
The sound of a snapping twig startled Lance. Pain sliced through his ribs, stealing his breath. He must have fallen asleep.
Something rustled the foliage, farther away this time.
Lance lifted the rifle in his lap, scanning the clearing, looking for the sheriff. But another rustle in the distance told him King was running away.
Next to him, Morgan came awake in an instant. She mouthed, “What is it?”
He whispered, “King is gone.”
A little while later, voices floated through the trees from the direction opposite where King had run.
Ten minutes passed before Mac and Sharp walked into the clearing in backpacks and hiking gear.
Relief swept through Lance, warming him as much as the fire had.
Morgan stumbled to her feet, and Mac caught her in a hug.
Sharp dropped to one knee next to Lance. “Are you alive?”
“Yes.” Lance struggled to sit up. The sky was lighter. Was it close to dawn? “How did you find us?”
“Hold on, let me give the rescue party our coordinates.” Sharp spoke into his radio. After he lowered it, he jerked a thumb toward Mac. “That guy is freaky good in the woods. He tracks like one of the K-9s.”
“We didn’t wait for the official rescue party to get it together,” Mac said. “The two of us could move faster anyway.”
Sharp set his backpack on the ground and opened it. “But they aren’t far behind us. We’ll have you both out of here in no time. Since you’re not dying, we won’t call for a helicopter. Mac is trying to figure out the closest spot we can rendezvous with a four-wheeler.”
Lance straightened. Pain in his side nearly split him in half. “King got away. It must have been just before you arrived. He was handcuffed around that tree. I must have dozed off.” Lance wanted to kick himself.