Desolation Point (25 page)

“So which one of you’s Alex?” he said, his hand outstretched in greeting.

Alex raised hers in acknowledgment. She didn’t recognize the man, but his accent told her he was the one she had spoken to on the radio.

“Good to meet you, sir.” She shook his hand firmly.

With his free hand he waved away the formalities as the men he had traveled with caught up to him. “No need to stand on ceremony with me,” he told her. “I’m Nicholas, Nicholas Deakin.”

He still had hold of her hand. Without warning, he pulled her off balance, wrapping his arm across her throat when she stumbled and pressing her tightly against him. Too stunned to try to fight, she saw Sarah start to move toward them, but at the same time she heard the swish of metal against leather as the men behind her both pulled weapons from holsters.

“Sarah, no!” Her warning was choked off as Deakin jerked his arm, but Sarah stopped, her eyes wide with terror. When Deakin beckoned her to come closer, she looked at Alex for guidance. Alex shook her head once and seconds later felt the prick of a blade on the soft skin just beneath her ear.

“No, no! Wait, don’t!” Sarah’s words tumbled together. She instantly held her hands up in supplication and walked across to Deakin.

Everything seemed to fall utterly still then, and all Alex heard was that soft Southern accent as the knife drew blood in a stark warning. “I believe you have something that belongs to me.”

Sarah’s pale face and wretched expression made Alex feel like crying. It was either that or fight, but the blood running under the collar of her sweater told her the latter wasn’t an option. Neither was giving Deakin what he wanted, because she had hidden the keys in the middle of the fucking forest and in all the excitement since then she had forgotten to let Sarah in on that fact. She caught Sarah’s gaze and hoped to hell that Sarah would follow her lead.

“We don’t have the keys,” she said, even though the mere act of speaking made her bleeding worse.

Sarah blinked in confusion but made no comment, obviously waiting to see what else Alex would say.

“You better be lying to me.” Deakin kept his tone low and controlled, but the point of the knife twisted and Alex gasped in pain.

“I’m not lying.” She thought it would be in their best interests to sound remorseful, despite knowing that she and Sarah would be dead by now had she kept the keys with her. “We knew Merrick was looking for us, that he’d kill us the minute he got what he needed, so we hid them.” She tried to move her head to ease the pressure of the blade but Deakin’s hold on her was unyielding. “We hid them,” she insisted. Panic was muddling her thoughts. She didn’t know who the men were, but Deakin’s demands strongly implied that he and Merrick had been working together somehow. Taking a deep breath, she glanced at Sarah, who gave her a barely perceptible nod of encouragement. The trust she saw in Sarah’s eyes calmed her enough to let her think logically. She needed to buy time, and if she told the truth about where the keys were, Deakin would find them in a matter of hours. The lie came easily to her. “We left them back at the hut. They’re under a rock by a little stream.”

She couldn’t see Deakin, but she felt him incline his head and watched with horror as one of the men walked toward Sarah. Without saying a word, the man pressed his pistol against Sarah’s forehead and forced her to her knees. The click of the safety made Alex jump and she shook her head violently, no longer caring about the knife or the mess it was making of her neck.

“Tell me again, Alex,” Deakin said, his voice sweet and sickly as if he were cajoling a child. “Tell me again where the keys are.”

“At the hut,” she said, sobbing now and so close to giving him exactly what he wanted. She dug her fingernails into her palms and willed herself not to break. “They’re at the hut. I can show you on the map. We hid them under a rock by the stream. Please,
please
, I’m telling the truth.”

Sarah had her eyes closed and Alex could see her trembling, as if this latest twist had just been too cruel for her to cope with. Deakin nodded once and Alex felt her knees give way, his arm the only thing holding her up. The man standing next to Sarah slowly lowered his gun, and Sarah opened her eyes just before he smashed the gun into the side of her face. She slumped into the mud without making a sound.

“Son of a bitch!” Alex screamed. She kicked back, her hands clawing at Deakin’s arm. He sighed as if inconvenienced and waited until she had worn herself out.

“This is how it’s going to work,” he said calmly, as soon as she had capitulated and sagged against him. “We will search you both and go through your gear. If the keys are not here, Aaron will return to the hut. If the keys are not where you say they are, things will get very unpleasant for you both. Think on that, Alex.” He lowered his arm, and without waiting for permission, she ran to Sarah, who was slowly pushing herself up.

“No, just stay still for a minute, sweetheart,” she said.

Ignoring the advice, Sarah managed to sit up straight, but that was as far as she got before she collapsed into Alex’s arms.

“You’re okay,” Alex said quickly. A large welt was already forming on Sarah’s jaw and a cut in the center of it splattered blood onto the snow. “You’re okay, I’ve got you.”

“Get her up.” Deakin made an impatient gesture from where he stood conferring with his men.

“Might’ve been easier before that prick gave her a concussion,” Alex yelled back, her fury overriding her caution. Then, more quietly, so that only Sarah could hear her, “Can you stand?”

Sarah nodded against Alex’s cheek, her breathing rapid and uneven. It was a trick Alex recognized; Sarah was trying not to throw up.

“Hey, if you’re gonna puke, do it on Deakin’s fancy leather boots, okay?” she muttered.

“I’ll do my best.” Sarah gave her a small smile but then screwed her eyes shut as she stood. “Oh fuck.” She swayed alarmingly. “Where’re his boots?”

Alex somehow kept her upright as Deakin and one of the men approached. The man who had hit Sarah had already gone to the cave, presumably to search and collect their gear.

“Arms out,” Deakin said without preamble.

Alex glared at him. “You want to pick her up again?”

If her tone irritated him, he didn’t let it show on his face. Instead, he roughly spun Sarah around so that she faced Alex; instinctively she clasped her arms around Alex’s neck. At a quiet command from him, the other man stepped forward, and Alex felt Sarah stiffen as he began to search her. He patted and pressed around her torso and down her legs, but she remained stoic despite the indignity, and even managed a shrug when he pulled two stones from the pocket of her jacket. By the time he was finished with her, she was able to stand unaided while he searched Alex. He found nothing but her pocketknife, Merrick’s GPS, and a handful of matches. The guns she had taken from Merrick were still in the cave. At no point had she ever contemplated this scenario, ever thought of arming herself before going to meet their supposed rescuers. She ground her teeth together as Sarah caught her hand in a death grip. If her naivety got Sarah killed, she would never be able to forgive herself.

Snatches of conversation between the three men filtered through to her and Sarah as they stood hand-in-hand with the sleet pelting their faces. Aaron was getting ready to leave, and Deakin, aware that the caves made an obvious shelter, was intent on moving to a location less likely to be targeted as a priority by genuine rescue teams. While the other men began to rearrange their packs to accommodate their extra supplies, he brought a map and his own GPS over to Alex.

“Is this the hut?”

She took time to consider the map, although she had immediately recognized the hut as the correct one. If he was eager to leave the caves, it might mean that search parties were a little too close for his comfort. It was only when he tapped his gun against the map in an unsubtle hint that she nodded her confirmation.

“Yes, that’s the one.” She was so disoriented now that she couldn’t work out how far away the hut was. They had spent three nights out in the open since leaving it, but an entire day had been lost chasing down Merrick, and Aaron would no doubt cover the ground more quickly than she and Sarah had. All three of the men had radios clipped to their belts. One call from the hut to report the fruitless mission was all Deakin would need to act upon his earlier threats.

A sharp jab in the middle of her back prompted her to follow Deakin as he walked out of the clearing in the direction of the river. Aaron took a left and was swiftly swallowed up by the forest.

“We don’t have long, do we?” Sarah murmured. Her eyes were still tracking the path Aaron had taken.

“No, we don’t,” Alex said, unable to put a falsely positive spin on anything and certain that Sarah wouldn’t want her to.

They walked as slowly as they dared, one man in front of them, one man behind. Although the huge trees and scruffy undergrowth would make life difficult for anyone attempting to find them, Alex knew that Deakin had been in too much of a hurry to bother concealing the remnants of their campsite. Bearing that in mind, she deliberately stumbled and fell to one knee, slamming her hands hard upon a rock. It flipped over, its lichen-coated upper half turning to the side. She pushed down on it when she stood, leaving it at a noticeably odd angle. The man bringing up the rear shoved her to keep her walking, but Sarah caught her eye and gave her a quick nod. Fifty yards farther along, Sarah slid in a puddle of slush and snapped an overhanging branch as she grabbed hold of it. The branch hung low, the green wood of the fresh break obvious to anyone who might know what to look for. It wasn’t much, Alex was well aware of that, but right at that moment, it was all they had.

*

Dusk brought snow with it. Thick flakes the size of Sarah’s palm drifted down, melting upon contact with the wet ground at first but then beginning to settle as the flurry developed into a more persistent fall. The gentle rustle of snow on the pine needles had an almost hypnotic effect on Sarah, enabling her to block out the throbbing in her jaw and the hot ache that was gradually worsening in her side. The din of the river seemed to lessen, and the occasional burst of static from Deakin’s radio no longer set her pulse racing. She stuck her tongue out as she walked along, not catching enough flakes to quell her thirst but feeling better just for the soothing chill of the ice melting against her parched throat. All too soon, the clouds broke apart, the snow tapered off, and then stopped altogether. She sighed and watched their boots churning mud into the pure white layer that covered the path.

“We’ll have to stop soon,” Alex said in an undertone, as if sensing the change in Sarah’s mood. “Gonna lose the light.”

Sarah nodded, her mouth suddenly dry again. Although she felt utterly worn out, continuing to walk in the dark seemed preferable to stopping. The men had largely ignored them while they were hiking, but recent experience had taught her that things were likely to change for the worse as soon as they stopped to camp. She stared at Deakin’s back as he marched ahead of her. He didn’t seem in the least affected by the strenuous nature of the pace he was setting, or by the path he was breaking. He rarely allowed them to rest, and when he did it was mere minutes before he ordered them to move again. His demeanor betrayed nothing. He had yet to raise his voice above a level she had to strain to hear, yet the man walking behind them obeyed him without question and deferred to him with the utmost respect. In the hours since leaving the caves, he had barely touched her, but she was more terrified of him than she had ever been of Merrick.

“Hey.”

Alex’s voice made Sarah jump. She was unable to guard her expression quickly enough, and Alex wrapped an arm around her, pulling her into an embrace. Sarah clenched the material of Alex’s jacket in her fists and struggled to stay silent when all she really wanted to do was sob and scream and tell her how scared she was. She stayed there, breathing in the familiar smell of sweat and damp hair, until the man behind her pushed her so hard that her teeth clashed together. Alex dropped her arms away and they walked on without saying a word.

*

Alex obediently handed over the pack she had been carrying and then took the opportunity to study the site Deakin had chosen as a camp. The small patch of grass and gravel was in an excellent strategic position. On one side it opened out to the river, allowing easy access to water. Tall boulders surrounded the rest of it, providing shelter from the wind and concealing it completely from view. Anyone who might have noticed their trail and managed to track them up river would still have difficulty spotting this location.

Unlike Alex, Sarah didn’t appear to be analyzing the layout of the terrain; her attention was fixed on the tent that Deakin’s companion was laying out.

“It’s too small,” she said.

“The tent?” Alex frowned, confused, but Sarah shook her head.

“No, the clearing.” She crossed her arms tightly, trying to stop herself from shivering, and Alex slowly realized what she meant. Deakin had forced Alex to bear the weight of Merrick’s tent for the entire day, but she could see now that the site had only enough flat ground for them to pitch one. It didn’t take a genius to figure out whose would take priority. Her suspicions were confirmed when Deakin dropped a filthy tarp and two blankets at her feet.

“Don’t go any farther than those two rocks over there,” he said, indicating an overhanging slab of granite that nestled snugly against a smaller boulder. “Tanner will be building a fire. I suggest you stay as close to that as possible.” He made his instructions sound entirely reasonable, as if they were all out for a weekend excursion and he was trying to make everything run smoothly.

There were plenty of ways in which she would have liked to respond. None of them were polite, most of them involved profanities, and any of them would have earned her, or most probably Sarah, some kind of punishment. Thinking better of it, she said nothing but merely picked up the tarp and waited until Deakin walked away. Before Alex could stop her, Sarah stooped low and gathered up their blankets. She grimaced as she stood, attempting to conceal the support she was giving her right side by covering her hand with the thick wool. The wound there had obviously been troubling her throughout the afternoon, but she had made no complaint and seemed determined not to make any now.