How perfectly romantic.
Hardin clicked on the webcam and stared. “What the...?”
There was nothing but rope.
Sam was gone.
The bitch was gone.
Isaksen.
* * *
Thor staggeredacross the ice toward the structures that the staff called Summer Camp, doing his best to ignore pain and cold, Samantha in his arms.
Let her be alive.
If Samantha was alive, he might be able to save her.
If she wasn’t…
The thought almost split his chest wide open.
Thor had found her almost right away. Hardin hadn’t tried very hard to hide her, perhaps because he’d planned to kill Thor with his own firearm. Too bad for him that he was such a lousy shot.
Samantha had patches of white skin on her face and fingers, a sign of early frostbite. But it was the tears frozen on her eyelashes and cheeks that had crushed him—and unleashed that sickening, deadly rage.
You don’t have the energy to waste on emotion. Keep moving.
Fighting to put one foot ahead of the other, Thor kept his gaze on the nearest building, pushed himself to go faster. He thought he remembered Samantha telling him that the first two structures were still in use—one as a climbing gym and the other as a café and nightclub. He hoped to God they had heat—and a cold-weather first-aid kit.
Not that the gunshot wounds posed any real threat to his life. The bullet had lodged deep in his left shoulder and hurt like hell, making it hard to hold Samantha’s weight. But he didn’t yet have to worry about blood loss, as both wounds had frozen.
The immediate threat to her life and his was the cold.
He focused on one step and then the next and the next, the blue building with its white door only a hundred meters away now. He was almost there. A hundred meters was a little more than a hundred steps for him. He counted them down, the wind chill seeming to suck the life out of him.
Seventy to go. Sixty. Fifty.
If he collapsed, if he gave in to hypothermia now, they would both die.
Forty-five. Forty. Thirty-five.
He had never been this cold in his life, not even during the worst snowstorms in Greenland. Temperatures never dropped this low, and he’d always had shelter with him.
Twenty. Fifteen. Ten.
He reached the door, shifted Samantha in his arms so he could grab the doorknob.
It was unlocked.
Gudskelov! Thank God!
He turned the knob, lifesaving warmth hitting him in the face. Careful not to bump Samantha’s head, he walked inside, kicking the door shut behind him. He would need to secure it in case Hardin came looking for them to finish them off, but for now, his priority was saving Samantha’s life—if she wasn’t already gone.
He didn’t flick on the lights. In the Antarctic darkness, the windows would shine like a beacon and tell Hardin exactly where they were. Instead, he walked through the darkness into the next room. There, a bar ran along one wall, a handful of tables arranged in a narrow space. This was the café.
He carried Samantha over to one of the heat registers that ran along the floor and laid her down on the carpet, tucking his numb fingers into his armpits to warm them enough to feel for a pulse. “Samantha, can you hear me? Wake up,skat.I’m going to take care of you.”