Started lapping up the soup.
Jericho returned to the door, stared out into the night, his heart a fist in his chest. Then he crouched again and called to Orlando.
The dog came over. Sat. Whined.
And then, his ears flicked up and he stood up, as if already knowing Jericho’s words.
“Find Harley.”
DON’TDIE.Don’t die!
Harley’s heartbeat screamed the words—not sure if they might be for her or for Jericho, because any minute the man would return to the house and find her gone.
A branch broke behind her, the heavy breaths of Mars Sorros breaking through the stiff night—or maybe it was just the wind casting through the trees like a hound on her tail.
Of course, she left without a jacket, running for her life through knee-deep snow in her stocking feet. But Harley barely felt the chill through her wool socks, her body on fire after the rush of seeing Mars standing in the hallway.
To think that she’d been on her way to that sappy, sweet, nostalgic moment when she turned on her bedroom lamp to remind Jericho he had someone waiting for him.
Yes, sheshouldhave waited for him. His apology—again—this time with a terrible tenor of regret, instead of just realization, had undone her.
So many mistakes, so many wounds.
But not anymore. Not with a brand-new heart to give him, a heart that loved him without the scars.
So, yes, she would turn on the light and keep it burning.
But then Mars had appeared.
He stood in the hallway, dressed in boots, canvas pants, a wool hat, and a grimy canvas jacket looking like he’d ascended from the bowels of the earth. Or, at least, the dark tangles of the bush.
And he’d held a gun.
All she could think in that terrible moment was that he must have come up from the basement. Maybe she’d forgotten to shut the garage—and the horror of a terrible whine from Orlando on the other side of the door said that the dog had gotten trapped down there.
Please let him notbe seriously hurt.
She whirled around, diving for the knife block, but Mars had rushed forward, grabbed her arm.
So, she swept up the first weapon she found—the soup pot—and hit him with it. It seared his face, and he shouted, releasing her.
She dropped the pot, pushed him—he banged against the wall—and ran out the front door.
Into the frigid night, toward the Bowie house.
Exceptnottoward the Bowie house because Jericho wasn’t armed, and in her worst nightmares, he and Mars faced off in round two ... and Mars killed the man she loved right in front of her.
So she veered away from the Bowie house, running hard, the plan simple.
If she could make enough noise, she could lead him away.
Maybe hide.
And with Orlando locked in the basement, maybe he’d survive the night too.
So, into the darkness she ran.
Now, she kept her hands out, plunging through the snow, pushing away the tree branches, the moon slicing through the forest in patches of luminescence to light her path. She fought her ragged breathing, stopped against a tree.