Page 51 of So Dark

“We’re at work more often than we’re not at work. This is hugely inappropriate for me to say, considering the past few days, but I spend more time with you than I do with Ellie. A lot more. That's part of why Ellie and I have talked about me retiring."

“Exactly. That’s my point. You’re with her now.” She quickly added, “and that’s fine. Really, it’s wonderful. I like her, and I’m glad you’re happy. But… I guess one of the things I thought would never change would be you and me as best friends who did almost everything together. I miss grabbing drinks with you after work, going out on weekends, watching movies or sports games together. You know, you were my person.”

She looked at Michael and saw him wrestling with the information she’d just given him. “I’m sorry,” she continued. “I know I’m making everything worse, but I have to get this off ofmy chest. You were my person, and I don’t mean that to say that you were the person I liked having sex with the most or the person I thought I would marry. I just… I thought we’d be friends forever and we’d be… well, doing the same things until we got old.”

She fell silent, and that silence held. Turk continued to slowly zigzag across the trail, nose to the ground, tail switching back and forth. Faith wanted to look back at Michael to see how he’d reacted to her words, but she was afraid of what she’d find.

And it was true. She missed him. She missed him a lot. The past two and a half years felt like an eternity, and part of that was because her routine had been taken away from her, and everything that had come around to replace it had refused to stay still long enough for her to get used to it.

Michael was her routine. He was her partner, not just at work but in life. She wasn’t sure if she had any romantic feelings for him, but she knew that she needed him to be there whenever she needed a friend, and their lives were moving in different directions now. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could count on having him there, and she wasn’t sure if David could fill the hole he would leave behind.

She didn’t dwell on these thoughts for long, though. Turk barked and began to run through the forest away from the trail. Just before Michael and Faith followed, a piercing scream split the night air.

Faith’s blood froze. That was a woman’s scream. Kelly.

The two agents looked at each other in alarm, then sprinted after Turk. Faith caught glimpses of his fur in her flashlight beam as he rushed toward the sound, desperate to find her before whatever trap she’d sprung took her life.

Faith felt the same wish, and when a second scream followed the first, her throat constricted. Oh, please don’t let them be too late. Not again. Not when they were so close.

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

Victor moved slowly through the forest toward the cabin. There was no need to run and risk overheating. Sweat was deadly in temperatures like this. It would freeze and create a layer of ice around the body. It could even freeze in the pores at extremely low temperatures. If that happened, death would occur within minutes.

He wondered if Kelly would freeze to death before reaching the cabin. She was smart enough to know not to overheat in low temperatures, but she was also on the run and terrified. It was one thing to know that when you were facing a grizzly bear, your best chance of survival was to lie down in a ball and cover your head. It was another thing entirely to have the strength of will to do it when a seven-hundred-pound animal was charging you with an open mouth full of fangs.

It would be a little disappointing, he supposed, if her own fear killed her instead of his traps, but he’d get over it. That was the risk he assumed when he stepped on those branches and swore loudly enough for her to hear. The crossbow bolt he’d fired when she fell might have been a step too far, but she was his last target in Alaska, so he allowed himself a little theatricality. Well, more theatricality than usual.

Graham lived in a commune now. He didn’t come into the wilderness anymore, not even the Montana wilderness. That would make him the most difficult to kill. He’d have to sneak into his home and stab him, or maybe even buy a rifle and kill him from a distance.

That would be hugely disappointing. Anyone could kill a person by shooting them. It was easy to do that. But to outsmart a person and drive them into traps? That was real hunting.

Not that the Nature’s Guardians ever understood that. They called themselves survivalists, but they were just common outdoorsmen and women. Hikers and campers and hunters. They had satellite phones and compasses and cotton blankets and generators andguns.

His lip curled. Traps were the real sign of intelligent hunting. Finding an animal and using a gun to kill it was easy. Knowing that animal, understanding its habits and movements, knowing where it was going to be and putting traps in place to kill it was a superior demonstration of one’s capability.

And they thoughthewas the incompetent one. They saidhewas the poser. Why? Because he wore furs he had taken from the animals he’d killed? Because he wore shoes made of leather he had cured from the same moose that contributed the antlers he’d carved into the two knives he carried around his belt, and used a bow made from another set of antlers, this one taken from an Elk he’d killed with a snare just like the one he’d used to sever Valerie North’s head?

His lips thinned as he recalled how they laughed at him. At him! Pretenders. Liars. City dwellers. They didn’t deserve to call themselves survivalists. They played survival games, but they didn’t know how to last out in the wilderness. Take away their cabins with their stashes of processed food, their technology, their gas generators, and where were they? They had no chance out here.

He heard a branch snap ten yards ahead of him, and a moment later, he saw the beam of a flashlight spin around. He lowered his head and froze in place. In the middle of a thick stand of spruce, his brown clothing would look like another tree trunk if he didn't move.

As it turned out, the beam never even passed over him. Kelly was so panicked she didn’t even look where her beam was moving. He waited a few minutes, then continued toward thecabin, moving more slowly. Jesus, this dumb bitch couldn’t even run properly.

Maybe he should just catch up to her and brain her over the head. If he really wanted to see her caught in a trap, he could just carry her to one and toss her in it himself. That wasn’t really the point of the traps, but it was getting embarrassing following someone who lost all composure the minute she was faced with real danger.

That was real proof of their weakness. The instant they were pushed outside of their comfort zone, the “Nature’s Guardians” fell apart. Ethan Holloway would be lost without his satellite phone. Valerie North could only go a day without food before she gave up and ran straight back home to her microwave dinners and her dried pasta. Lisa Blackwood would rather talk about survival than do it. Graham couldn’t survive without someone stroking his ego every damned second. Jake was more interested in avoiding his wife and finding something warm to hold at night than he was about being a true wilderness man.

Jake. Damn it, he’d nearly forgotten about Jake. He had to take care of Jake before he made the trek to Montana.

To be fair, Jake was the least annoying of the group. He was the only one who didn’t pretend to be someone he wasn’t. He was fully aware of the fact that he was a hobbyist and not a survivalist and made no attempt to convince others that he was a wilderness man.

Still, he hadn’t stood up for him when he was denied entry. Maybe Jake didn’t need the help, but the others did. He should have recognized that and fought against the people who made fun of him instead of just laughing along with Kelly.

Kelly. She annoyed him the most. She just showed up to shake her ass and flash her tits and see which of the boys dropped to their knees and begged for the privilege of seeing itagain. He hated women like that even more than he hated the chatty bitches like Lisa or the weak ones like Valerie.

Deep within the recesses of his mind, deeper than he acknowledged, he was hurt that she hadn’t tried to flirt with him the way she had with the others. She had taken one look at him and sneered like he was something she had stepped in. She claimed to be interested in survival, and he was the man who could have taught her more about survival than anyone else.

He didn't even want sex with her. He had never really been interested in that. Sex was how animals bred offspring, and he was too old to raise children. Not when he knew that the moment they saw an electric light or heard an automobile engine, they'd forget all about the true life of the wilderness and run straight to the nearest damned convenience store.

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