Page 75 of Criminology of a Character

“Get up!” Bel shouted. “Annalise, I need you to stand up!”

“Annalise?” the woman stared at her with glazed eyes. “I knew an Annalise once. I think I was her.”

“You were.” She dragged her companion up one step, then another, and another until they reached the top. “You still are, and you aren’t dying here. Neither am I, for that matter.”

“I know you.” Annalise tripped as she tried to use her legs.

“Yes, you do.” Bel tugged her out into the open, their surroundings shocking her.They stood in a luxury cabin,the sleekdécor and wood furnishingsnotwhatshe’d expected.Where were they?

“Please don’t leave me.” Annalise grabbed the front of Bel’s shirt with a death grip.

“I won’t.” She locked the basement door behind them and dragged her companion into the living room, spinning wildly as she searched for the exit. “Where are we?”

Annalise didn’t answer.

“Do you recognize this house? Where are we?” she repeated.

“Don’t leave me,” the woman sobbed as something heavy crashed in the surgery below, and Bel cursed. She didn’t have time to stand in this uncomfortably perfect living room with its sleek lines and white furniture. Everything was clean and bright and fake. It was all a show, all a lie, all too pure for the sins below the floorboards, and she bolted in the first direction she looked. It took her a few turns to locate the front door, but with a strangled sob, she flung it open and lunged outside into the cold air.

Snow.

Bel froze with a sharp pain piercing her gut. Snow for as far as the eye could see. Snow and trees and sky. This wasn’t a neighborhood. They were in the middle of nowhere, high in the mountainsandsurrounded by frigid wilderness. There was nowhere to escape to, no one to beg for help. They were alone. They were lost somewhere Eamon couldn’t find her. Snow was falling, beautiful and cold and deadly, and by the crash deep below the house, Charles had broken free.

Bel cursedas snowflakes drifted over the threshold to dust her toes in white. She was wearing jeans and a sweater, but Annalise wore only leggings and a thin shirt. Both of their shoes were unfortunately missing, leaving their socks as their only defense against the frozen ground, and there was nothing outside but endless snow and trees. The cold would kill them if they left this house, but the surgeon racing up the stairs would butcher them if he caught up. Deciding she would rather freeze than surrender her face, Bel pulled Annalise outside, only to retreat inside five seconds later.The coat rack.She’d missed it in her haste, but a single jacket hung from its hook, a pair of man’s boots resting below it, and she almost gagged at the sliverof luck. They didn’t have time to search for anotherset of outdoor gear, though. They’d have to share.

Bel shoved her feet into the boots, Charles banging on the basement door so violently that the house shook. The shoes were too big for her, but they’d save her toes from frostbite. Annalise was too weak to run on her own. Bel would have to help her, so she needed the footwear.

Laces hastily tied tight, Bel grabbed the coat and wrapped it around Annalise. Her flimsy top would do nothing against the snow. Bel’s sweater waslittlebetter, but at least its thickness offered more protection. Each woman had one item. Charles had none. Bel prayed there were no other coats in this secluded cabin. He deserved to freeze as he hunted them down.

An unholy clang of metal rang out through the peaceful afternoon, and she wrapped Annalise in her arms and lunged out into the open. The boots made her movements awkward, but they only had to last until they found Blaubart’s car. He’d delivered both women to this secret lab from New York City, and he hadn’t carried them up the mountain on his back. If she reached his car first, she could leave him stranded in the wilderness.

“Annalise, have you been here before?” she asked, so focused on her hunt for the vehicle that she didn’t take stock of her surroundings. She didn’t see the obvious staring back at her from the trees. “Where does he park the car?”

“I’m cold.” Annalise’s head fell against Bel’s shoulder as her socked feet dragged over the frozen ground.

“I know.” Bel wrapped her arms tighter around the woman’s waist. “Just hold on. We’re going to be okay.”

But Annalise didn’t answer. Her weight grew heavier as she stumbled, and Bel threw a panicked look over her shoulder. They were moving tooslow. Charles would catch up any second now, and their only hope of survival was a vehicle. Fleeing onfoot was a death sentence this high in the mountains. A car had to be here, and she was certain it hid around the next corner. There was nowhere else for it to be parked.

“No.” The sightwaitingbehind the house was a punch to her gut. “No, no, no!” Bel doubled over, her stomach threatening to heave itself onto the ground. “No, please no.” Tears fell from her eyes, trailing an icy path down her cheeks as the fight bled from her limbs. There was no car, and she finally registered her surroundings. There were no roads. There wasn’t even a hiking path. Charles hadn’t driven them into the mountains. He’d flown them.

Bel slammed her fist against the helicopter’s hull, rage and despair replacing her last slivers of hope. She didn’t know where they were, and if he’d flown here, this house was undoubtedly farther from civilization than she’d first assumed. Charles had proved himself a skilled pilot on the island when he took her and Eamon for a ride. A cross-country flight would be easy for him to navigate. They could be anywhere, and snow was falling. Annalise didn’t have shoes. Bel didn’t have a coat, and the afternoon was fading away. They wouldn’t survive the night out there in those strange woods.

A gunshot echoed in the silence, and Bel shrieked as a bullet ricocheted off the helicopter’s hull. She instinctively ducked, yanking Annalise behind the vehicle’s protection, and suddenly she was back in Frost’s house, bullets raining down on her. Her hands shook as she tried to shield Annalise from the gunshots shattering the air. Maybe this was for the best. A bullet would be quicker than freezing to death in the woods.

“Where are you?” Charles roared, his voice manic as he followed their footprints. “You think you can hide from me?Youthink you can escape with my wife? With my scalpel. I was going to remake you, Detective, but you took what belongs to me. You don’t deserve to become one of my Annes now. WhenI find you, I’m going to make you hideous instead. I’ll ruin that pretty face of yours and turn you into a beast. Let’s see how much your precious Eamon Stone loves you when you’re nothing but an ugly hack job.”

Bel cursed as she stared at the trees. She had seconds to decide. Deathby man or death by mountain. But if Charles didn’t kill her, he would carve her up. He would steal who she was, and as another gunshot destroyed the silence, she decided.

“Come on.” She hauled Annalise off the ground and bolted into the forest, but they barelymade it acrossthe clearing before Annalise’s dragging feet tripped her. The women went down hard, tumbling over each other through the frigid snow, and Bel stifled her scream as a tree root jabbed her spine.

“Where are you?” Charles shouted. “Bring me back my Anne.”

“Get up.” Bel crawled over the frozen dirt to Annalise, tears streaming down her face. “Annalise, get up!” She captured her waist and dragged her to her feet, but a bullet splintered the tree beside their heads. Bel threw herself down the incline, the too-large shoes threatening to be her undoing, but she didn’t stop. Their only chance at survival was to disappear into the forest, and her movements turned reckless as another shot rang out.

Her foot hit an icy patch, and she careened into a tree, the movement throwing Annalise down the slope. The woman crashed to her stomach, sliding dangerously fast, and Bel dove for her, catching her moments before her skull smashed into a protruding rock.

Bel’s tears blinded her as gunfire punctuated the air behind them, and she bit her lip to keep from screaming. The shots’ echoes sounded from the wrong direction. He’d lost them for the moment, and if she cried out, it would take him seconds to find them.

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