Page 1 of Deathmarch
Chapter One
In a perfect life, Allie Bianchi would have returned to her hometown—where her ex-boyfriend lived—with an impressive new boyfriend, a successful career, a slinky silk dress, and the waistline of a Kardashian. Her life was far from perfect, however, so she struggled through an epic snowstorm toward Broslin, Pennsylvania, dumped, broke, and wearing Wild Bill Hickok’s buffalo coat.
Word to the wise: buffalo coats do no one’s waistline any favors.
The least of Allie’s worries, really, when she was staring death in the ghastly face.
She had died three times that week already, so it wasn’t as if she didn’t have practice, but this time, her untimely demise could be disturbingly real. As in:final. Unlike that very morning, when she’d been reenacting Calamity Jane’s life and death for the fifth-grade class at Suntown Elementary in Maryland.
Calamity Jane had died among strangers, while on a trip.
As a historical reenactor, Allie had given a spellbinding performance, dressed in head-to-toe buckskin, lying on her bedroll under the whiteboard that had been transformed into a starry sky. A hush had settled on the classroom, breaths held, eyes wide and waiting for her dramatic last gasp as she went limp. The only thing missing had been tumbleweed blowing across the stage.
The warmth of that classroom seemed a million miles away, as Allie dragged herself—and the infernal buffalo coat—forward in the storm in the frigid night, wondering if she might be able to find tumbleweed online. If she didn’t die here first, for real, in a snowdrift.
Except,no. She refused to freeze to death within a mile of safety. She had the coat. She was going to make it. She couldn’t afford to miss her next show, not at the rate her long-standing gigs were being canceled for the next academic year. School budgets were being cut again. She needed the money.
“Screw you, winter!” she shouted into the squall. “Screw you, snow! And screw you, wind! Sideways!” And then she hurled one of Calamity Jane’s curses, the one that always made the kids laugh. “Dagnabbit!”
The squall howled back.
She skidded and almost fell on her buffalo-fur-padded ass.
When she’d died in the classroom, it had been a lot more dignified. Silence had stretched stark and somber, symbolizing not just the end of Jane, but the end of a certain way of life—the end of the Old West.
Several breathless seconds had passed before the teacher’s clapping broke the spell. While the kids cheered, Allie drank up the youthful, innocent enthusiasm. To be the one to put those smiles on the fresh-scrubbed faces, that look of wonder into those young eyes, felt incredible. The kids made her work worthwhile. She wouldn’t have traded her job for a desk in a cubicle if someone offered her a million dollars.
“Did you really sleep on the ground when you were scouting?”A little girl with eyes of shiny black pearls had asked afterward. “Weren’t you afraid of snakes?”
“I didn’t care for them, young miss,”Allie had answered in her well-practiced Old West cadence.“But they sure made good stew.”She’d winked, then dropped her voice. “Especially the rattles.”
The memory of squeaks and gasps would have made Allie smile if she weren’t worried that her tooth enamel would freeze and crack.
As she progressed another dozen steps, a sign materialized on the roadside in the distance. She stopped to catch her breath, squinting to make out the letters. The town WELCOME sign would mean she was almost there, but the frozen white flakes were coming down too hard, no break in the wind. She couldn’t make out any letters.
She yanked her cell phone from her pocket with stiff fingers and almost dropped it before she managed to turn on the screen, in vain.
Zero bars. No reception.
She swore some more at the storm that weakened the signal and hid the town. She needed one freaking break.
Okay. Whatever. No pity party.
Her stupid hometown lay straight ahead whether she could see it or not. And shewasgoing to reach it.
Broslin Flipping PA.
She was back, running from the ex-boyfriend behind her, hoping to avoid the ex-ex-boyfriend ahead of her. So not the life she had envisioned for herself.
A headache unfurled between her eyes. She blamed that too on the storm. She refused to allow either Zane or Harper enough power to give her a headache.
She’d left Zane behind forever. She wasnotgoing to think about him ever again. And what were the chances that she’d run into Harper Finnegan while she was in Broslin for a single day? She could not be that cursed.
She drew a deep breath and belted out the “Everything’s Alright”part fromJesus Christ Superstar. She hadn’t been the queen of high school musicals back in the day for nothing. Musical theater was, and always had been, her defense against the dark arts.
As if the squall had heard her, it quieted for a moment. And with the snow not blowing every which way, she could make out the sign at last, not the WELCOME sign after all, but a billboard.
HOPE YOU HAVE A GOOD TRIP.
