Page 113 of Surrender to Me
I cling to Remy’s back, my arms locked so tight around his waist that my fingers ache where they knot against his jacket.
The snowmobile’s engine snarls like a living thing, and the world narrows to the roar in my ears and the bite of wind against every inch of exposed skin.
A minute or two later, Remy stops in a small opening.
The sudden silence roars in my ears.
Remy yanks a spare helmet from the cargo strap. “Put this on, kid.”
When I hesitate, he thrusts it toward me. “Lyra?” His voice is rough, urgent, the same tone he used when I was twelve and he woke me up as police were about to raid the safehouse where my dad and I were staying in Marseille. “You with me, kid?”
“Yeah.” What choice do I have?
My hands are shaking so hard that I nearly drop the helmet.
The padding is worn, smells of old leather and pine needles.
I jam it over my head, the visor fogging instantly with my breath. The comm crackles to life the second the seal clicks.
“Test.” He’s already gripped the throttle again.
“Copy.” My voice sounds thin, swallowed by the helmet’s shell. “Give me a second.”
“What the hell are you fucking with?”
Not answering, I twist around so that I can transfer my Glock, and then, more surreptitiously, the ceramic fob to pockets inside my coat. “Ready.”
Without another word, he guns it.
This time he lurches forward so hard my stomach drops.
Branches whip past, low and vicious, smacking the helmet with sharp cracks that vibrate through my skull.
One catches my shoulder and tears the sleeve of my jacket with a sound like ripping paper. Snow sprays up in icy sheets, stinging my neck where the collar gaps.
My exposed fingers turn red, then go numb against the cold leather of Remy’s jacket.
I press closer, flattening a cheek between his shoulder blades.
The trail is a tunnel of white and green, rutted and unforgiving.
Every root and drift jars through the snowmobile and into my bones, a relentless percussion that rattles my teeth.
My thighs burn from clamping the seat, my arms scream from holding on.
Remy weaves like he was born to it—left, right, ducking under a limb that would take my head off if I sat even an inch taller.
The wind is a living thing, clawing at my jacket, trying to peel me off the machine and fling me into the snow.
“There’s a truck waiting at the clearing,” he says through the comm, calm as if we’re on a Sunday drive. He’s always been this way.
Though he’s been in and out of my life for as long as I can remember, I don’t really know much about the shadowy figure who bailed my dad out of more trouble than anyone should find.
He’s always shown up when we were the most desperate.
I do know his services aren’t cheap.
“We’ll be about twenty, thirty minutes to the airport in Granby. Bird’s fueled for Los Angeles.”
