Page 21 of No Hope of Rescue

His eyes fly open. “Did you say forty-eight hours?” He almost looks sick.

“You have to eat something,” I say hurriedly, setting out some electrolyte gel and a sandwich. I rip the gel pack open with my teeth and hand it to him.

“I can’t believe Codie is gone.” His voice is almost a whisper.

“You don’t know that for sure.”

He looks so lost, I can’t help myself. I put both arms around him and hold him for a moment. He hangs on to my hands. We haven’t embraced like this in the three years since he plucked me from that rock.

“She was my sister.”

“Is your sister.”

Then we both hear something in the distance.

Engines.

He looks at me. “Get back under the oilskin. Now.”

“But it might be—”

“Now, Riley. Move it. It’s probably them,” he says, but there’s no time to hide. I grab the water bottle from him and shove it into backpack with the spent batteries. I move to his right side and throw an arm around his waist, then we make a quick scramble to the back of the plane. Brock yanks a crate in front of where we were lying last time, obliterating footprints in the light litter of snow that’s drifted in. With a painful grunt, he grabs the bloodied wads of stuffing from the seats.

“Savi, come,” he says, his voice low. The large dog lopes in our direction from her place in the cockpit. She shakes, snow flying and covering more of our tracks.

“Savi. Down. Hush,” he commands with added hand signals. The dog instantly crouches, lowering her head onto her front paws as we dive behind partially tipped crates. The snowmobile pulls up, and the engine cuts just as he pulls me to the ground, holds me close from behind in a desperate spoon, and throws the oilskin over both of us. I clutch the backpack to my stomach and try not to breathe hard. I feel like my heart is going to beat right out of my chest.

Voices rise over the howl of the wind outside, and then two people enter, stomping boots and swearing.

In a second, we find out that he’s right. It’s not a search crew.

“Fuckin’ cold,” one says. Low voices tell me they’re men—men I don’t know.

Brock adjusts his arm and grips me even tighter. The men’s boots show through one buckle of a fold.

And there, just inches from one heel, lying ghostly in the snow, is Brock’s old bandage.

I can’t breathe.

Chapter Six

Brock Weston

The oilskin is heavy, like a sheet of lead. Even though I have her wrapped in both arms, Riley is shaking in spasms, and it’s not from the cold. Suddenly, she goes stiff, and through her coat, her heart throbs under my palm. I pull her in even closer and tuck a chin over her shoulder. The pulse in her neck beats against my ear.

And then I see what’s making it hard for her to breathe.

A bloodied bandage on the ground.

A shower of snow slides off the fuselage and thunders to the ground, just as one of the men steps onto the discarded dressing. When he steps again, it falls away, curling so it looks just like snow in the dim light.

The only way I know I’ve been holding my breath with her is because of the controlled exhale hissing between my teeth.

Savi begins to break the “down” command, and as she moves under the oilskin, a thin whine escapes her throat.

Thank God for the howling wind outside.

Carefully sliding my arm from around Riley’s chest, I move it behind my back and make two short sweeps with my index finger and one flick of the wrist with three fingers up. Stay and silent. Again. She’s just ten months, though. Mentally, I keep signing to her with two fingers spread—be still, be still—and hoping she has infrared sight. It’s hard to hear what the men are saying with the wind outside bantering against the sides of the fuselage. Then the pup settles again at the back of my legs.