“Turn off the engine.”
At Max’s snapped order, I jerked to shut down my car. The rumbling ceased, replaced by muffled silence.
Around, blue and dirty-white snow clumped against the glass, thick and smothering. Branches, mud, and pine needles mixed in, enclosing us in the dark.
An avalanche had crashed into us, almost taking us off the road.
Max unclipped his seat belt, and I did the same.
“Holy fuck,” he muttered.
I scanned the windows for daylight. “We’re buried.”
“No shite, Sherlock.”
I punched his uninjured arm. “We need to get out.”
“Technically, you’re meant to stay in the car and wait for rescue. Lochinvar knows where we are. Try calling him.”
We’d been speaking before disaster had struck. God, he must be worried. I recovered my phone from where it had landed by my feet. “No signal.”
Max pressed at his screen. “Same.”
I tried to place the call anyway. It failed. A text message did the same.
“They know where we are. They’ll come for us,” Max said.
A low wave of panic tightened my stomach. “Are ye joking? I can’t sit here while a maniac is loose on the estate. Fuck that, Max. There was an explosion. Something is happening right now.”
Even in the dark, my brother’s eyes lit, and his attempt at making a sensible decision evaporated. “Aye, fuck that. We cannae sit here.”
He yanked on his door handle then barged the door, wincing in pain.
It didn’t budge.
I tried mine with the same outcome, then turned the power back on to check the locks weren’t engaged. Still, nothing. Our exits were jammed by the weight of the avalanche.
We were trapped.
Max scrambled between the seats to try the back doors. He kicked at them, barely even rocking the car, but to no avail. “Yeah, that isn’t happening.”
“I’m going to lower the windows. Maybe we can dig our way out.”
“Do ye have a spade?”
“Why would I carry a spade in my car?”
“Well, we cannae use our hands.” In the gloom, he raked his fingers into his hair, frustration in the move. “Besides, we risk freezing our arses off if we cannae get through.”
“We’ll manage. How bad can it be?”
“Hypothermia? Pretty limiting, unless you’re happy being dead.”
I glowered at him. At some point, my irritating little brothers had grown up, and Max was now a man. I still couldn’t see him as anything other than annoying.
He gave me a well-duh look. “What about other supplies? Spare clothes, water, energy bars, fuel?”
“No, no, and no.”
“Seriously? We live in the fucking Highlands. Winter happens. Ye should carry a basic kit in case of emergencies.”
“I never drive the more remote roads. The worst that’s ever happened is I had to wait down by the loch after I skidded on ice and busted a tyre. Ma drove and picked me up, then Isobel towed my car.”
Today, two cars had blocked that same route, causing us to change direction.
I held up a hand to stop my brother’s retort. “Could that have been deliberate? The accident? It forced us to come this way.”
He sat back in the seat, his gaze focused. “Then there was the explosion. Ye cannae plan an avalanche, but it would gather attention. Bring people running.”
We both quietened. That sound had driven fear through me, and the sense lingered.
“What could’ve blown up? A car?” I asked.
“We’re right below the access road to Hill House. That place is off the grid, but it has diesel-powered generators.”
“Shite. There’s no chance that was an accident. I’d bet any money Jude did this.”
“Agreed. Which makes us sitting ducks.”
Trapped and waiting.
Oh God, this had been a mistake.
“We have to get out.” I hit the door in frustration. “I’m going to tunnel out. It’s our only option.” Even if I tore my fingers to shreds.
Max shone his phone’s torchlight around the car and peered at the ceiling. Then he reached for something I couldn’t see. In a rush, he slid back a hatch cover.
Daylight flooded in.
“Why the hell didn’t ye say ye had a roof light?” He examined the fastenings.
“In four years of owning this car, I have never opened that. Fuck!”
My brother smacked the hatch, opening it a paltry inch, the hinges restricting further movement. The snow on top shuddered. “Ye know, if ye took more care of your car instead of speeding everywhere, ye would’ve known this was here.”
Argh. “I don’t speed. Get out of the way, I’m going to boot it.”
“The snow will cave in.”
“We’ll have a better chance of digging through that than by breaking the window.”
Max pulled a face at me then stole my idea. With a move worthy of an acrobat, he twisted and drove a shoe into the glass.
It popped off its hinge, flying away.
Fresh air and only a scattering of snow entered the car.
“Yes!” I cheered.
Max stuck his head out then ducked back inside. “Easy. We’ll land in a snow pile—it’s thick around the car—but the road is visible ahead. Grab whatever ye need to take and let’s get the fuck out of here.”
I didn’t need telling twice. Max passed over my winter jacket from the back seat, and I put it on then slung my bag across my body. Standing on the seat, I exited the car through the narrow gap and eased onto the snowy roof.
My brother boosted himself after me, and we perched side by side for a moment.
The storm had reduced in intensity, but thick clouds scattered fresh flakes, covering us. To our right, a wide snowfield abutted the mountain, the road’s verge lost to the avalanche. To the left, the hill descended into a creaking forest.
Even with my shite sense of direction, I knew the path ahead would take us home. A long walk, but better than sitting in a metal box inside a snowdrift.
“If that arsehole is out here somewhere, weaponed up and fucked in the head, we need to get moving and stay out of sight,” Max grumbled. “Through the forest would be the most direct route, and safest, but it’s naw easy underfoot.”
“We should stick to the road,” I argued. “We cannae get lost, and if anyone’s looking for us, that’s the way they’ll come.”
“I’d never get lost,” Max grouched, but he agreed all the same.
With his coat around him like a cape, his plaster cast too bulky to zip inside, he stood into the churned snow beside the car. His boots sank, but he was able to move.
I hopped down after him, placing my feet into his footsteps.
With care, we rounded the car, nothing of it visible aside from the roof with the hole in it.
There was nothing for it but to trudge on. My brother was hurting—not that he’d admit it, I could tell by the way he held himself—but he strode ahead. At the edge of the avalanche zone, we found the road, still snow-covered but with obvious tyre tracks. We followed it, moving as fast as we could on the treacherous ground.
A hundred meters on, we passed a junction. I lifted my hood against the chill and sucked in a lungful of frozen air.
“Is that where ye think the explosion came from?” I asked Max.
“Aye, keep moving.”
Somewhere out here, the mountain rescue service was hunting Jude. Lochie had that under control, and I knew he’d succeed. All I had to do was get out of the way and stay safe. Isla was with Ma at the castle, and I so badly wanted to see the little lass.
We could be a family—I knew that’s what she’d wanted to ask before I’d left the country. Her da and I never got to have the conversation about what next. He wanted to stay, and his problems might be solvable, if they even existed. My stalker could be responsible for everything that had happened. The more I thought about it, the likelier it became.
Jude was the only obstacle between me and a future I could never have imagined possible.
Uphill, a bold colour flashed between the trees. I squinted then stalled my brother.
“Did ye see that?”
He gave a short nod, a hand out as if to restrain me.
I stared, getting a tiny glimpse of the colour again. Purple, a brilliant and unusual shade, practically glowing against the stark white and grey of the mountainside. At the distance, I couldn’t tell if it was on a person or hanging from a tree.
Then recognition dawned. Was that…?
“It’s my coat,” I spluttered. “That colour… Ma bought me a coat in that exact shade. It was stolen from work months ago.”
Then the object moved, and a person came into sight. With a white balaclava covering their face, and in my damn coat, they moved purposefully.
I focused on what he carried.
The man left the cover of the trees and strode closer.
Max and I froze and slowly lifted our arms.
It was Jude, and he had a gun trained directly on my brother.
