These men were either stupid or just incredibly arrogant.
Actually, nah. They were both.
Their arrogance made them stupid. They thought they could waltz into my resort, ask a bunch of questions about my girlfriend, and none of my friends would raise a red flag.
Assholes.
On top of that, they thought they could take Bellamy up a mountain without anyone noticing or even stop to think about the footprints they were literally leaving behind them in the snow.
If you hadn’t been looking out the window, you might not have noticed.
The thought in my own head offended me.
Yeah, well, I did, I snapped back.
You knew a man was good and worked up when he argued with himself. I was beyond worked up. I was damn near frothing at the mouth.
I saw which direction they’d been walking when I fled from her room, but by the time I got downstairs and into the instructors’ quarters, I was sweating through my shirt. What if in the time it took me to grab some gear and follow, they’d disappeared?
What if I lost her all over again?
What if I never see her again.
The urgent, almost mind-numbing fear kept me moving, giving me a burst of adrenaline I hadn’t felt since I’d been competing in the winter Olympics a few years ago.
I knew these mountains like the back of my hand. I’d grown up here, Alex and I had been all over the place as teens. I could use that to my advantage. These guys didn’t know this place. They didn’t know the mountain.
My leg muscles burned from the effort of running up the mountain in the snow while carrying my gear, but I didn’t stop. Not even when I felt the familiar twinge of pain in my bad knee.
You’re pushing yourself. You aren’t supposed to do that.
I’d saw my fucking leg off before I let that injury slow me down. That voice of reason in my head? It could go fuck itself.
I picked up the trail they left behind and followed it until we got past the black diamond markings. The beam of a flashlight was faint up ahead, so I knew I’d found them. I just prayed to God I wasn’t too late.
I listened over the whipping of the wind for her voice, hoping to hear it, straining to pick out that familiar sound over my own ragged breathing.
I knew they were going out of bounds the second the light disappeared into the trees. I also knew there was a drop-off close by, and it took everything inside me not to scream her name and warn her.
I couldn’t give myself away. The element of surprise was on my side. I had to use it. It was all I had.
My direction veered from the one they went in. Instead of cutting across like them, I went up, everything in me quivering with effort. Once I hit the trees, I started to descend in their direction. Listening as I carefully went through the trees, I hoped they also hadn’t changed direction and were heading straight toward me.
A few moments later, I heard Bellamy shout, followed quickly by a gunshot. I started running, no longer caring about the noise I made or if they heard me coming. My snowboard was hitting against the ground and the backs of my legs as I ran. I nearly stumbled but righted myself before I fell.
The snowboard hit the packed snow in front of me, skidding down the mountain a little ways before it hit a tree and stopped.
What the fuck was I doing? Running down the mountain when I could be on that board. Hell, I was better on it than I was on my own two feet.
I rushed down, braced my hand on the tree, and snapped my feet onto the board. My knee ached, but I ignored it.
Once I was good and balanced, I cut through the snow, weaving through the trees until I nearly shot out into a clearing right before the drop-off.
Reaching up, I grabbed a branch and stopped just in time to see some bulky guy in black punch Bellamy in the face.
Rage so strong rippled through me my entire body shook with it. I told myself to calm down, to collect myself so I could think clearly. The man holding Bellamy tossed her. She nearly pitched right off the edge.
The branch snapped under my grip, and thought was no longer an option.
With an angry shout, I burst out of the trees, cutting over the powder with more control than I’d used in a long time.
The sound of firing guns barely registered, but the way the ground shook under my board did.
Fuck!
“Liam!” Bellamy screamed, her voice echoing through the night.
More gunfire went off, and I zigzagged down the distance between us as bullets peppered the snow around me.
I watched through wild eyes as my girl leapt at the man who hit her, jumping on his back, and made them fall to the ground. As the pair grappled, the ground underfoot shook more.
This wasn’t good. Not at all.
They needed to stop firing those guns.
As if they just wanted to be dickheads, a gun went off once more.
Bellamy screamed, and I looked up wildly, nearly pissing my pants in relief when I saw she hadn’t been shot. The asshole shot right over her head, scaring the shit out of her and starting it all.
The deep, angry rumble of the mountain sliced through all the other chaos.
“Bellamy!” I roared.
Everything beneath us started to shift and give way.
There was only one thing I could do.
Only one way to not die in an avalanche….
Outrun it.
I flew past the man Bellamy had jumped on, cut my board into the snow, and sprayed a wave of powder at him and Bells. He let go of her to shield his face, and I kept going, knocking right into her, lifting as I continued to move.
“Hold on,” I yelled, feeling her wrap her arms and legs around me.
The next moment, the ground completely fell away and we were flying.