Ray had found them.

Gia swallowed in fear. She dropped the partially-made ropes she’d braided into the snow and struggled to her feet, keeping her gaze locked on Ray the entire time. She kept her face blank so he wouldn’t know she was injured and in pain, but couldn’t stop a wince.

The sun sank low behind her, casting the swathe of snow in a brilliant coral light. It would be dark soon.

Ray looked dreadful. His face was pale and blistered. A bruise formed around his right eye. His clothes were soaked through and torn in places, revealing cuts and scratches on his skin. They were untreated, his skin was blue with cold, but he hadn’t made any effort to sew up the gaps or protect himself.

“What happened to you?” she blurted out. Her slick, urbane husband was gone. It had been a few weeks since she’d seen him, and in that time he’d changed into a completely different person. She barely even recognized him.

He raised his gun, swaying, and held it in her direction. “You,” he spat. “You happened to me.”

His arm shook, aim skewed. He didn’t appear to notice.

Gia froze in fear. All the times Ray had terrorized her flashed before her. All the times she hadn’t fought back. And the one time she’d fled instead of confronting her fears.

Elijah stepped between Gia and the bullet. She tried to push him out of the way, but he refused to move his solid bulk. She hopped to the side, and Elijah repositioned himself.

“Don’t take a bullet for me,” she pleaded, holding on to the waistband of his pants to keep herself upright. He’d already lost so much because of her. She didn’t want him to lose his life, too.

Ray fired.

The report from the gun echoed through the trees.

Gia squeezed her eyes shut, unable to see the man she loved getting a hole torn through him by a speeding bullet. Elijah sucked in a breath. The bullet thumped as it hit its target.

But Elijah didn’t fall.

Gia cracked her eyes open to see Elijah, whole and healthy before her. The bullet had landed harmlessly in a tree a few feet away. Ray stared down at his gun in confusion, still swaying slightly. Then, he shrugged and let the gun fall from his hand to lie in the snow.

He unsheathed a knife from his hip. Gia gasped, Elijah still didn’t move.

All Gia could think about was that knife slicing into Elijah’s beautiful skin, killing him. She couldn’t let that happen. She couldn’t stay frozen in place while Elijah died for her, wouldn’t run and allow him to die in her stead.

“Ray,” she said, calling attention to herself. She limped to the side and snatched up her bag. “This is what you want, isn’t it?”

His eyes snapped to her. Elijah hurried over to place himself in front of her, but she stumbled forward, holding him off.

“If you get your money back will you leave us alone?” she pleaded.

Ray grinned. “I’ll kill you, then take the money.”

“Why? Why do you need me to die?” she pleaded, her heart pounding.

“Because I’m up here on a fucking mountain. My feet are rotting. I haven’t slept in days. I had to wipe my ass with moss—more than once. And it’s all YOUR FUCKING FAULT,” he roared.

With that, he charged forward, his knife pointing towards her. Gia dived out of the way, but her injured leg gave out with a sharp pain and she collapsed into the snow with a thud.

Elijah grabbed Ray as he ran past, immediately putting him in a chokehold. But Ray still had the knife. He flailed and then stabbed behind him, embedding it deep into Elijah’s thigh.

Elijah bellowed in pain and let go of Ray, stumbling back as blood spread across his pant leg. Gia’s heart dropped. That better not have hit an artery or she’d tear Ray apart with her bare hands and take pleasure in doing it.

“That’s what you get for screwing my wife,” Ray yelled. His eyes were wide and far crazier than Gia had ever seen them.

Elijah swung his fist, landing a solid blow to Ray’s stomach. “And that’s what you get for beating her,” he gritted out. Gia’s heart warmed at Elijah’s defense of her.

She slowly pushed herself up onto her feet, not putting any weight on her injured leg. She picked up the bag, the only thing she could reach. It wasn’t particularly heavy, filled only with paper, but it was better than nothing.

She swung it hard at the back of Ray’s head. He grunted and stumbled but stayed upright. He whirled on her, eyes savage with fury, and growled. At least he was no longer armed. Not that she could see. But his eyes weren’t quite focused, even as he looked at her.

He was ill. Gravely so.

“Ray, you’re sick. Really sick. If you don’t get treatment you could die. How about we all stop fighting and head down the mountain together. Get us all to a hospital, huh?”

Ray threw his head back and laughed. She’d never heard him laugh before, and it was a hideous, bone-chilling sound.

“I’d rather us all die up here,” he said, still swaying on his feet. “Like God intended for us.”

Gia’s eyebrows shot up. Ray had never been a religious man, though, like her, his mother had been. Had he come to some kind of spiritual revelation up here on the mountain? Or was he hallucinating sightings of the divine?

“Ray, none of us have to die. You can have your money. We can go our separate ways.”

Ray sneered. “I’d rather gut you open and feast.”

Gia’s stomach dropped. He truly sounded crazy now.

He lunged towards her. Gia couldn’t move out of the way fast enough, and this time his aim was true. His fingers wrapped around her throat and the momentum tumbled them both back into the knee-deep snow.

Ray squeezed tighter around her throat until she choked from lack of air. All the breath had been knocked from her lungs in the fall and now they burned for oxygen, but Ray didn’t loosen his grip.

“Die for me, wife,” he gritted out, tightening even further.

But then Elijah loomed over them both. He wrapped his arm around Ray’s throat and dragged him away from Gia. As soon as his hands were off her throat she sucked in a giant lungful of air, and then another.

Ray struggled desperately in Elijah’s grip, fighting him to get free.

Gia rolled and grabbed the bag of money. “Are you sure you don’t want this?” she asked, when his eyes locked avidly on it. She sat up to give herself a better angle and then flung it towards the cliff’s edge. He watched it land, teetering near the edge.

He was tempted, she could see. But he tore his gaze away and focused back on her. “I’m beyond that, now.”

Then she’d have to think of something else. The gun where he’d dropped it earlier caught her eye and scrambled towards it. She dived, grabbed it, and rolled onto her back, aiming the gun at the two men.

“Don’t, Gia,” Elijah warned. And he was right. If she didn’t aim exactly right, she’d hit Elijah instead. So she widened her eyes, trying to signal him to let go and step away.

Ray twisted, impatient for something to happen and frustrated Elijah had immobilized him. He threw his hand down and gripped the knife handle still embedded in Elijah’s thigh. Before Gia could yell a warning, he’d twisted the knife until Elijah cried out in agony.

But Elijah still didn’t let go. Not for a long, terrible moment. And then he released his grip and stumbled back. Gia didn’t hesitate. She squeezed the trigger once, twice, three times.

The gun only fired once.

Either the gun was jammed or out of bullets and Gia didn’t have the expertise to tell the difference.

Her one bullet had hit the target, though. In the shoulder, so he was still standing upright with a baffled expression on his face. She waited for him to go down, collapse. But instead he staggered towards her.

“I won’t die until I kill you,” he told her. The sun was behind Ray, sinking behind the vast mountain range and casting him into silhouette. His footsteps crunched in the heavy snow as he struggled towards her. If she tried to run, her ankle would never hold her.

She tried to fire the gun again but it clicked uselessly. She drew her arm back and threw the gun right at his head. He dodged instinctively, then continued wading through the snow in her direction.

She had nothing left to fight with. She couldn’t even stand. She’d fight, of course. Until she had nothing left. But Ray had made it clear he had to lose. He was beyond pain, beyond fear. Beyond all but a desire to see her dead. She didn’t know how to fight that.

After everything, this is how it would end.

Her last thoughts were of Elijah. Of how she wished things had been different. How she should’ve told him she loved him. And how she’d never know whether she was carrying his child.

But then, he was there, limping behind Ray, his long strides eating the distance between them even with his uneven steps.

He reached Ray, wrapped a hand around his chin.

And snapped his neck.

Ray fell to the ground, dead. Just like that, the source of all her pain and terror was snuffed out in an instant. She stared at the man she’d married, knowing he could no longer hurt her. She was free.

The shakes started, whether from cold or relief or adrenaline, she didn’t know, but they wracked her frame.

“A bit different than a rabbit,” Elijah commented, staring down at Ray’s body.

“He probably deserved it more,” she replied, unable to take her eyes from Ray. It was over. It was really over.

“Yeah.” Then, Elijah collapsed heavily in the snow, red blood spreading into the white snow beneath his thigh.

And Gia’s heart shattered.