Remington “Rem” Riley's Arc

Chapter 3 of 10

Rem reached the base of the pass by afternoon. The storm had left the mountain buried. Fresh snow smoothed every path into one white slope. The old trail he remembered was gone. Two ways climbed from here. One cut left along a ridge. One dropped right into a narrow gully. Pick wrong, and he would be stranded in the open when the sun fell. He raised the axe. The red glow steadied and pointed left, along the ridge. Rem trusted it. He started up. "Stop right there." A woman climbed out of the gully behind him. Blonde hair spilled from her hood. Her boots punched deep holes in the snow. She had the room beside the empty one at his lodge. She had watched him for two days. A former cop, she'd told a guest, and she moved like one now, hands loose and ready. "You're a long way from your bar," she said. "Where's the man from Room Seven, Riley?" "Not up here," Rem said. "Then why are you?" She pointed at the axe. "With that." The glow throbbed brighter. It pulled his arm toward the ridge. Beth Brennan saw the red light and stepped back. "We can't stand here," Rem said. "Night's coming. That way holds solid ground." He nodded at the ridge. "Your way ends in a drop." "Convenient. You lead, I fall." She folded her arms. "I'll take the gully." "You'll die in the gully." She turned and went anyway. Ten steps down, the snow gave under her. She dropped to her waist. The slope hissed and slid. Beth grabbed at nothing and went with it. Rem drove the axe into the ridge and threw himself flat. He caught her wrist as she passed. Snow poured over them both. He hauled, boots braced, until she scrambled onto firm ground beside him. They lay there breathing hard. "That gully's a slide waiting to happen," he said. "You'd have gone all the way down." Beth stared at the slope she'd nearly ridden to the bottom. She stared at his hand, still gripping her wrist. She pulled free but didn't run. "Fine," she said. "Your way. But I'm behind you the whole climb." Rem stood and freed the axe. The glow swung back to the ridge, brighter than before. They climbed together as the light drained from the sky. By dusk they reached a rock shelf under an overhang. Wind couldn't touch it. Rem knew then the axe had chosen right. He also knew the detective was not leaving. She thought he was a killer, and she meant to follow him to whatever he found. He looked past the shelf. Above them a black cave mouth opened in the stone. Fresh tracks marked the snow at its edge. They were huge, clawed, and deeper than any wolf could press. Whatever made them had passed here since the storm. It was close, and it was awake.