Chapter 26

Bel cursed as snowflakes drifted over the threshold to dust her toes in white. She was wearing jeans and a sweater, but Annalise wore only leggings and a thin shirt. Both of their shoes were unfortunately missing, leaving their socks as their only defense against the frozen ground, and there was nothing outside but endless snow and trees. The cold would kill them if they left this house, but the surgeon racing up the stairs would butcher them if he caught up. Deciding she would rather freeze than surrender her face, Bel pulled Annalise outside, only to retreat inside five seconds later. The coat rack. She'd missed it in her haste, but a single jacket hung from its hook, a pair of man's boots resting below it, and she almost gagged at the sliver of luck. They didn't have time to search for anotherset of outdoor gear, though. They'd have to share.

Bel shoved her feet into the boots, Charles banging on the basement door so violently that the house shook. The shoes were too big for her, but they'd save her toes from frostbite. Annalise was too weak to run on her own. Bel would have to help her, so she needed the footwear.

Laces hastily tied tight, Bel grabbed the coat and wrapped it around Annalise. Her flimsy top would do nothing against the snow. Bel's sweater waslittlebetter, but at least its thickness offered more protection. Each woman had one item. Charles had none. Bel prayed there were no other coats in this secluded cabin. He deserved to freeze as he hunted them down.

An unholy clang of metal rang out through the peaceful afternoon, and she wrapped Annalise in her arms and lunged out into the open. The boots made her movements awkward, but they only had to last until they found Blaubart's car. He'd delivered both women to this secret lab from New York City, and he hadn't carried them up the mountain on his back. If she reached his car first, she could leave him stranded in the wilderness.

"Annalise, have you been here before?" she asked, so focused on her hunt for the vehicle that she didn't take stock of her surroundings. She didn't see the obvious staring back at her from the trees. "Where does he park the car?"

"I'm cold." Annalise's head fell against Bel's shoulder as her socked feet dragged over the frozen ground.

"I know." Bel wrapped her arms tighter around the woman's waist. "Just hold on. We're going to be okay."

But Annalise didn't answer. Her weight grew heavier as she stumbled, and Bel threw a panicked look over her shoulder. They were moving tooslow. Charles would catch up any second now, and their only hope of survival was a vehicle. Fleeing on foot was a death sentence this high in the mountains. A car had to be here, and she was certain it hid around the next corner. There was nowhere else for it to be parked.

"No." The sightwaitingbehind the house was a punch to her gut. "No, no, no!" Bel doubled over, her stomach threatening to heave itself onto the ground. "No, please no." Tears fell from her eyes, trailing an icy path down her cheeks as the fight bled from her limbs. There was no car, and she finally registered her surroundings. There were no roads. There wasn't even a hiking path. Charles hadn't driven them into the mountains. He'd flown them.

Bel slammed her fist against the helicopter's hull, rage and despair replacing her last slivers of hope. She didn't know where they were, and if he'd flown here, this house was undoubtedly farther from civilization than she'd first assumed. Charles had proved himself a skilled pilot on the island when he took her and Eamon for a ride. A cross-country flight would be easy for him to navigate. They could be anywhere, and snow was falling. Annalise didn't have shoes. Bel didn't have a coat, and the afternoon was fading away. They wouldn't survive the night out there in those strange woods.

A gunshot echoed in the silence, and Bel shrieked as a bullet ricocheted off the helicopter's hull. She instinctively ducked, yanking Annalise behind the vehicle's protection, and suddenly she was back in Frost's house, bullets raining down on her. Her hands shook as she tried to shield Annalise from the gunshots shattering the air. Maybe this was for the best. A bullet would be quicker than freezing to death in the woods.

"Where are you?" Charles roared, his voice manic as he followed their footprints. "You think you can hide from me?Youthink you can escape with my wife? With my scalpel. I was going to remake you, Detective, but you took what belongs to me. You don't deserve to become one of my Annes now. When I find you, I'm going to make you hideous instead. I'll ruin that pretty face of yours and turn you into a beast. Let's see how much your precious Eamon Stone loves you when you're nothing but an ugly hack job."

Bel cursed as she stared at the trees. She had seconds to decide. Deathby man or death by mountain. But if Charles didn't kill her, he would carve her up. He would steal who she was, and as another gunshot destroyed the silence, she decided.

"Come on." She hauled Annalise off the ground and bolted into the forest, but they barelymade it acrossthe clearing before Annalise's dragging feet tripped her. The women went down hard, tumbling over each other through the frigid snow, and Bel stifled her scream as a tree root jabbed her spine.

"Where are you?" Charles shouted. "Bring me back my Anne."

"Get up." Bel crawled over the frozen dirt to Annalise, tears streaming down her face. "Annalise, get up!" She captured her waist and dragged her to her feet, but a bullet splintered the tree beside their heads. Bel threw herself down the incline, the too-large shoes threatening to be her undoing, but she didn't stop. Their only chance at survival was to disappear into the forest, and her movements turned reckless as another shot rang out.

Her foot hit an icy patch, and she careened into a tree, the movement throwing Annalise down the slope. The woman crashed to her stomach, sliding dangerously fast, and Bel dove for her, catching her moments before her skull smashed into a protruding rock.

Bel's tears blinded her as gunfire punctuated the air behind them, and she bit her lip to keep from screaming. The shots' echoes sounded from the wrong direction. He'd lost them for the moment, and if she cried out, it would take him seconds to find them.

"Get up." She hoisted her companion off the ground, but Annalise's limp body resisted her movements. "Please get up!" Panic edged her voice. "I don't want to die here. I can't carry you, but I'm not leaving you."

"My feet," Annalise whispered.

"I know." Bel brushed her blonde hair out of her face. "I know it's cold, but please?—"

A gunshot interrupted them, and both women flinched. He'd moved closer.

"I need you to run." Bel could barely breathe through her sobs as she forced Annalise forward. The women slid twenty feet down the slope, but then Charles came into view, his manic aim searching for them. Bel lunged behind a thick tree, too afraid to move, tooafraidto breathe. The sun was setting. The air was frigid. They would die like The Matchstick Girls, cold and alone and forgotten as they froze.

"Where are you?" Charles roared. "You can't hide from me! I will find you, and I'll rearrange that face of yours."

Bel held her breath as she crept away from the tree's cover while his back was turned. She didn't care how badly her carelessness hurt. She could endure the bruises from falling. She would survive the scrapes from colliding with the branches, so she increased her speed. Her boots slipped on the snow, and her body bounced off the trees as she set a dangerous pace, but she refused to slow.

"You think you're so beautiful?" Charles continued, his voice drifting further away. "You won't be for long, Detective. I'll turn you into a monster when I find you. Maybe I'll operate while you're awake so you can feel every cut my scalpel slices as I carve up that pretty little face. Then I'll leave you alive when I'm done. Let you live grotesque for the world to despise."

Bel's tears blurred the trees until they were hazy blobs, but she kept running. She kept fighting. She kept dragging Annalise down the mountain. They wouldn't survive this run. She understood that, but that wasn't why she ran. She ran because if shewasgoing to die, she would leave this world on her terms. She would die frozen like The Matchstick Girls and not like the six Annes below the ground.Notlike an experiment hacked apart and pieced back together. She'd find a beautiful tree to sit under and greet the cold as night fell. Cerberus loved walking in the woods. Eamon alwaysfoundher in the woods. Perhaps the forest wasn't such a horrible place to meet her end.

Bel's hands shook as she sat below the tree's protection. She didn't know how long they'd run. She didn't know where they were. They'd lost Charles hours ago, and at first, the adrenaline had carried her down the mountain, but now her sweat was cooling, freezing her from within her clothes. She needed a coat. Annalise needed shoes and a hospital, and she wasn't doing well. Whatever Charles did to her refused to wear off.

Bel wiped her mouth, her breath unsteady and her fingers stiff. Her tears were frozen to her cheeks, the crystals painful, yet she couldn't stop crying. She'd found a tree to sit under, but now that she faced the end, she couldn't bear it. She didn't want to die here alone and scared. She wanted to live. To see her dad again. To hug her dog one last time. Shewantedto look Eamon in the eyes and tell him the truth. To feel his lips against hers. To hear his heart beating as she lay on his chest in the middle of the night. She wanted him to ask her to move in with him over and over until she finallyagreed,because she longed to say yes. When the time was right, she would say yes, and she started hyperventilating. Her fingers barely workedtheywere so cold. Her limbs wouldn't stop shaking. She didn't want to die. Not like this. Not like The Matchstick Girls.

"Get up." She crawled to the shivering Annalise. "You need to get up."

"You…. Go…" The woman's voice shook as violently as her body. "I… can't… don't… make… me."

"I'm not leaving you alone." Bel almost dropped her. "We are going to survive."

"I… can't." Annalise tried to shove her away, but Bel held on tight, pulling her down the mountainside. It wasn't much taller than the highest peak she'd hiked, but the elements made it impossible. She didn't even know if making it to the bottom would save them, but she refused to give up. She thought she could, but she couldn't. She would live. She had to.

The women stumbled through the snow, their movements growing slower and slower until Bel's legs gave out. She collapsed to her knees, her mind no longer in control of her limbs. All feeling had fled her extremities, and she couldn't even sense the cold where her palms pressed against the frozen ground. Shewasn't going tosurvive this day, but she couldn't help but stare at her fingers and wonder if she would lose them. Would Eamon love her if she lost her fingers? Or better question, could she love herself if her hands were mere stumps?

"I'm sorry, Dad." She leaned back on her heels. "I know I've put you through a lot of horrible things. I'm sorry you finally have to bury me. Please put me next to Mom and take care of Cerberus and Eamon. I love—" Her words died in her throat. That couldn't be right. It was a trick of the light. Her dying mind growing cruel. Her eyesmisinterpreting their surroundings.

"Annalise!" Bel lunged for her half-frozen companion, the discovery pumping strength into her limbs, and she hoisted the woman off the ground. Her body ached, but the numbing pain didn't stop her from hobbling forward because there was a road ten feet in front of them. They'd found a road, and where there was a road, there would be help. It didn't lead up into the mountain but winded between the peaks instead. Snow coated the pavement in thick sheets, meaning no car had driven it in a while, but Bel refused to acknowledge that. It was a road, and a road meant help. It had to mean help.

Bel dragged Annalise onto the asphalt and started limping down the center line, praying a driver out there was brave enough to face this weather. Someone had to come for them. They'd run this far. They'd left Charles behind in the storm, and a car had to come. They'd survived too much to die this close to civilization, but the stillness held. No matter how far they stumbled, the stillness held, and the only sound besides the falling snow was their struggling breath.

A horn honked, and Bel's head jerked up. She'd almost fallen asleep standing up, and the obnoxious sound startled Annalise. She collapsed, dragging Bel down with her, and on their knees, they came face to face with blinding white headlights.

"Oh my god!" A burly truck driver flung open the door of his semi and hung out of his cabin to stare at them. His shocked eyes warned he wasn't entirely certain he should help them, and if Bel had been in his shoes, she would've reacted the same. They were barely dressed women wandering a snowstorm, and her chin and throat were blood-stained from when she bit Charles. They were a terrifying sightto behold, unlike the truck driver, who inspired hope in Bel for the first time since she woke on that gurney.

"Are you girls okay?" the man asked as he hesitantly jumped down.

"911!" she shouted as loud as her weak voice allowed. "Call 911 and tell them they need to give FBI Agent Jameson Barry a message. Tell them Detective Emerson is alive."