"They've been hunting me for 3 days." "Why?" Dax asked, steering Gravewind toward higher ground for an advantage. He didn't get an answer. A gunshot cracked through the canyon. The bullet slammed into rock just feet from them.
Their pursuers were mounted now, closing fast. "Hold on," Dax said, feeling her grip tighten around him. What he did next would either get them out alive or get them both killed. But when he looked back at her, those dark, unyielding eyes, something long buried inside him stirred awake. And there was no way in hell he was letting Varick Holt's men drag her back into whatever hell they'd pulled her from.
The chase drove us into country that would have tested a mountain goat. Gravewind proved exactly why I'd paid three times his worth 3 years back. He climbed every slope and narrow ledge like he'd been born to it. Behind us, the men chasing us struggled on weaker mounts, their recklessness fueled more by arrogance than skill. "There," Sihaya said, pointing ahead toward a jagged cluster of rock about half a mile out.
"There are caves. We can lose them there." I didn't question her. Out here, her knowledge of the land was the only thing keeping us breathing. As we reached the rocks, she slipped down from Gravewind in one smooth, silent motion, despite her towering frame.
"This way," she whispered, guiding us into a maze of stone where even sound seemed to vanish. The cave she chose barely let Gravewind squeeze through the entrance, but deeper inside it opened into a wide chamber, dark enough to hide us from any quick search. Once my eyes adjusted to the dim light filtering through cracks in the ceiling, I finally saw what those men had done to her. Her dress, traditional, once proud, was torn in several places, exposing bruises along her arms and a cut across her cheek that made my blood run hot. But more than the wounds, it was the way she still carried herself, upright, unbroken, that struck harder than any injury.
"How long were you tied to that tree?" I asked. "Since dawn," she said, leaning back against the cave wall with a grace that didn't match her size. They said they were waiting for someone. Maybe a buyer." That word hit me like ice in my veins.
A buyer. I'd heard whispers about Varick Holt, not just robbery or killing, but something worse. Trafficking people. The kind of business that made even hardened outlaws sick to their stomach. "What did you see?" I asked.
"Why are they after you?" She stayed quiet for a moment, weighing me, deciding how much I was worth trusting. Then she spoke. "Three nights ago, I was hunting elk in the high country. I came across their camp.
I wasn't alone." Her voice tightened. "There were women, children, all tied up like animals. They saw me watching. I had to run."
She swallowed, pain flashing across her face. "There were others, at least a dozen. Some white, some Mexican, some from my own people, all young." She looked away. "All worth money to the right kind of buyer."
The cave fell silent, save for our breathing and the faint echo of hooves somewhere out there in the canyon. They were still searching, but they hadn't found us. "I'm sorry," I said quietly. "For what they did to you, and what they're doing to the others." She looked at me then.