Page 266 of Track of Courage

Then she lay on the floor and scooted out of the opening.

See, that’s what came from not eating cake for the better part of a decade.

Outside, the sun had just started to edge the far eastern rim of the mountains, simmering like molten gold hope. It cast fingers of light over the land, and as she sat on the roof of the small home, she made out her escape.

A thirty-foot area around the house shone white and pristine, lethally clear. A tall barn stood sentry over the house, buried in snow, along with a couple outbuildings. The truck with the cover sat in the drive.

She could just slide—

Her movement sent her skidding, and before she could grab hold of the roof, she slid right off—poof!—onto the ground.

Snow filled her cuffs, tunneled up the back of her underjacket, but she managed not to scream, so hallelujah.

She rolled, then ducked down and ran to the battered red truck.

No keys. Of course not. Fine. And she had no tools to hotwire it. Hopefully Thornwood and his scary brother would stay drunk and asleep for a good long time.

How she wished for the fur hat, but she still wore the tuque, so she shoved her bare hands into her pockets, bent against the wind, and took off, through the tire tracks.

“Keep yourhead on a swivel.”Her father, still in her head.“Control what you can,adapt to what you can’t.”

Okay, enough. Still, the words burrowed inside, burgeoned her. She could do this.

The wind fought to tunnel into her ears, but she kept her chin down, eyes on the tracks and the increasing brightness of the snow. She just needed to find a road. Traffic.

The trees shivered, the pine scent rich here. Turning once, she left the cabin behind, the trees growing up around her.Don’twake up. Don’t wake up.

She kept going, still jogging, her boots crunching in the pack and then—ahead, a dent in the forest wall.

A road. Please—please—

She picked up her pace, running awkwardly with her hands in her pockets, her eyes on the opening ... slowed.

A lake. It opened up ahead of her, white and pristine. A road ran around it, still just the tire tracks, and disappeared into the woods.

“Don’t give up.This isn’t over.”

Again, her father. She shook his voice away and took off, head down, following the tracks.

It seemed someone might have plowed, maybe during the letup of the storm, which meant civilization, but she hadn’t seen any houses.

From here, however, she watched the dawn break over the eastern horizon, bold and fiery, the flame of a new day. It cast upon the lake, turning the snow to molten rose-gold fire.

Breathtaking.

She slowed, breathing hard, and in the silence, a crack sounded, breaking through the forest.

No—no—

She whirled and froze. A giant bull moose, with its long legs, stepped easily out of the tangle of forest to stand on the frozen road.

Maybe forty feet from her, but she’d heard stories.

His breath puffed out in the cold.

Hers too.

Moose were fast. And lethal, and maybe if she didn’t move—