RedKnife (Skin Walkers Book 2) by Susan Bliler Page B

going.

Chapter 14
    Twenty minutes later, Cindy was standing with her head pressed into a tree as she fought to catch her breath.  She was exhausted, and her bones and muscles ached for a break.  Stupidly, she’d caved and had eaten two handfuls of snow, and now she was freezing.  FREE-ZING!  Her teeth chattered and her body shook hard, whether from exertion, hunger, thirst, or cold, or a combination of everything, she wasn’t sure.  She figured it was cold, because her mind kept straying to thoughts of the warm fire in RedKnife’s cabin.  Compounding matters was the fact that her hips were aching.  No, aching didn’t cut it.  With each step she took, it felt like someone was stabbing her in the right hip flexor.  She figured it was from lifting her short legs so high to clear the snow.  She’d compensated by relying heavily on her left leg, but now that hip flexor was starting to hurt too.  She was in bad shape, and she knew she wasn’t going to make it out.  Already, the slope to her right was cast into darkness.  She could still see because the sun hadn’t set on her side of the mountain, but it wouldn’t be long now.  She wanted to cry out her frustration, but what good would that do?  Leaning dejectedly against a tree wasn’t going to help either.  She needed to decide whether to keep going, try to find her way back to the cabin, or hunker down and try to assemble some form of shelter for the night.
    A noise jerked her attention around, and her eyes locked on RedKnife.  Relief swamped her, and she couldn’t stop the whimper that left her lips.  Still, she clung to the tree.
    When RedKnife spoke, his voice was surprisingly gentle, absent of any reproach.  “It’ll be dark soon.”
    Cindy merely nodded.
    RedKnife eyed the sky.  “Getting colder too.”
    Cindy was about to nod again when a noise in the distance stopped her.  Her eyes cut to RedKnife, and she could see in his face that he’d heard it too.  Her mind shuffled rapidly, trying to place the sound that was so out of place in their current setting.  It wasn’t an animal, not a tree falling, not a frozen creek struggling to survive the cold.  No.  It was the sound of…a vehicle!  She was close to a road!  Well, not close, really, as the sound was pretty distant, but she was certain she could make it.
    RedKnife’s eyes flashed, and she knew the second he realized that the sound had registered with her.  He lifted a hand and pointed a finger over her shoulder.  “Road’s that way.  If you think you can make it… go.”
    Balling her shaking hands into tight fists, she pushed off the tree with a renewed determination.  She stepped away from RedKnife, and her soul screamed ‘ NOOOO !’
    I can do this!   She tried to convince herself.  I can make it!   A few steps in, she was clenching her jaw to keep from crying out at the pain in her hips.  The small break hadn’t helped either.  Instead, it seemed in the few short minutes that she’d rested against the tree, her muscles had atrophied.  She had nothing left in the tank, and she was weak as a damn kitten.
    Stopping at the nearest tree, she fell into it, bumping her shoulder hard as she let it take her full weight.  Exhaustion tugged at her and her belly tightened, no longer growling its demand for nourishment and water.  She could practically feel her body feeding off itself, though that was ridiculous as it had only been a day.  One long, miserable, arctic, exhausting day.
    Her head fell forward, eyes closed, her forehead pressing against the tree.  When she lifted her head and opened her eyes, she found she was lower.  Her legs had given out, and she was squatting in the snow, her hips still throbbing an incessant whine at her idiocy.  Behind her, RedKnife asked gently, “Gonna make it?”
    Hell no!  But she didn’t want to admit it.  She didn’t want to admit defeat, but it was an absolute.  Even if the road were ten feet from her, she had nothing