WAY OF THE SHADOWS by Cynthia Eden Page A

you.”
    Jenny whimpered.
    * * *
    “I’ M NOT LEAVING HER .” Noelle shook her head, sending snowflakes falling around her. “You go back to town. You find the sheriff and get the dogs out here—”
    Thomas shoved his gun into his holster and let his flashlight’s attached cord loop around his wrist as he grabbed both of her shoulders. “You think I’ll just leave you out here to die alone? We’re partners! ”
    She knew that. “She could be me,” Noelle whispered as she stared up at his face. Her own light was hitting the ground, so she couldn’t see his expression. “I was alone. I was trapped. The only person with me was a dead man.”
    His hold tightened on her.
    “I was bound to a chair. If the cops hadn’t found me...” A tip. They’d gotten a tip, which no one had ever been able to trace. “I could’ve died in that cabin.” Starved to death, slowly. But Jenny wouldn’t have to worry about death by starvation. Not when it was so bitterly cold outside.
    She’ll freeze to death by morning.
    “You’re not her.” His voice was grim. “And I’ll be damned if I let you die for her. You are coming with me. One way or—”
    A scream ripped through the silence of the night.
    Thomas stilled. Then, in the next instant, he’d torn away from Noelle. His gun was in his hand again as he rushed toward that dying sound.
    A sound that hadn’t come from high up on the mountain, but one that had come from the right. Farther into the woods.
    They fought their way through those trees, ran ahead even as another scream echoed in the night.
    Then Noelle saw it. The hard, stark outline of a little cabin.
    The cabin waited. The doors shut. “Please...please don’t make me go back in there....”
    Those words whispered through her mind. Noelle’s own words, her broken voice, and she shook her head, hard, as she drew closer.
    The cabin was pitch black. Thomas’s flashlight hit the shut front door.
    He ran toward it and kicked it in.
    Another scream came then.
    Noelle rushed in behind Thomas, providing cover for him. But there was no attacker in the room.
    A young girl sat in the middle of the room, a rickety, wooden chair beneath her. Her arms were pulled behind her back. A blindfold covered her eyes.
    The cabin was so familiar, for an instant, Noelle remembered... “Please, I don’t want to be alone! Don’t leave me alone!”
    And a man’s voice had replied to her.
    He’d said, “I’ll always be with you.”
    Hard shudders shook Noelle’s body as the past and present seemed to merge around her.
    Thomas crouched in front of the girl. “Jenny Tucker?”
    She jerked. “Yes! Yes, help me!”
    Noelle surged forward. She ran behind the girl and yanked until the binds around Jenny’s wrists were gone. The girl’s skin was icy. Her fingers... Her fingers were blue.
    “H-he’s c-coming back.”
    Thomas pulled the blindfold from Jenny’s eyes. Jenny blinked up at him.
    Noelle tugged Jenny to her feet. “He’s not going to hurt you anymore. We’re going to get you out of here.”
    Jenny shook her head. Tears slid down her cheeks. “I’m sorry...”
    Noelle’s nose burned. What was that acrid scent?
    Her flashlight hit the walls. They looked...wet.
    “We need to get out of here,” Noelle yelled as she realized that, yes, Thomas had been right. They’d walked straight into a trap.
    That smell—it was the heavy scent of gasoline.
    Thomas picked Jenny up in his arms and sprinted for the door.
    “H-he told me to scream...to scream until help came.”
    They were almost at the door but—
    A blast seemed to shake the cabin. Fire blazed inside, rushing toward them, following the trail of fuel spread throughout the cabin.
    Jenny screamed.
    And the fire raged.
    There was only one window in that cabin. One to the left, and fire already covered it. The front door was gone. A wall of flames stood in its place.
    Thomas sat Jenny down on her feet. The girl immediately fell, and Noelle ran toward her, pulling her up