Page 65 of Don't Cross the Blue Line
Press flat against the wall. Both of us. Cole’s shoulder jammed against mine, his breathing ragged and loud, my heart sprinting as if it’s trying to leave my chest.
From the concourse, the thug’s footsteps stop. A beam of light paints the hall where we’d just been.
And then they resume, different direction, moving away, back toward the service corridor.
Gone.
The silence that follows is enormous.
Cole exhales, his body sliding down the wall slightly before he catches himself. I’m right there with him, hands on my knees, drinking in greedy breaths to drown out the adrenaline coursing through me.
I threw it. My chance at…what? Redemption. No. Retribution. Much different, isn’t it?
And the jerk has no idea the choice that just got made.
“Come on,” I say quietly. “Store’s up this way.”
We find the charger in the hardware store, and then I deploy my mental drawing of Everly’s map and head for Basecamp Outfitters, portable charger in hand, without further run-ins. The gate is frozen at chest height, as expected. Inside are racks of parkas, walls of hiking boots, and a staged “Minnesota Winter Experience” featuring a Polaris snowmobile that has never touched snow, fake pine trees, and a life-size fiberglass polar bear with glass eyes fixed in permanent mild bewilderment.
I respect the polar bear. We’ve probably had similar experiences.
I keep quiet, listening for any sign of Everly.
Silence.
“Let’s keep going,” Cole says, apparently sensing my apprehension. “If she were caught, we would have heard something.”
I try to take comfort from that. Really, I do.
We work our way to the back corner of the store, and I let out a sigh of relief. A small camp of ice-fishing tents sits around a plastic campfire, a flashlight leans against the flames, bringing them to life, and there, seated cross-legged on a sleeping bag, is Everly.
Her gaze finds me and stops me in my tracks. Those green eyes catch the light—and hold it.
It takes everything I have not to run to her. To play it cool.
“You made it,” I say instead. Very nonchalant. Very chill.
Everly smiles. “So did you.”
Something passes between us. Mutual relief. Maybe even mutual agreement not to let on how worried we were for each other.
Cole crawls into the large tent and into a sleeping bag with the boneless surrender of a man whose body has been running on fumes. His eyes stay open—glassy, fixed on the tent ceiling with a thousand-yard stare.
I hand over the power bank, and Everly pulls out her laptop. A minute passes. And then the screen awakens abruptly, casting a white light over the faux camp.
“We’ve got power,” she says, straightening up.
“Best news I’ve heard all night.” I sit down beside her, watching her work.
Her fingers move across the trackpad. The LTE icon spins. Searching. Reaching for a signal through concrete and steel and blizzard.
I watch the hope. Then the waiting. Then the slow erosion as the icon keeps spinning and the signal doesn’t catch.
A small “x” appears where the signal bars should be. No connection.
She tries again. Moves the laptop closer to the gate. The skylight above sheds just enough gray moonlight to work by. She holds it higher. Tilts the screen. Nothing.
She closes the laptop. The click is quiet—deliberate, controlled. But I see her shoulders drop. Just a fraction. The woman who’s been holding everyone together all night just watched her last plan fail.
