Ice Read online

  Gabriel couldn’t swing again because Darwin was inside his reach, so he shifted his hands apart on the limb and used it like a bar, making short, hard jabs with the ends and lightning-fast moves to block the wild punches Darwin was throwing, beating at Gabriel with the pistol. The flashlight Darwin had dropped had rolled to the side, pointing away from them, so they weren’t much more than a massive shadow. Gabriel was taller, more muscular, but Darwin was still riding a meth high and was impervious to pain. He landed a solid kick behind Gabriel’s knee and Gabriel went down, but he dragged Darwin with him.

  Where was Niki? Lolly realized she could no longer see the woman and she looked around wildly, half-expecting Niki to leap out of the darkness at her, or rush to Darwin’s defense, but … no Niki. Either she’d seized the opportunity to run, or she was biding her time, looking for an opening to either shoot Gabriel or bash him in the head. Lolly couldn’t tell which of the rolling, cursing, grunting men on the ground was Gabriel and which was Darwin, so likely Niki couldn’t either.

  Abruptly Lolly realized that she was too far away to help Gabriel if Niki attacked. Without letting herself think about how likely she was to get hurt or killed for her efforts, she copied Gabriel and felt around on the ground until she found a stick of her own, a broken limb that had fallen recently enough that it hadn’t rotted yet. It wasn’t as hefty as Gabriel’s limb, but it was better than nothing. No longer worried about remaining quiet, Lolly rushed toward the fight.

  Where was Niki?

  Lolly grabbed the fallen flashlight and frantically shone it around, trying to spot the woman. If she was there, she was hidden behind a tree or a bush. She could be behind them, to the left, the right, anywhere … even on the way back to the house. Lolly had seen only the two weapons, but that didn’t mean there weren’t more—belatedly she realized that the fact that Darwin was trying to hit Gabriel with the pistol instead of just shooting him meant that he’d fired all the bullets in the gun and didn’t have any more, at least not with him.

  Was Niki out of bullets, too? Was she running after more, or simply running? No way to tell. Lolly darted a quick glance at the fight. Darwin had torn Gabriel’s knit cap off and was trying to head butt him in the face. Quick as lightning, she darted in and slapped Darwin in the face with her stick, which wasn’t big enough to stop him but did briefly pull his attention to her. Gabriel seized that brief moment of inattention to punch Darwin in the face with his gloved fist. The sound was sickening, but Darwin didn’t seem to even notice.

  Gabriel was bigger, more muscular; he should have been able to take Darwin down in a matter of seconds, Lolly thought, then remembered how crazed meth could make people. She’d read reports of meth users who had been shot several times by the police and who not only didn’t go down, but kept attacking. Darwin fought like a man possessed, sounds of maniacal rage growling in his throat like an animal.

  She had never seen a real fight before, just the Hollywood staged version, never realized how much dirtier and noisier it was. This wasn’t standing toe-to-toe and slugging it out, this was kicking and punching and gouging and anything else the two combatants could do to hurt each other. There were grunts and curses, the sickening thuds of gloved fists against flesh, the icy ground crunching beneath them. Their heavy winter coats prevented any significant damage to their bodies, prolonging the fight and increasing the odds that Darwin might land a lucky punch.

  Maybe she could help. Lolly eased closer, raising her stick so she was ready to strike if the chance presented itself, but holding on to the flashlight handicapped her because she had only one free hand to hold the stick. She couldn’t worry about Niki; the woman was either there or she wasn’t. All she could do now, Lolly thought, was help Gabriel in any way she could.

  The grappling men rolled almost out of the light, and when they stopped Darwin was on top. He drew back his hand and something was in it. Lolly didn’t hesitate, didn’t try to identify what he held; she simply leapt forward, swinging the stick with all her might, and began trying to beat the hell out of the man who’d tried to rape her. She dropped the flashlight, gripped the stick with both hands, and hit him again and again, on the head, the shoulders, anywhere she could reach.

  With a howl he launched himself off Gabriel, straight for her. She staggered back, sick terror blooming in her stomach, her chest. Her feet went out from under her and she went down, Darwin on top of her and his hands fumbling for her throat. He began squeezing.

  Then he was gone, lifted off her as if he were a child. Gabriel’s expression was cold and fierce as he hammered his big right fist over and over into Darwin’s face. Darwin was too stunned by the blows to fight back; he threw his arms across his face to protect himself and began sobbing. “Don’t hurt me, man, don’t hurt me,” he pleaded. “I ain’t done nothing to you, have I? Huh? What’d I do?”

  Lolly struggled to a sitting position, staring at him in disbelief. He’d changed from enraged animal to pathetic loser in the space of a few seconds.

  “Shut the fuck up,” Gabriel snarled, breathing hard. He wrenched Darwin’s arms behind his back, shoving them high, and looked around for something to secure them. “Get the laces from his boots,” he said to Lolly.

  She didn’t want to get anywhere near Darwin, didn’t want to touch him in any way, but she made herself half-crawl to where Gabriel held him, taking care to stay to the side so he couldn’t kick her in the face. Gingerly she began picking at the leather lacings. They were wet and hard to handle, and she had to use both hands.

  Gabriel’s head swiveled as he looked around. He was still breathing hard and fast, and his expression … he was really pissed, to put it mildly. “Where did the other one go?” he asked Lolly. There was a savage note in his tone.

  “I don’t know,” she replied. She was doing some hard breathing herself, and she paused a moment to take a few deep breaths. “She turned off her flashlight, and I guess she ran. I haven’t seen her since then.”

  Gabriel turned his attention back to a weeping Darwin. He wrenched Darwin’s arms harder and higher, putting agonizing strain on the shoulder sockets. “Do you have more ammo or weapons back at the house?”

  “No,” Darwin said, shaking his head. “I swear, we don’t. Buddy, please, you’re tearing my arms out of my shoulders!”

  “I’m not your fucking buddy,” Gabriel said. “And if you lie to me, I will tear your arms off and beat you to death with them, got it?”

  “I’m not lying!” Darwin shrieked. Snot was running from both sides of his nose, dripping in his mouth. “Niki and me, we just have the two guns and what bullets are in them. That’s usually enough. Ow! Ow! Stop, please stop!”

  Usually enough. Lolly wondered how many other homes he and Niki had invaded, how many women he’d hurt, raped, murdered.

  Deep in the forest, there was a sudden crack as sharp as a gunshot, followed by a crash and a thud. For a moment of sheer panic Lolly thought Darwin had been lying and Niki did have another weapon, but then she realized what had happened: limbs were beginning to give way under the weight of the ice.

  “What the hell was that?” Darwin asked, a new fear in his quavering voice.

  Neither Lolly nor Gabriel bothered to tell him what was happening.

  “Now what?” she asked, looking up at Gabriel before returning her attention to Darwin’s boot laces. They didn’t know where Niki was; Darwin was unarmed, would shortly be secured, but it wasn’t as if they could call the sheriff and have their prisoner collected and jailed within a matter of minutes. She didn’t want to spend the night in the same house with him, not even if Gabriel hog-tied and gagged him, and she didn’t think they could manage to get him down the mountain tonight. With limbs already beginning to come down, it was too dangerous to go anywhere tonight.

  Gabriel opened his mouth to answer and Darwin suddenly threw himself backward in a convulsive movement that knocked Gabriel off balance, and wrenched his arms free from Gabriel’s grasp.

  With an inh