Chapter 12: Dead Reckoning North
The river was a ribbon of black glass cutting through the old-growth pine. The temperature had plummeted, and the fog that had cloaked her mother's last stand was now turning into a freezing drizzle. Chloe scrambled up the embankment, shivering violently. She remembered the map Lilith had shown her in the motel room three days ago. Follow the river north. Keep the water on your right.
Every snapped twig sounded like a gunshot. Every shadow shifting in the wind looked like a man in a tactical white suit. Chloe began to walk, her boots slipping on moss-slicked stones. Her mind refused to process the reality of her mother’s death; instead, it compartmentalized the grief, locking it behind a desperate, animalistic need to survive. As dawn threatened to break, painting the eastern sky in bruised hues of purple and gray, she heard the low, unmistakable thrum of a helicopter rotor blade cutting through the valley behind her. They were doing a sweep. Julian wasn't satisfied with just Lilith. He knew about the girl. Chloe dove beneath the roots of an overturned hollow oak, burying herself in the freezing mud and dead leaves, holding her breath as the chopper's searchlight swept the riverbank just yards away.
