Winter Lost

He waited, but she didn’t have anything to say about that. He put up a second finger. “Neither you nor I know what’s really going on down in New Mexico. I don’t know what skill set would be more valuable, mine or Darryl’s. But I have a cell phone, and Darryl is not prideful in that way. If he needs advice, he’ll ask for it. And no one, no matter how many stars or bars they have on, is going to disrespect Darryl.”

Darryl was good at being scary.

“Especially not with Auriele around,” he added. Mercy made a huffy sound that tried not to be agreement.

“We are headed into the mountains of Montana,” Mercy said. “The chances of cell reception are not great. Darryl might not be able to get through to you.”

He shrugged. “I have good people in New Mexico. They just need a werewolf or two to manage things. Auriele and Darryl know how to manage.”

She grunted.

“Third, and most important, Mercy.” He held up three fingers, then touched them to his lips. “I could live if I lose the pack. I could live if my business folds. If a bunch of people I don’t know die in New Mexico when I might have been able to save them, I could live with that, too. None of those things would make me happy—but I have a lot worse things on my conscience.”

She was staring at him.

“I could not live with losing you,” he told her, his throat tight. “There are times when I have had to let you go out into danger without me. More times when I haven’t known about threats to your life until they were long past. But this time…this time I have the privilege of being backup while you head out to see if we can rescue your brother.”

She didn’t say anything to that. A few minutes later the weather turned more serious and took his attention. She liked to think things through sometimes, his Mercy. But she put a hand on his leg and he wished for the Chevy truck he’d driven in high school because it had had a bench seat.

Eventually she said, “It was easier when I was mad at you. I can’t shake the feeling that this is stupid. Running to Montana to try to talk a frost giant out of cursing my brother? If that’s really what happened. I’m not inclined to trust any word that came out of Ymir’s mouth.”

He’d always known his Mercy wasn’t stupid. “I agree with you. But Zee said it was Jötnar magic at work, too. If we hadn’t talked to Ymir at all, I would have suggested going to the place where Gary was damaged as a logical next step.”

She didn’t say anything, but when he glanced at her, she had her bottom lip between her teeth.

“Ymir just gave us a name to check out,” he said gently. “We’ll figure out what happened to Gary.” He wanted to say that they’d fix it. But he was looking at living proof that things weren’t always that easy.

He hadn’t been able to find a fix for what the Soul Taker had done to her—or even enough of a fix to take to Mercy as a possibility. He wouldn’t lie to her, so he didn’t promise they could help her brother, either.

“Okay,” she said after a few miles. “But it was easier to be mad at you instead of scared for my brother. Could you do something to make me mad, please?”

“I need inspiration,” he apologized. “Maybe if you could say something stupid or offer to risk your life for people I don’t care about?”

She laughed, as he meant her to. It didn’t last long, but she didn’t resume chewing on her lip.

They stopped in Coeur d’Alene to get food and fuel up. The temperature had dropped nearly fifteen degrees from when they’d left home. The cold didn’t bother him, but Mercy stamped her feet to get warm while the diesel tank in his SUV filled.

“Would you go inside and get me a lot of black coffee?” he asked.

She gave him a sharp look that said I know what you’re doing but walked briskly into the busy convenience store.

While his tank filled, he overheard two truckers. The fill stations for the semis were a ways off, but the pair were shouting over the sounds of the big engines.

“Big storm brewing in the Montana mountains, Jenny,” a small man with a big bass voice rumbled.

“I heard,” said the other trucker, who was so bundled up that Adam hadn’t realized she was a woman until she spoke. “I’m stopping in Sandpoint. I have friends there with space to park the truck.”

Adam pulled out his cell and texted Mercy a request for backup food. Just in case. Because the address Honey had given him for the last place she knew that Gary was working was outside of Libby, Montana. According to the map app on the SUV, they would be driving through Sandpoint, Idaho, to get there.

The storm worsened the whole way from Coeur d’Alene up the panhandle of Idaho to Bonners Ferry, where he stopped to put chains on. The roads were bad enough to spawn multiple winter advisories, and traffic disappeared entirely except for an occasional snowplow and a few cars off to the side of the road as they climbed the mountains above Bonners Ferry. Mercy fell silent again, and not because she was mad at him. Her hand on his leg grew tense until she let go of him.