Coffee in hand, I stepped toward the window. The first horn sounded again, long and wrong. My cabin sat miles from town, chosen for isolation, but tonight, that isolation felt like a trap.
“Something’s wrong,” I muttered. Echo growled low, his gaze fixed on the dark. I grabbed my flashlight and carbine, slinging the rifle across my chest, and stepped into the storm. Snow was already above my boots, the wind cutting any exposed skin. Echo bounded ahead, nose low, glancing back as if to urge haste.
Half a mile from the cabin, the tracks appeared through a narrow cut, flanked by jagged rocks. The growl of diesel preceded the sight of it, far off yet terrifyingly close. Echo barked sharply and lunged downhill, and I froze at the beam of my flashlight.
Across the rails, a figure lay motionless, partially covered by snow, arms bound behind a post, one ankle fastened to the steel. Her patrol jacket was crusted with ice and blood. A county deputy, barely conscious. My heart surged.
“Hold on!” I shouted, sprinting across the slope. My knife cut the nylon cords with precision. Her jaw trembled violently, too weak to speak. Echo positioned himself at her shoulder, growling into the forest instead of at the train. Someone was still out there.
The horn shrieked closer. I hauled her clear of the rails as the freight tore around the bend, snow and steel screaming past us, less than six feet away. She clung to my sleeve, panic lending her strength.
“They know,” she whispered.
