Josh and I shared a look and picked up the pace as we started climbing the hill. The van must have been just inside radio range.

“Can you hear us?” I asked, voice barely above a whisper.

“Not…can you…me?”

I blew out a frustrated breath and kept climbing. The snow was deep, and though the surface had frozen, it was soft underneath, and Josh and I kept punching through it and nearly stumbling. My legs protested every step. I was starting to lose feeling in my toes, which was the first sign of frostbite. We needed to get to the van and get the fuck out of there.

“How about now?” Josh asked.

“Better,” Junior said. “Can you hear me?”

If not for the fear of being overheard, I would have whooped in celebration. “Loud and clear.”

“There’s cops all over the place,” Junior said. “You set off the fucking alarm?”

“We’ll explain later,” I said. “Where are you?”

“Parked near the meeting spot. We had to get the van out of there because of what you two idiots did, so I hopped in one of the lookout cars. When you reach the road, turn right and look for a black SUV down an unlit dirt drive.”

I cringed. The plan had called for stealth and secrecy, but now any neighbors who’d seen the van at Brad’s before his parents turned up would think it was suspicious and tell the cops. At least the van hadn’t been there when Brad’s folks arrived. Junior had inherited his father’s talent for bullshitting, but I doubted that it worked on elitist snobs.

No, this situation wasn’t ideal, but in my opinion, it was still better to have cops crawling all over the area than to give Brad’s parents a chance to cover more of his crimes.

“Where are you two?” Junior asked.

I bit off a curse as my foot plunged through the snow again. “We’re coming over the –”

Josh grabbed my arm and yanked me down. “Cop car.”

A fresh wave of adrenaline punched through me as a searchlight swung over our heads, lighting up the forest like the Fourth of July. Josh and I dropped against the side of the hill, and I sent up a small prayer of thanks that we’d been just shy of the top and still able to hide. A few yards further, and we would have been caught in the open.

The beam swept across the forest once before coming back for a second, slower pass. I flattened against the snow, rocks and fallen branches digging into me, my clothes soaking through. I didn’t even breathe because I was so scared that I’d miss some warning sound that might tell us someone had gotten out of the car and was heading our way.

Josh gripped my hand, and I turned just enough to meet his eyes. Gone was the soulful brown I was used to. They were nearly black now, with a steely edge that spoke of determination. He hadn’t taken my hand to reassure me; he’d grabbed it so he could haul me to my feet at the slightest provocation.

I was right there with him. We were not getting caught. If that meant fleeing back through the woods, so be it. I suddenly had enough adrenaline coursing through my veins that I felt like I could run a marathon.

The spotlight cut through the trees again, even slower this time, painting the night in blinding white. A crunching sound reached my ears, and my pulse skyrocketed. Josh squeezed my hand, his fingers practically trembling with the need to flee.

“Wait,” I whispered, recognizing the sound for what it was: tires crunching over the salt-caked pavement as the car rolled past. We must have been closer to the road than I realized to hear that from where we were.

Josh released a shaky breath as the spotlight moved on, dropping our section of woods back into darkness.

“Fuck,” Junior bit out. “Back up! Back up!”

He must have seen the beam and realized the cops were heading their way next.

Josh and I stayed where we were, frozen in place as we listened helplessly to the noises coming through our earbuds.

“Turn!” Junior yelled.

Whatever the response was, we couldn’t hear it.

“I don’t care about your fucking paint job,” Junior said. “Back into the fucking trees if you have to.”

A scraping sound came over the line loud enough to make me wince. Goodbye, paint job.

“Cut the engine!” Junior barked.

I lifted my head just enough to see the spotlight slicing through the forest a few hundred feet past us. The trees were denser there, more conifer than broadleaf. Hopefully, they were thick enough to hide a car. I squinted, scanning the understory for any sign of light bouncing off metal. Nothing.

I glanced down and met Josh’s eyes.

“Can you see them?” he whispered.

I shook my head, but his expression remained wary. He knew what I did: just because I couldn’t see the car from our angle didn’t mean the cops couldn’t see it from theirs.

His gaze moved past me, and I knew from the unfocused look in his eyes that he wasn’t seeing the forest around us anymore. He was coming up with another escape plan if Junior and his driver got caught.

I strained my ears while Josh brainstormed, but all I could hear were my cousin’s ragged breaths. The spotlight swept over his area much like it had ours, and I kept my gaze laser-focused on it, looking for some sign of a car or an interruption in the light that might signal someone was out of the police vehicle, searching through the trees.

“I can’t see you from here,” I told Junior. “And I don’t see anyone in the woods either.”

“Keep looking,” he said, a low note in his voice that I hadn’t heard before.

Up until this moment, Junior had been brash, cocky, and controlling, but now he sounded scared, and it reminded me that he wasn’t that much older than I was. For the first time since meeting my estranged uncle and cousins, I felt a small pang of something like familial responsibility radiating from somewhere in my middle. I didn’t want Junior to get caught. And not just because Josh and I would need to find another way out of there, but because I didn’t like the idea of Junior sitting handcuffed in a jail cell.

I nearly swore. What a great time for this particular emotional response. Absolutely perfect. If those cops made a beeline for the parked car, I’d have to do something about it, and I really, really didn’t want to. I’d had enough risk for one night. Hell, for an entire lifetime.

Thankfully, it didn’t come to that. The spotlight continued rolling on, scanning further and further away until the forest almost entirely obscured it.

“Fuck,” Junior said. “That was close.”

“They’re past you?” Josh asked, sitting up.

“Yeah,” Junior answered. “You’ll have to come to us through the woods. There could be more cops out on the street.”

I got to my feet and started brushing myself off. “Crank the heat. Josh and I need to get warm to avoid frostbite.”

Josh was slower to stand, moving in a halting way that made me wonder just how hurt he was. By the time he reached his full height, he towered over me, more of a large shadow than anything else, thanks to my ruined night vision. He took my hands and leaned close enough to meet my eyes. “Are you okay?”

“My toes are numb,” I said.

“Shit. I shouldn’t have made you wait outside.”

“No, you were right about that,” I told him. “Me going in was too risky. Now, come on. We need to hurry.”

Together, we made our stumbling way through the underbrush. It was denser this close to the road than in the rest of the forest, and I kept tripping over things because of the numbness creeping up my legs. After the second time I almost fell, Josh scooped me up, bridal style.

He let out a pained grunt, and I squirmed, trying to get out of his hold.

“I’m too heavy,” I protested. “And you’re hurt.”

He shook his head, jaw clenched in a stubborn line, his gaze trained down as he placed one foot in front of the other. “I’m fine. And it’s not much further. You’re safer in my arms than on your feet right now.”