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She put the phone back in her pocket, trying to not cry, trying to think.
    Right. So. If there was one pissed-off, unwelcoming mountain lion roaming around, there may well be others, and they’d possibly be attracted by the smell of blood. As she was right now, she was easy prey and that was the one way that Shay refused to go down. She had to find a place to hide, to staunch the flow of blood, to recover a bit.
    That meant getting to her feet. Or, if that wasn’t possible, that meant crawling. She was good either way, so long as she was actually in motion.
    Carefully, she pushed herself vertical; immediately, she was horizontal again. She cried out at the sharp, intense burst of pain, and knew that walking was out.
    So. Crawling it was.
    She looked around and squinted at what looked like a cave about eighty feet away, hidden high in the rock face. She stared up at it, gauging the distance, knowing that how far it was didn’t matter, in the end. It was shelter, and it was a place to hide, and so long as it didn’t house a pack of mountain lions, it was her best option.
    Grimly, she started to haul her body up the steep incline, digging her hands deep in to the snow, scrambling for roots to grasp and pull herself up on. Inch by inch, foot by foot, she crawled. Night started to fall, the wind started to pick up, her injured leg dragged behind her, useless and a dead weight.
    And she kept crawling.
    **
    The pain in Warren’s head was incredible, and he was groaning before he’d even cracked his eyes open. When he did open them, he was astonished to find himself staring at a bunch of broken eggs, spilled milk, and a jar of mayonnaise. He blinked, realizing that he was on the floor.
    He rolled, cursed when he rolled in to some orange juice. He forced himself to a sitting position and looked around, wondering just what the fuck. That was when he saw the handle of the pan peeking over the edge of the island, and all memory returned in a flash.
    Right away, he bolted to his feet. His head spun, the room swirled, and he cursed again.
    She’d hit him. She’d hit him with a goddamn frying pan .
    His gun was gone. So was his phone. He supposed he should be grateful that she hadn’t shot him in the head as she’d hauled ass on out of there, but seeing as Ace was going to kill him anyway, she’d really just postponed the inevitable. Unless he could find her and bring her back here. And when he did? She was going down to that basement until this whole thing blew over.
    To hell with being nice to a woman who’d kicked him in to a fridge.
    Warren went to the door, looked outside, looked down. Yep, her tracks went off in to the trees, as clear as day. He looked at the sky and was sure that it hadn’t snowed while he’d been out, but even if it had, it wasn’t a big deal.
    His useless drunk of a father had taught Warren exactly one useful thing in his time on earth: he’d taught him how to hunt, and any hunter worth his salt also knew how to track his prey. Warren had never been any good at school – but he was damn good at hunting, and even better at tracking.
    He went back in to the house, glanced at his face in the bathroom mirror. Oh, yeah, she’d clocked him but good, and he sported a massive bruise across his left cheek. There was blood matted in his hair from where she’d slammed his face down on to the counter, and his chest hurt like hell. He lifted his shirt, surveyed the ugly bruise on his muscled pecs.
    Yeah. No more Mr. Nice Guy.
    He unlocked his bedroom door and grabbed his spare gun. The he took off his cut, slipped on a heavy sweater. He donned his coat, looked for his scarf, sighed when he realized that it was gone, put on his hat and gloves. He saw that the flashlights from the kitchen were gone and he shook his head, cursing the obvious fact that Shay was a smart-as-hell woman, and no doubt. He grabbed the flashlight from downstairs, and then he was ready to go.
    She had about a four-hour head start on him,