No! Adrenaline fired Rebecca’s blood as they fought, tooth and nail, hitting and gouging, pulling hair as their entangled bodies slid through the snow, slowly down the hillside, away from the clearing. They rolled and tumbled, the dark sky and white landscape windmilling behind her eyes as Rebecca strained against the other woman, who was smaller, but strong and uninjured, while Rebecca’s left arm was useless.

Don’t give up!

You can take her.

Together, swinging and kicking, they struggled, screaming and groaning, punching and clawing.

Sophia let go and struggled to her feet.

Rebecca threw herself at the other woman’s legs, and they were snarled together again, fighting, sliding ever downward. Sophia’s lips were pulled back in hatred, and Rebecca flung a hand up, grabbed Sophia’s hat, taking hold of a hank of hair, ripping it by the roots as Sophia howled in agony.

Down, down, down they rolled, sliding over buried roots and rocks and ice. Kicking and punching, Rebecca’s shoulder throbbing, her thoughts only on finding her sister as she slid.

“Stop! Just stop! It’s over,” Sophia said, then her words halted as her leg caught in a hidden root and she had to let go. Rebecca slid on her back, trying and failing to gain purchase, the boughs of the trees spinning overhead.

Bam! She crashed into the trunk of a fir, her head hitting hard against the gnarled bark; pain splintered behind her eyes, and for a second, the world went dark.

Don’t pass out. You can’t pass out. She’ll kill you if you do.

Head whirling, she struggled to her feet and threw herself forward, intent on hiding in the forest, but her feet slid out from under her, and she fell again.

Hard.

Collapsing on a bundle of something—hard and frozen, and oh, God . . . She blinked, saw the edge of what seemed to be a piece of clothing. Something pink maybe. A jacket?

What?

She scrambled back, disturbing the snow from what was obviously a body. Staring in horror, her heart banging wildly in her chest, her brain screaming denial, she stared down at a body, lying face up.

“No!” she screamed, horror gripping her in a choke hold. “Oh, God, noooo!”

Brown hair poked out of a woolen cap; the legs were covered in denim leggings, a pink jacket zipped to the neck. And above that? The frozen face of her sister.

Rebecca tried to scuttle away from the image of Megan’s blue eyes, open but sightless, her face pale and gray, her lips frozen.

“No!” Rebecca breathed again, all of her worst fears congealing. “Nooooo!”

Sophia.

She’d killed Megan.

“You did this,” she charged, her own shoulder bleeding through her jacket, staining the snow, as she leveled her outraged gaze up the hill at Sophia.

The blonde was standing, breathing hard, her face twisted in hatred. She’d scraped away the snow and found her gun.