Rizzoli & Isles 8-Book Set

the only two she could count on out here, these two friends who had already proven themselves again and again.
    She looked up the slope at Rat, moving tirelessly up the path ahead of her, and he seemed far younger than sixteen, just a frightened child, clambering up the hillside like a mountain goat. But she had reached the end of her endurance, and now she could scarcelymove one foot in front of the other. She struggled up the trail, snowshoes creaking under her weight, her thoughts on the encounter to come. It would happen before nightfall. One way or the other, she thought, by tonight all will be decided. Glancing back, she saw that their pursuers were already emerging from the trees below. So close.
    We’ll soon be within their rifle range
.
    She looked up the mountain again, to the peak still looming far ahead, and the last of her strength seemed to crumble and fall away like ashes.
    “Come on!” Rat called down to her.
    “I can’t.” She stopped, sagging against a massive boulder, and whispered, “I can’t.”
    He scrambled back down to her, scattering powdery snow, and grabbed her arm. “You have to.”
    “It’s time to do it,” she said. “Time for you to leave me.”
    He pulled harder on her arm. “They’ll kill you.”
    She took him by both shoulders and gave him a shake. “Rat, listen to me. It doesn’t matter now what happens to me. I want
you
to live.”
    “No. I won’t leave you.” His voice cracked, shattered into a boy’s sob, a boy’s frantic appeal. “Please try.
Please.
” He was begging now, his face streaked with tears. He would not stop tugging on her arm, hauling with such determination that she thought he would single-handedly drag her up the mountain, whether she cooperated or not. She let herself be pulled a few more steps up the slope.
    Suddenly she heard the crack of wood, felt a bolt of pain shoot up her right ankle as the broken snowshoe collapsed under her weight. She toppled forward, arms splayed out to catch herself, and sank up to her elbows in snow. Spluttering, she struggled to rise, but her right foot would not move.
    Rat wrapped an arm around her waist and tried to wrench her free.
    “Stop!” she cried out. “My foot’s stuck!”
    He dropped to the ground and began tunneling into the snow.Bear stood by, looking bewildered as his master dug like a frenzied dog. “Your boot’s wedged between boulders. I can’t get it free!” He looked up at her, eyes lit with panic. “I’m going to pull. I might be able to get your foot out of the shoe. But it’s going to hurt.”
    She looked down the mountain. Any moment, she thought, those men will be within rifle range, and they’d find her trapped like a staked goat. This was not the way she wanted to die. Exposed and helpless. She took a breath and nodded to Rat. “Do it.”
    He wrapped both hands around her ankle and began to pull. Pulled so hard that he groaned with the effort, so hard that she thought her foot would be torn apart. The pain ripped a cry from her throat. All at once her foot wrenched free of the boot and she sprawled backward onto the snow.
    “I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” Rat cried. She smelled his sweat and fear, heard him wheezing in the cold as he grabbed her under the arms and hauled her up. Her right foot was clad only in a wool sock, and when she put her weight down on it, her leg sank knee-deep in snow.
    “Lean on me. We’ll get up the trail together.” He draped her arm over his neck and grabbed her around the waist. “Come on,” he urged. “You can make it. I know you can make it.”
    But can you?
With every step they took together, she could feel his muscles straining with the effort. If ever I had a son, she thought, this is the kind of boy I would want him to be. As loyal, as courageous, as Julian Perkins. She clutched him tighter, and the warmth of their bodies mingled as they fought their way up the mountain. This was the son she’d never had and probably never would have. Already they were bonded, their union forged in battle.
And I won’t let them hurt him
.
    Their snowshoes creaked in unison, and the steam from their breaths joined in a single cloud. Her exposed sock was soaked, her toes aching in the cold. Bear scrambled ahead of them, but they moved slowly, so slowly. Surely their pursuers could mark their quarry’s progress up the barren slope.
    She heard Bear growl, and she looked up the trail. The dogstood stock-still, his ears laid back. But he was not