Chapter 141: N-Neil... Please get up!

Cold. Freezing cold. Minutes after Mia left the protection of the forest and rode the snowbike down the hill, where they’d taken with her car, she felt a deep, bone-freezing cold that was nearly unbearable. Droplets of ice were clinging to the corners of her eyes, snow was driving into her face, blinding her, her lips and arms and legs were stiff. The snowbike sped down the hill and slid sideways, but when she tried to slow the vehicle down, her limbs were so numb that it took awhile before her body could obey her brain’s frantic command to react.

The only thing that wasn’t numb from the cold was her sense of fear, the fear that Neil would catch her and prevent her from escaping and a new, strong fear that if he didn’t, she would likely die out here, lost in the blizzard, buried beneath the snow with no one finding her body.

In her mind, she made up a vision of a search party in the spring time locating her perfectly preserved remains beneath a mound of melting snow, her body and head still clad in this thick, dark bule snowsuit and her matching helmet, which also went along with the snowbike she rode. A "Tragic" ending, she thought with grim misery, for a girl from the slum of Whispering Way who made it to the social ladder five years after her mother’s death. Such story would blow up in the media industry!

Far below, through the branches of trees sliding by her, Mia caught a glimpse of the main road that snaked around the mountain, but she would have to jump from here to reach the road in time. If she indeed decided to Jump, she would reach the highway in time, but there was no chance she’d ever reach the highway in one piece.

Besides, before she could seriously consider going down the face of the mountain, she first had to go through that frozen river. She tried to remember where the river was. It seemed to her that it should be around the next sharp bend in the road, but it was hard to gauge anything when the road had been reduced to a narrow path between snow drifts.

It occurred to her that what she probably ought to do was get off the snowbike and do something to generate some body heat, like running in place or something like that. On the other hand, she was afraid to take the time to do that. If the snow had already filled in her tracks from the garage to the woods by the time Neil realized she was gone, he would automatically assume she was using the road and he’d overtake her much sooner and more easily than if he tried to follow her longway, hidden route through the woods.

Mia had deliberately been avoiding looking over her shoulder because she was afraid to take her eyes off the path and risk losing control of the unfamiliar vehicle again, but now that she realized everything depended on how fast the snow was filling in her tracks, she couldn’t resist. She stole a swift look over her shoulder and choked back a scream of horror at what she saw.

Above and still well behind her, another snowbike was speeding out of the woods and heading down toward the road, its rider crouched low over the front, flying over trees and boulders with what appeared to be an effortless skill.

Terror and confusion was quick to overrule everything inside Mia, even the numbing cold. The sight of Neil sent only fear pumping wildly through her veins. Praying he hadn’t yet spotted her through the dense trees that lined both sides of the narrow road, Mia looked around for a place to turn off and try to hide so that he would ride past her without spotting her, but there was none, thus she kept riding on in full speed to get away from him before he’d spot her.

As she approached the edge of the mountain trail, she spotted a big snow-covered rock marking the end of the path, meant to prevent riders from going over the edge. Despite her initial plan to slow down before reaching the edge of the mountain, her nervousness caused her to lose control of the snowbike. She desperately tried press the brake, but it was too late.

The snowbike careened over the edge, sending Mia flying through the air above a dense forest of pine trees. With a horrifying lurch, the snowbike plummeted towards the ground, hurtling towards a cluster of trees and, beyond them, the frozen river lay below. Mia screamed as she felt the bike being ripped away from her by gravity, while she miraculously landed on the sturdy branches of a pine tree, halting her fall. Meanwhile, the snowbike tumbled down the hills, skidding across icy slopes before finally coming to a halt on the frozen river, just before the ice cracked and began to swallow up the bike.

Dazed with relief and a little shaky, Mia climbed down the tree that had broken her fall and lay beside it as she watched Neil’s snowbike shoot over the edge of the mountain. In pursuit of her!

Forcing her body to react, she quickly rolled over, staggering to her knees, and crawled under the tree to hide. The skis on his snowbike were air-bound and he flew over the mountain swiftly while making a graceful landing. When he rode past her hiding place, Mia crawled further back beneath the branches, but she shouldn’t have even bothered, because he never even glanced in her direction.

Neil had spotted her snowbike fall off the hills and landed on the frozen river before it sank into it, and all of his attention was focused on the sinking snowbike.

Unable to completely understand what Neil was doing or accept her own good fortune for still being alive after such a fall, Mia watched him leap off his snowbike before it came to a stop and run toward the rive.

"MIA!" He shouted.

"MIA!" He shouted over and over again into the howling wind, and to her utter disbelief, he started walking over the thin ice of the river. He’d obviously thought she had fallen along with the snowbike into the river, and just as obviously, he should have been glad that she was no longer a complication with which he had to worry. He should be happy that she was dead and wouldn’t be able to give away his hideout.

Mia assumed he was only walking towards the crack in the icy river to try to recover the snowbike and not because he was worried about her, and her gaze flew to his snowbike he had abandoned at the river bank. It was now much closer to her than to him, she could get to it long before he could and, unless he could drag the other snowbike to safety, she could still escape from him without him chasing her.

Keeping her gaze glued to his back, she crawled out from under the tree, straightened up, and took a careful step away from her hiding place and then another and another, intending to sidle from tree to tree.

"MIA, ANSWER ME, FOR GOODNESS’S SAKE!" He shouted, stripping off his jacket. The ice below his feet began to crack and the rear end of her snowbike rose in the air as the machine tumbled into the river and vanished. Instead of trying to reach safety, he grabbed ahold of the branches of a bended pine tree and to Mia’s utter disbelief, he deliberately dove into the icy water to look below it.

His entire body completely disappeared into the water, and Mia sneaked to the shelter of the next tree. He broke the surface for air, shouting her name again, then he dove beneath the water again, and Mia hurried to the last tree. Less than two yards away from his snowbike and her freedom, she stopped, her gaze shifted helplessly on the river where he had disappeared.

Her mind shouted that Neil Wayner was a murderer who had killed her poor mother, and added to his crimes by taking her hostage, and she had to leave now while she had the chance. Her conscience screamed that if she left him now and took his snowbike, he would freeze to death because he was trying to save her.

Suddenly his dark head and shoulders broke the surface beside the submerged tree trunk, and a sob of relief rose in her throat as she saw him crawl out of the water and move himself up onto the ridge of ice. Dimly amazed by his sheer strength of will and body, Mia watched him brace his hands on the ice, push himself upright, and stagger over to the jacket he’d flung off. Instead of putting it on, he knelt down beside it near a snow-covered boulder next to the frozen river.

The internal war between Mia’s mind and her heart escalated. He hadn’t drowned, he was safe for the moment, if she was going to leave him, it had to be now, before he looked up and saw her.

Paralyzed with indecision, Mia watched him lift the jacket in his hand. The moment of foolish relief she felt at the thought that he was going to put it on became horror as he did something that was the complete opposite of what she expected: He tossed the jacket aside, reached his hands up, and began slowly unbuttoning his wet shirt, then he leaned his head against the boulder and closed his eyes. Snow swirled around him, clinging to his wet dark hair and face and body while it slowly dawned on her that he wasn’t even going to try to make it home! He obviously thought she had drowned trying to get away from him, and he had assigned himself the death sentence as his own punishment.

’Tell me you believe I’m innocent,’ he had ordered her last night, and at that moment, Mia knew beyond all doubt that the man who wanted to die because he’d caused her own "death" had to be exactly that...innocent.

Unaware that she was crying or that she had started running towards him, Mia rushed down the slope to where he sat. When she was close enough to see his face, remorse and tenderness almost sent her to her knees. With his head thrown back and his eyes shut, his handsome face was a mask of pure regret.

The cold forgotten, Mia scooped up his jacket and held it out to him.

Swallowing past the awful lump of remorsefulness in her throat, she said in an aching whisper, "You win, Ice Cube. I’ll go back home with you."

When he didn’t respond, Mia dropped to her knees and started trying to force his limp arm into the jacket.

"N-Neil, get up!" she cried. Her shoulders shaking with suppressed sobs, she pulled him into her arms, cradling his head against her chest, trying to infuse some of her warmth into him, rocking him back and forth. "Please!" she cried, on the edge of hysteria. "Please get up. I can’t lift you. You have to help me. Neil, please. Remember when you said you wanted someone to believe you’re innocent? I didn’t completely believe you then, but I do now. I swear to the Heavens. I know you didn’t kill my mom. I believe everything you’ve said. Get up! Please, please get up!"

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by Aunomay Read