And now her choice just might return to haunt them both.

“There, up ahead.”

Joe peered out the window, but with no regular road to guide him, he was unclear just where he was. He didn’t normally travel reservation land as the crow flies. All he could see up ahead was the dark silhouette of a rocky butte. But he heard the sound Delaney made and was suddenly certain he could guess the site.

The abandoned Graywolf mine.

“Police have been swarming all over this property. We need to go somewhere safer, Bruce. Somewhere we can talk.”

“The police are long gone. Why would they keep it under surveillance when our cargo was intercepted? It’s the perfect destination. Because we both know they have no reason to come back.”

Joe’s mouth dried and desperation ricocheted through him. Unfortunately the man was right. The members of the task force had no idea who they were looking for at this point, and no reason to believe that Graywolf’s boss would head back to the very place they had planned to stash the illegals.

Joe and Delaney were on their own.

His palms were slippery on the wheel as he slowed at Bruce’s command. He had a sudden premonition of just how this was going to go down and the scenario wasn’t pleasant. His best chance was to try and overpower the man, but Delaney’s presence made that trickier. She gave Bruce leverage. And she represented a weakness for Joe.

“Turn left here and stop. Leave the lights on and the vehicle running.”

He made the mistake of turning to look at Delaney. Her gaze was fixed on the mine, and her eyes looked as though she were peering into the gates of hell. He could see the shudders already racking her body and knew she understood what the man intended.

Bruce reached across her and opened the door, then, with his hand gripping her arm, roughly shoved her out of the Jeep. “Get over here, Joe.”

Adrenaline balling in his stomach, he rounded the front of the Jeep and caught Delaney as Bruce gave her a push toward him. “You two stay in front of me. She’ll remain in the mine and you’ll come with me. Call her my insurance policy.”

Joe didn’t have to feign difficulty propelling Delaney toward the mine entrance. She had her heels dug in the ground like a person on their way to the gallows. And if he let himself think about the terrifying panic she was experiencing right now, neither one of them would get through this alive.

Joe gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze. There was no way he’d leave her to fight her demons alone inside that cavernous shaft, but they were going to have to enter it. Grimly, he hoped he could transfer a bit of reassurance through his touch but doubted it would penetrate her sheer terror.

When they reached the mine entrance, a quick burst of hope unfurled. It was unsecured, a sawed-through lock lying at the foot of the doors.

Bruce saw it and muttered an oath. “Open the doors.”

Joe pushed one door forward, and then the other. The hinges screeched with age and disuse and he had to catch Delaney in the next moment, as her knees seemed to go to water. “It’s going to be all right,” he whispered urgently as he held her upright. But she didn’t seem to hear him. Abruptly, muscles that had seemed lax only a moment ago seemed filled with extraordinary strength and she fought frantically, with single-minded determination to break free of his grip and flee this confrontation with her darkest fears.

“Control her, Youngblood or I’ll shoot her where she stands.”

It was only the certainty of that threat that would make Joe catch her and swing her around, moving her inexorably into the mine’s entrance. “It’ll be all right,” he whispered the litany in her ear as he held her tightly before him. “I promise it’ll be all right.”

Delaney could hear his voice but the words meant nothing to her. The only thing she was aware of was the yawning blackness that was drawing closer with every step. Her blood had turned glacial, her throat closed with horror. Her frenzied struggles were instinctive, involuntary. She couldn’t go in there. She knew if she did, she’d never come out alive.

It was like being struck blind, every ounce of light blocked by fallen debris and twisted metal. The interior shrinking until each molecule of oxygen seemed sucked away to leave her to gasp and fight for every breath. She’d die like the rest of them, screams turning inhuman as the certainty of her death loomed closer.

“Find something to use on that latch for the doors. I want your girlfriend staying put while you drive me to get Jonny.”

“I’ll give you the address.” Something in Joe’s voice filtered through the fog of Delaney’s fear. “You go and we’ll both stay here.”

“Nice try. The only way to be sure you’ll give me the right address is to have you drive me there. And keeping the woman here gives you a little incentive to follow directions. Stop right there.”

There were three quick thuds in succession. With superhuman effort Delaney strove to focus on the present, as the past threatened to drown her in a sea of terrifying memories. Blinking, she saw that bullets had been fired into one of the timber supports near one side of the mine, splintering it.

“All right, Youngblood. Back away from her and go pick up one of those fragments. One of them should work in the clasp.”

Delaney stared at the timber, but what she saw were twisted metal beams awash in plaster dust and portions of stone supports, bodies pinned beneath.

Desperately, she beat back the memories, focused on the man’s voice. If she concentrated on something other than the yawning pit of darkness waiting to swallow her up she could think of a way out of this.

She watched, transfixed, as Joe moved as if in slow motion. Her mind ping-ponged between a kernel of hope and utter despair. There was no way out. He bent, reached for the piece of wood. It was a miracle she’d lived the last time, and how many miracles did one person get in a lifetime?

She was aware he’d risen but her gaze had moved past him, just a yard or two to where the interior of the mine turned to inky shadows, as deep and impenetrable as a grave.

Her grave.

The hypnotizing darkness seemed to exhale, brushing her skin with its chilly breath. When it inhaled it’d suck her in, feeding on her panic like a vulture gorging on a carcass. And live or die, she’d be broken. Spirit, mind, body. So much easier to accept it. The specters of the past sounded like frigid whispers in her mind. Just walk into its frosty embrace and let it happen. I’m so tired of fighting. So tired.

Mesmerized, she took a step forward, eyes wide. There were images stamped on the darkness now, mental fragments that had lingered in her nightmares for two long years. Another step forward, and the past hurtled toward her with the power of an oncoming locomotive.

“Move it, Youngblood.”

The snap in the voice filtered through her trance and she stopped, looked around confusedly. And saw Joe staring fixedly at her, saw his lips moving.

She forced herself to look away. He couldn’t distract her now. Not from this. It was too important. Desperation and acceptance warred inside her. Muscles tensed. Time slowed.

And then she whirled, diving for the man with the gun.

“Sonofabitch!”

She’d lost track of him in the darkness. Instead of hitting him square, her body struck him in the thighs and he stumbled back, his legs tangled with hers as they both went sprawling to the ground. Delaney threw her weight onto his gun hand, felt pain explode as his free fist caught her in the face once, twice.

Then she was free of him with a suddenness that, along with the ringing in her ears, dizzied her. She rolled away, struggled to her knees. And saw Joe and Bruce entwined, rolling, exchanging blows. One clipped Joe in the chin and his head snapped back. But even as Bruce reached for the gun that had slipped his grasp, Joe drew back a clenched fist and plunged the sharp wood fragment he still held into the man’s eye.