The Man between my crosshairs (girl X assassin)

Chapter 40/If you go down to the woods today

A/N Well thanks for joining us for a historic week which included the first launch of the falcon heavy. Its a little difficult to compete with a dramatic take off/landing like that but we will try. We are getting close to the dramatic ending... RK&Reb.

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"You will need this," said Styles putting a belt around her snow coat. He seemed relaxed in his element 

"What is it?" Zoe asked as Styles pulled a narrow thread on a loop from a box on the belt.

"Safety gear" Styles said "We walk in line. If the ground gives way then the rear two stop the first one dropping down. There is what we call a booly near here. A small pool of liquid argon maybe nitrogen."

The three walked off for while. Cathey lead the way with Zoe then Harry. They walked silently through the snow. The soft ice frosting crackled pleasingly underfoot as they continued. Zoe had time to wonder why she had felt such reverence at the landscape. She wasn't the kind to feel like this. She generally didn't feel anything. Normally she only thought about the mission. Ryder had been a huge distraction but now he was gone he still haunted her thoughts. A huge chunk of her had been blown away with him when he exploded. She kept running everything through her mind. She had countless opportunities to kill Styles but hadn't done so. This wasn't like her.

"Fuck," said a voice behind Zoe. Suddenly she felt being pulled.

The next thing she knew she was on her back being pulled along the snow. Harry was shouting. Cathy had disappeared and the cable pointed into the snow. Then she slowed down. It was only then that Zoe realised that Cathy must have fallen into a crevasse. Zoe dug her heels in and eventually stopped.

"Help" shouted Cathy from under the snow.

"You OK?" shouted Harry. "Cathy. Answer me! Are you OK?"

"I'm fine" shouted Cathy rather weakly.

"Zoe, you OK?" Harry said.

"I'm good. You look after Cathy" Zoe said. Cathy's weight was on her hips. It was like a tug of war with an ox.

"OK, this is what we are going to do. I'm going to tie off with my ice axe. That will hold the weight. I'm going to go check carefully to the edge and on Cathy then we are going to pull Cathy up"

"We should phone the others," Cathy said.

"You're going to be out of there in no time. Is there anything you can grab on to?" Harry shouted.

Zoe was on her back her feet dug into the ice. Cathy's weight on her hips the cable on her belt held Cathy's weight.

"No, it's quite smooth," Cathy said.

The next thing Zoe  knew, Harry was crawling slowly on the ice passed her.

"Don't worry," Harry said to Zoe "I've got you tied off. I'm going to make sure Cathy is OK then we can pull her up."

You got the feeling Harry had done things like this before. Harry crawled carefully to the edge.

"You alright?" Harry said to Cathy.

"Yeah." Cathy said "I know this sounds weird but all I can think about is how blue the ice is. It's like really deep blue it's like it's almost glowing."

"That is weird," said Harry getting close to the edge.

Instantly the plan formed in Zoe's mind. She was carrying a knife. Wait until Harry was at the edge. Cut Cathy's cable and then push Styles over. Improvise a huge accident, perfect. Styles edged carefully forward. Zeo grasped her knife. She remembered he training - how to look sorry. How to pretend she was blaming her self for something she couldn't stop.  

Harry was at the edge. Now was the time, Zoe found her self, holding the knife ready, close the cord but her hand was shaking.

Then snow beneath Harry gave way. Zoe instantly put the knife sideways into the snow and grabbed onto it. As expected she was now holding both father and daughter up. All she had to do was release her belt. 

"Help!" Harry cried.  Suddenly her ambition with Dark Orbits felt like nothing. Normally this was so easy and suddenly killing was so hard.

Zoe pulled her self up on the knife and Harry was able to grab on to some ice chunks. Zoe felt the weight on her arms drop. There were shouts. A couple of robots followed by the boys were approaching. The robots were in that usual frenzy that machines running the first law of robotics had. The machines hardly paused while they jumped to the cravese to form a platform. Soon every intelligent machine had caught up and together they pulled Harry, Cathy and Zoe away.

Everyone else felt happy but Zoe felt terrible, she had failed. With that, they all walked carefully back to the lodge house.

"I don't know what I would have done without you" Styles said to Zoe as they approached the warm light of the lodge. Zoe consoled her self that this might be a good cover later. 'But if I wanted to kill them why didn't I do it when they hung over the cliff Officer?' She could imagine saying in her mind.

Harry stopped and looked up. "Look the sunrise has hit the top of the mountain. That's a good sign."

Zoe looked up to see a yellow dot on the mountain behind them. A golden glow appeared on the tip of the peek. Then Zoe noticed a red dot moving on Harry's forehead like a glowing red fly.

"Down" she shouted.

 Then a shot rang out.