Free Spirit Flight by Jory Strong

 
Spirit Flight
    Thunderbird Chosen
     
    Jory Strong
     
    Revised Edition of Spirit Flight
    Copyright 2015 by Valerie Christenson
    Smashwords Edition
     
     
    A huge shout-out and thank you to Jennifer Kiziah for
her help!
     
    Many, many thanks to Susan White who was kind enough
to read this story and offer insights from a Native American
perspective.
     
     
    Cover design by Syneca Featherstone
     
     
    * * * * *
Table of Contents
     
    Chapter 1
    Chapter 2
    Chapter 3
    Chapter 4
    Chapter 5
    Thank You!
    About the Author
     
     
    * * * * *
    Chapter
1
     
     
    Marisa Lacoste doubled over as pain sliced
through her sides.
    Run.
    Keep running!
    She sucked in air. She just needed a minute,
then she'd get moving.
    Stupid! She'd been so stupid. So unaware. So
naive.
    If she hadn't returned to camp earlier than
expected… If she hadn't overheard them deciding to find her and
kill her now , when the storm would work to their
advantage…
    She tried to quiet her breathing so she'd be
able to hear them. Tried to force herself to breathe through her
nose, her throat and lungs already aching from gasping cold
mountain air.
    How could Ethan be involved in this? And for
money. He knew the most important thing to her was her art. It was
all she'd cared about since she was old enough to hold a
crayon.
    A rumble sounded in the distance. Thunder to
go with the darkening sky and gathering gray clouds.
    Tears wet her face. She brushed them away
impatiently. Tears wouldn't do any good.
    Maybe later. When she found her way off the
mountain. When she flagged down a car or found a call box. When she
got back to the last town they'd stopped in. Hohoq—so small it
wasn't on the map.
    They'd eaten at a tiny home-style diner
there and anyone who'd seen them together would testify they'd been
in great spirits. A man and two women. Enjoying themselves the way
people do when they're on vacation. Laughing. Teasing. Probably in
the area for rock climbing or hiking, or just to camp.
    She and Ethan resembled each other so
closely with their black hair and blue eyes that they were
obviously related. Not that Kaitlyn wouldn't have drawn her share
of appreciative glances with her blonde, fashion-model looks.
    Fresh pain ricocheted in Marisa's chest.
They'd played her so well. Not just for the last couple of days,
but for months.
    The beautiful tabletop books with pictures
of the Cascades. Talking her into taking a rock-climbing class. All
done so this trip wouldn't seem out of character and her accidental death wouldn't seem suspicious.
    Stupid! She'd been so thrilled to be
included!
    But now, looking back, she understood how
she'd set this in motion. She'd been so proud to realize that
slowly, over the years, she'd begun living only on the proceeds
from the sales of her paintings. She'd been so excited by the idea
of putting the money she'd inherited from their father, the money
her brother had been managing, into a scholarship fund so other
artists could make it as she had.
    Was any of the money left? Had Ethan been
embezzling it all along? Or only since Kaitlyn came into the
picture?
    Marisa pushed thoughts of her brother and
Kaitlyn aside. Forced herself to straighten. The air around her was
getting colder and the sky darker.
    A different fear gripped her. Its fingers
icy dread.
    Lost, her skin slick with sweat from
running, exposed to the elements overnight with nothing more than
the clothing she was wearing, she could as easily die from
hypothermia as from a staged fall while rock climbing.
    It'd be easy for them to claim she'd gotten
lost while she was hiking. Gotten so absorbed in her surroundings,
in the beauty and colors she'd try to pull into her art later, that
she hadn't been paying attention to where she was going. They'd say
she had panicked and run when she finally realized she didn't know
where she was or how to get back to camp.
    Anyone who'd ever seen her when she became
immersed in her work would testify that she could go days