off. Alive. Unharmed. Capable of answering all the questions he needed to ask.
“Don’t scream again. You hear me?”
Trinity heard. Loud and clear.
She was going to listen, because the guy had the barrel of his gun pressed to her jaw. She could feel the metal digging into her skin, but it didn’t hurt. Maybe it did, and she was just too scared to feel it.
“I said,” he growled, slamming the gun into her face, “did you hear me?”
“Yes,” she bit out, and he shoved her forward with his body, one arm around her waist, the other around her shoulder, that gun still pressed against her jaw. They were moving fast, and she was terrified of tripping and causing him to pull the trigger. She doubted he’d care if that happened.
He’d shot an officer of the law. He wasn’t planning to be caught. She wasn’t planning to be kidnapped. She needed to get back to the deputy. He’d been shot in the chest, but she hadn’t seen any blood. If he’d been wearing a Kevlar vest under his shirt, he should be okay, but she’d barely had time to feel for a pulse before she’d been dragged into the forest.
One scream. That’s all she’d had time for.
It didn’t matter. Between the gunshot and her scream, there was no way the sheriff hadn’t been alerted to the trouble. Help would arrive. Eventually. She just hoped eventually wasn’t sometime after the guy got her to his vehicle. She knew how these things worked. Once she was in a car traveling away from the scene, her chances of survival went from grim to none.
They moved through dense forest, branches and twigs snagging in Trinity’s hair and pulling at her still-wet clothes. She couldn’t feel the cold any more than she’d felt pain. Adrenaline was a gift God gave people to get them out of terrible situations. She hoped it would be enough to get her out of this one. Her family would be devastated if something happened to her. Her brothers would probably blame themselves. Her parents would, too.
She’d be safe in the arms of Jesus—just like the old song said—and they’d be left to move on without her. Only they wouldn’t be able to move on any more than they’d been able to move on after her sister had been kidnapped. They’d spend every holiday leaving a place at the table for her. They’d visit her grave and put flowers there. They’d wonder what they could have done to help her, and she wouldn’t be there to remind them that she’d made her own stupid choices and gotten her own not-so-great consequences.
Just thinking about it made her tear up. Of course, she’d thought this through before she’d decided to come, but in all her thinking, she’d never imagined getting into a situation where she might actually die.
The forest opened onto an old logging road, the dirt deeply rutted from years of heavy trucks hauling out logs. Even now, decades after the last load had been transported, the ruts were still there, deep, black lines in the packed earth. She stumbled into one, her ankle twisting, pain shooting up her leg. She went down hard, the guy’s hold loosening as he lost his balance, the gun falling away. No explosion of bullets. No violent report.
She didn’t think. She didn’t need to. She’d practiced the move hundreds of times with her brothers. She grabbed the guy’s forearm, yanking him toward her with enough force to send him flying. She was on her feet before he landed, darting into the trees, searching for shadowy areas to hide in. There were plenty of them. There were also twigs, branches, thorns, roots. She tripped and flew into a tree, bouncing off and landing with a loud crash that carried through the darkness.
She thought she could hear the guy coming after her, running through the forest in pursuit. She didn’t know who he was. She didn’t know what he wanted. She wasn’t going to wait around to find out. She also wasn’t going to try to outrun him. She was making too much noise and she’d be too easy to track.
She eased between trees, forcing herself to slow down, to be quiet, to urge a little calm into her frantic heartbeat. She could do this. She had to do this. Think. Act. Escape.
Except she wasn’t sure where she’d be escaping to.
The woods were dense, the foliage tangled masses of thorny brambles. She could get lost out here. She could lose her bearings and wander so far away no one would ever find her. Safe from the gunman and undone by her own terrible sense of direction.
She stopped, listened.
He was behind her, pushing through the thick patch of brambles she’d just run through. In the distance, men and women were calling out to one another. A dog barked and sirens screamed. Lots of help, but all of it too far away to do her any good.
She had to switch gears. Be smart rather than fast.
She moved silently, ducking under the heavy bough of a pine tree and grabbing hold of one of the lower branches. This would be an easy climb and a better option than fleeing. She scrambled up, perching on a thick branch and waiting as her pursuer thundered past. Rain dripped through the umbrella of pine needles, landing on her head and her exposed neck. She still had Mason’s coat, but her clothes clung to her nearly frozen skin and she shivered, the tremors shaking the branch and sending pine needles tumbling.
If he returned, he’d notice.
If he noticed, she’d be trapped. Nowhere to go but down, straight into his waiting arms. She could still hear people in the distance. She thought about shouting for help but the gunman might return before help arrived.
She waited another few heartbeats, listening as the voices drew closer. Nature was its own kind of song and she was hearing it in the drip of rain and patter of ice, her heartbeat the backdrop rhythm to which it all played.
She felt lulled by it and by the cold that had seeped through to her bones. If she waited any longer, she’d fall asleep in the crook of the old pine tree, her body slowly freezing as the temperature dropped.
Not a good image and not any more pleasant to think about than being kidnapped.
Her movements were sluggish as she climbed down, her efforts clumsy. Her fingers felt thick and stiff, her grip tenuous. She should have thought this trip through a little more. She should have consulted with her brothers. They would have insisted on coming along, and she’d have let them, because she loved them and hated to upset her family.
Should have. Could have.
Hadn’t.
Now she was alone—just like she’d wanted to be. She’d have to figure things out on her own. Just like she’d planned. She’d have to face things head-on. She’d have to do what she’d been telling her brothers she could for years.
Her feet slipped and she fell, her hands grasping a branch as she tumbled. She jerked to a stop, body dangling for a split second before she realized she was right above the forest floor. A quick drop and she was down. Breathless. Cold. Alive.
She just had to stay that way.
She wanted to walk back the way she’d come, but every direction looked the same. She’d spent childhood summers camping with her parents and brothers. She’d hiked parts of the Appalachian Trail with friends. She was used to rough terrain and thick forest, but she wasn’t use to navigating without a compass.
“You should have thought of that before you came here,” she muttered.
“Thought of what?” someone asked, and she jumped, whirling around to face the shadowy figure of a man.
She didn’t panic. She was too cold for that. She didn’t run, because her slow-moving brain finally recognized the voice.
“Mason,” she said. “I thought you were down near the lake.”
“I’m not,” he said. “I heard the gunshot. Where did he go?”
“There’s a logging road somewhere through there.” She