“Oh, no. Oh, no.” She reached for Jude, where he sat slumped, blood dripping down his neck and soaking into the collar of his shirt. “Jude!”
There was another shot, and Jude jerked. Angela screamed and reached for the watch she wore on her wrist. The watch she’d been given that had a tracker in it.
Fumbling with it, she pressed the button they’d told her to use if she was ever in need of help.
“Please, God. Please, God.” She wasn’t even sure what she was praying for, but first and foremost, her concern was for Jude.
Suddenly, her door was ripped open, and she was jerked out of the truck.
“Finally.” The voice that growled in her ear was so familiar that a chill went through her, right down to her bones.
The light was on inside the cab, illuminating Jude where he was slumped over the center console. Unmoving.
Her heart pounded as fear coursed through her. But close on the heels of the fear was anger. This person… this horrible, horrible person who’d taken her from her family was trying to take the man she loved from her too.
She refused to believe that Jude was dead. That just wasn’t possible. She couldn’t accept that.
Angela twisted in Jim's grip, her shoulder screaming as he wrenched her arm behind her back. The smell of cigarettes and unwashed clothing filled her nostrils, a scent that transported her back to years in his presence at the homestead.
"Let me go!" She struggled against his hold, but his fingers dug deeper into her arm.
"You're coming with me," Jim snarled, his breath hot against her ear. "Just like old times."
Angela's gaze darted back to the truck where Jude remained motionless. Her chest constricted with panic. He had to be alive. He had to be.
"Please," she gasped, trying to pull away from Jim. "He needs help. He's hurt."
"Should have minded his own business." Jim dragged her backward, away from the truck, and she lost sight of Jude.
Angela knew that if she didn’t do something, she’d be gone, and maybe Jude would be too.
She took a deep breath, praying that God would give her strength, then tried to recall everything Jude and Dawn had taught them about self-defense when an attacker had them in a grip the way Jim did.
Angela's heart hammered in her chest as she forced herself to focus through the panic. Jude's voice echoed in her memory: "Use your attacker's strength against them."
She went limp suddenly, dropping her weight and throwing Jim off balance. As he stumbled, she drove her elbow back hard into his ribs. The impact sent a jarring pain up her arm, but Jim's grip loosened with a grunt of surprise.
"You little—" he growled, but Angela was already twisting away.
She stomped down on his instep with everything she had. The crunch under her boot and Jim's howl told her she'd hit her mark. The self-defense training had drilled one thing into her above all else: create distance, then run.
But she couldn't run. Not with Jude bleeding in the truck.
Jim lunged for her again, his face contorted with rage.
Angela spun, her fist connecting with his jaw in a move Dawn had made her practice. It wasn’t strong enough to do more than momentarily stun him, but she darted away from him, back toward the truck.
When she spotted Jude, she saw he was struggling to move.
“Jude!” she cried out as she reached the truck.
“Down,” he gasped. “Get… down.”
Without hesitating, she dropped to the ground. She pressed herself flat against the cold ground, snow seeping through her jeans as she tried to make sense of what was happening.
Angela heard two shots ring out, and when she dared to look up, she saw Jim staggering backward, his hand clutched to his chest, dark wetness spreading between his fingers. His eyes, wide with shock, locked with hers for a moment before he crumpled to the snow.
With her ears ringing from the gunshots, she scrambled to her feet and turned back to the truck. Jude was slumped against the steering wheel, his gun still gripped in his trembling hand.
