Her shuffling.
Her fucking heartbeat.
Anything that would tell me that there hadn’t been a third assailant. Anything to tell me that she was still alive.
I couldn’t risk calling out for her, not yet. Her adrenaline had already been high before that bullet grazed her cheek, she would have run chaotically, as fast as she could. She was a runner, so she probably wouldn’t have stopped until she ran out of air, but with the adrenaline ridden panic she felt, she would have run out of air sooner than if she had just been running through the park.
So I had about a mile and a half at her sprinting gait to search, and I would find her. If I was out here for the next two lifetimes, I would find her again.
~~~
An hour went by, and I was getting frustrated. Angrier each second that passed. Where the fuck was she?
Had she been hit by a bullet I didn’t see? Had that second guyattacked her before coming after me? Where the fuck was she?
I couldn’t risk calling Jack for this, he would tell Malachi that I had used our resources to locate a girl who was nothing but an ex owing a debt. But I didn’t need them. I could do this on my own.
I would do this on my own.
I wouldn’t fucking lose her to some half-assed hired Craigslist gunman. I refused.
I fuckingrefused.
I would find her and when I did, I would fuckingpunish herfor letting her panic take her so goddamn far away. She needed to learn how to control it. How tothinkthrough it.
My hands were gripped so tightly, my nails were digging into my palm, the grip of my gun burning into my right hand. I was going to fucking kill her. Howfuckinginsane was it to allow her panic to do this. To get her lost in the woods while people were shooting at us?
Howfucking idiotic!
She let the panic go straight to her head and now I was wasting precious time hunting her down like a goddamn fox hunting a field mouse.
I worked my jaw, a low snarl escaping my lips as I climbed over yet another log that was bigger thanfuck. If she was dead, I was going to feed her to her fucking dog, one goddamn finger at a time—
A whimper found my ears, small and soft, and so quiet, for a second, I thought I imagined it.
I froze mid-step, my heart exploding in my chest as I held my breath. I knew that whimper.
Seconds ticked by like hours before another soft cry finally met my ears.
I took off without thought. Was she crying? Did she understand that people were hunting her down right now?
I threw myself over another log, sprinting through the trees.She was smarter than this. She was stronger than it, I had seen it. Iwatchedit. She challenged me and shouted at me and fucking slapped me! She screamed and shouted and pushed every button I had, she wasstrongerthan—
I stepped around a tree and a gun fired, the bullet whizzing past me, slicing through my jacket on the right side, just along my ribs.
I jumped back, eyes wide, my gun already up. It was an effort not to pull the trigger simply on instinct. “What thefuck, Ol—” But my words were cut off when I found her huddled inside of a large indent in a tree, her knees to her chest, tears streaming down her face, mixed with the blood from the wound. It hadn’t stopped bleeding yet.
She had the gun gripped in both hands, shoved back against her chest, shaking as it was pointed at me.
That shot would have bruised her chest, but all she did was stare at me unblinkingly.
Her big beautiful eyes widened as she shoved herself further into the tree, only to freeze when her terrified mind finally registered who it was.
I lowered my own gun, taking her in, my heart thudding at the sight.
She wiped her sleeve under her nose, trying to swallow the sounds, that trembling gun still trained on me. “I followed orders,” she told me, taking in my face, her eyes lingering on the wound on my head, questions and pain in her eyes. “I did what you said. I ran. Stayed low. I didn’t see anyone. Just trees. I looked though, I swear to God, I looked, but I didn’t see a single person. There’s nobody else here. Must have imagined it, right? I imagine a lot. Delusions, Steven calls them. I’m sorry,” she whispered, the tears pouring down her cheeks. “I followed orders, I’m sorry.”
She was terrified.
