"Hudson?"
"I'm here. I'm right here." His hands were on my face, checking for injuries, his expression tight with fear. "Can you move? Is anything broken?"
I did a quick mental inventory. Head hurt. Neck was sore. But everything seemed to be in working order.
"I'm okay," I said. "I think I'm okay."
"We need to move. The car's not going anywhere."
I looked around and realized we'd crashed into a tree. The hood was crumpled, steam rising from the engine, and the windshield was nothing but a jagged frame of broken glass.
But we were alive.
Hudson helped me out of the car, and I stumbled on unsteady legs, gripping his arm for support. The gun was still in my hand. I didn't even remember holding onto it.
"Where's Lang?" I asked.
"His car went off the road about fifty yards back. I saw him crash, but I’m not sure how bad."
A gunshot split the night, and bark exploded from the tree beside my head.
Hudson shoved me behind the wrecked car, his own weapon already drawn, firing back into the darkness.
"Stay down," he ordered.
Another shot. Then another. I pressed myself against the cold metal of the car, my heart pounding so hard I could hear it in my ears.
"Ramirez!" Lang's voice echoed through the trees, rough and desperate. "You should've kept your mouth shut! Should've minded your own business!"
"Give it up, Lang!" Hudson shouted back. "FBI's on their way. There's nowhere left to run!"
"Then I've got nothing to lose, do I?"
More gunfire. Hudson returned fire, and I heard a grunt of pain from somewhere in the darkness.
"He's hit," Hudson said quietly. "But he's still moving. Betty, I need you to stay here. Don't move, don't make a sound. I'm going to end this."
"Hudson, no."
"I have to." He grabbed my face, kissing me hard and fast. "I love you. Stay alive for me."
And then he was gone, melting into the shadows.
I crouched behind the car, the gun clutched in my trembling hands, and waited.
The silence was worse than the gunfire. Every rustle of leaves, every snap of a twig, made me flinch. I strained my ears,trying to hear something, anything, that would tell me what was happening.
A grunt. A thud. The sounds of a struggle.
Then a single gunshot.
And then nothing.
"Hudson?" My voice came out as a broken whisper. "HUDSON!"
Footsteps. Heavy. Coming toward me.
I raised the gun, my hands shaking so badly I could barely aim.
