No more thinking. No more waiting.
I run.
Pain radiates with every stride, but fear pushes me forward. My breath comes out in broken sobs, and the forest blurs into greens and browns and flashes of sunlight. Behind me, he roars something I can’t make out—but the sound chases me, claws at me, drives me deeper into the trees.
I don’t know where I’m going. I only know I have to keep going.
Because if I stop, I die.
Chapter 35
Ethan
SamandIpileinto his truck, neither of us wasting a breath. I gun the engine, gravel spitting out behind us as we tear down the road leading away from Lucky’s house.
We’re chasing shadows—but shadows leave marks if you know where to look.
Every half-mile, I slow.
Every half-mile, we check.
Sam’s already got his backpack unzipped, rifling through gear like this is his morning warmup.
“Slow here,” he mutters.
I ease off the gas. We both step out.
The air tastes like pine and warm dirt. The road is quiet, too quiet. I crouch, fingertips grazing the asphalt. “There,” I whisper.
A dark drip pattern. Not much… but consistent.
“Transmission fluid?” Sam kneels beside me.
I nod. “It's an older car… probably hasn’t had maintenance in years. Noticed the same by the lake house.”
“It’s leaking like hell.” He taps his phone awake, swiping fast. “Which works for us.”
We move another fifty meters. More spots. A thin smear, like a tire, skidded for half a second. The kind of thing you don’t catchunless you’ve spent your life hunting men who don’t want to be found.
We stop again. Sam pulls a compact drone—no bigger than his hand—out of his pack. The thing unfolds automatically like an origami monster.
“You bring toys everywhere now?” I ask.
He holds it out and grins. “Field toy. Don’t judge.”
I raise a brow. “Impressive.”
“Wait till you see what it does.”
The drone lifts, slicing up through branches. Sam holds his phone like a controller, thumbs steady, eyes narrowed. The screen reflects in his glasses—patchwork forest, long roads, breaks in the tree canopy.
I scan the shoulder of the road. Gravel is pushed outward in a pattern, as if a car turned sharply off the asphalt. I crouch again, tracing the indent. “Here.”
At the same time, Sam says, “This way.”
We both point at the same patch of churned dirt.
“Looks like he left the road fast,” Sam says. “Southwest.”
