Ace reached out and grabbed my hand. “Come on.”
I staggered after him as he pulled me along.
We weren’t going to outrun anyone while I was in this state. “You have to leave me.”
“No phaaning way,” Ace growled.
I shook my head, willing my legs to work. “If it comes down to it, save yourself and get out of here. My brother plans to kill you, but he won’t hurt me.”
“He’s done a piss-poor job protecting you so far. Or have you forgotten all those arrow wounds already?”
I ground my teeth. “I haven’t forgotten.”
His grip on my hand remained firm as he continued to pull me along. His expression turned severe, the moonlight carving sharp angles into his face. He clenched his jaw tightly, pressed his lips together in a grim line, and frowned so hard his brows angled low enough to look like twin blades.
How did I ever lose against him in card games?
“Come on,” he growled.
I stumbled after him, my breath catching as we plunged into the waiting shadows of the forest. The towering pines and cedars swallowed us whole, their low branches snagging on our clothes. The air was thick with the scent of damp earth.
A man’s shout echoed through the trees behind us.
My heart lurched.
They knew.
We hadn’t gotten far enough from the compound.
Ace threaded his fingers with mine and tightened his grip.
“Faster,” he hissed, his voice barely louder than my ragged breathing. “You can do this.”
More voices joined the first—closer now, angrier. The hunt had begun and we were the prey.
“We’re not going to make it,” I said. Besides, where would we go? Paul knew where we lived.
“So negative.” Ace kept his gaze trained forward.
“Should we hide?”
“There’s no way we can hide our tracks with them so close. We need to get to a stream or river and then we worry about hiding.”
We continued to jog through the forest. Every time I stumbled, Ace pulled me to my feet. I didn’t know this section of the forest well. It was beyond my normal route. Of course, my brother would set up his base beyond my range. He knew all my movements. How far was the nearest stream? Were we even heading in the right direction?
We staggered into a section of old growth forest. The tall trees reached for the sky and blocked out the sun with their dense canopy. The forest floor was clear of small bushes and shrubs, the ground hard packed and littered with pine needles and patches of moss. We wove around large tree trunks as the shouting of the men behind us grew louder.
“We’re not going to make it,” I hissed. “Leave me and get out of here.”
Ace frowned, his brow slashing down severely. He scanned the forest ahead of us and pulled me toward a thicket of bushes where the old growth gave way to newer growth. I knew this section of forest now. This part had burned during a forest fire a long time ago. The charred evidence lay underneath the moss and brush and provided nutrients for the trees that grew from the destruction.
“Wait here,” he said.
Good. He was leaving me. I wasn’t the one with the looming execution order on my head.
“I’m not leaving you,” he said before shoving me into the bushes.
I bit back a strangled cry, flailed my arms to vainly catch myself, and crashed into the shrubs. Branches snapped, twigs scraped my exposed skin and leaves rustled all around me. There was nothing quiet or covert about me slamming to the ground.
