CHAPTER 43
Naomi’s lungs burned.
Her legs screamed.
But she kept moving, kept stumbling over roots and rocks. Her vision blurred with exhaustion and terror.
The voices behind her were getting closer.
“You can’t run forever!”
The shout echoed through the trees.
She staggered forward.
Please, God. Please.
The woods were thicker here, and the underbrush difficult to navigate. She couldn’t see the road. Couldn’t tell which direction she’d come from.
She was lost.
And those men were right behind her.
Her foot slipped, and she stumbled again, catching herself against a tree. Her chest heaved. Her hands shook.
She wasn’t going to be able to outrun them. She knew that with certainty.
But she couldn’t give up either.
She pushed off the tree and her foot caught nothing but air. The ground dropped away without warning—a steepembankment, hidden by the undergrowth—and then she was sliding, grabbing at roots and brush that tore through her fingers, her boots scraping uselessly against the loose soil until she hit the bottom in a breathless heap.
For a moment she lay still, ears ringing, dirt in her mouth.
Then she saw it.
A massive boulder, half-buried in the hillside. Its base had been hollowed out by years of erosion. And there was a gap at the bottom—narrow, dark. Just big enough to hide her.
She scrambled toward it, the boulder feeling like her only hope.
Reaching it, she dropped to her knees and crawled under.
The space was tight and cold. Damp earth pressed against her back, and the smell of moss and decay filled her nose.
She pulled her knees to her chest, making herself as small as possible.
She pressed her eyes closed and prayed those men hadn’t seen her come this way. That they wouldn’t find her.
Micah’s face flashed in her mind. She should have listened to him. She was a rule follower. Why had she decided today not to be?
She knew. She’d always had a soft spot for dogs. Her whole family had.
What if these men found her? What if they killed her before Micah realized what she’d done?
Grace’s face fluttered through her mind, then Good Boy’s.
Then her mom . . . she’d already been through entirely too much loss. The last thing Naomi wanted was to add to that.
Footsteps crunched through the leaves nearby—slow, deliberate, searching. If she had to guess, they were coming from the ridge above her. From that angle, those men probably couldn’t see her. But if they came down here . . .
