All my panic, my fear, my weird thoughts, melt at that word. No, not at the word. At the voice speaking it.
The world feels like it comes crashing down, the blood exploding in my ears, because I recognize it. I fuckingrecognizeit.
“Liam?”
“Run,” he insists.
The word is like a jolt of adrenaline forcing me up. The voice only feeds my frenzied panic. I don’t even look back as I hit the ground running.
Chapter 37
Piper
Iamnotan athletic person.
If I had any doubt before, I definitely don’t anymore as I stumble through the forest, wheezing and clutching at the stabbing stitch in my side. I’m sure if it were Quill, he’d have no problem getting away. But I’m panting so hard everyone around must hear, and I’m so focused on running I don’t even think of the massive trail I’m leaving behind that would easily allow anyone to follow me if they so chose.
And why the hell wouldn’t they choose? Why the fuck did Liam tell me to run? Why would he of all people want to save me?
He shouldn’t even be here. Logan had told us he and Dane were being kept at a secure location, until Quill returned to finish what he’d started.
And yet now, he’s free, and helping me. What the absolute fuck?
All those thoughts run through my mind distractedly, squeezing through the cracks of my focus on getting away, until at last, my strength gives out, and I bend over, clutching my knees to try to get my breath. I’ve heard all sorts of stories about what people are capable of doing when they’re running on adrenaline. Lifting cars, making coffee and watering plants despite bleeding out from stab wounds, walking for days through a jungle after having survived a plane crash.
Adrenaline allows me to… run just a little faster than usual.
Fuck me.I’m so tired, so sweaty and achy, I’d almost welcome death. I know it’s going to happen anyway.Just get it over with.
A sudden gunshot rips through the air and I moutha soundless scream then bound forward, a new surge of adrenaline hitting my veins, but I trip on the roots of a tree. I fall to the ground, and something sharp slices through my knee.
I try to scramble up again, but whatever it was must have hacked clean through several layers of skin. I glance down and see the puddle of blood mingling with the dirt on the ground. Beneath my knee is a broken bottle.
Well, shit. I’m in a practically untouched forest, but it just so happened I fell on the one piece of trash for miles around.
I guess it makes sense, given my kind of luck, that this is how I die. Not in a bad-ass, shot-in-the-head kind of scenario, but in an accidentally-tripped-and-fell-on-a-glass-bottle-and-then-bled-out-slowly scenario.
Another gunshot in the air and I struggle to a crawling position. I grab the broken bottle, pulling it out of my knee before remembering too late from a first-aid class I once took that doing so creates a second exit wound. Oh, well. Too late. I keep the bottle in hand, holding onto some desperate, stupid hope that I could use it as a weapon, as I start crawling on hands and one knee through the shrubbery, not daring to look behind me.
Yet another shot, and the explanation to all of this suddenly hits me like a punch to the stomach. Liam wasn’t trying to save me by telling me to run.
They’re hunting. I’m their animal, their prey, their amusement. And they’re fucking hunting me.
Tears sting my eyes as I half-crawl, half-drag my lower body further into the forest, looking desperately for a place to hide. I can’t hope to outrun them now. Not that I ever could. The only thing I can possibly do is try to hide.
Fuck. I should have climbed a tree while I was still uninjured, rather than run through the forest like a maniac. Now, with my bleeding knee, there’s just no way I could manage it. If I evencould have managed it to begin with.
I continue to crawl, my heart racing harder than ever as I hear light footsteps behind me. This is even worse than thinking I was going to die while crouching to pee earlier. I’m literally reduced to crawling like a rodent while they hunt me. It’s fucking humiliating.
With that thought, the rest of my energy gives out. I don’t want to die, but I can’t access the will to live. I stop crawling and lean against a tree, breathing hard. Another shot tells me they’re getting closer. For the moment, they’re not shooting to kill. Just shooting to remind me of what they’re doing. What I am to them. A game. A prey.
I manage to turn my head toward the sound of the shot, but I don’t see anything yet. They’re probably disappointed that I’m making this so easy for them. They’re probably hanging back just to give themselves the illusion that it’s hard, because what’s the fun of winning a game this fast?
I press the back of my head against the bark of the tree, trying to make peace with what’s about to happen. It’s hard to do that. It’s hard to do anything but wait, numb and exhausted.
And then I see it.
The hiding place.
