Garrett raced to his truck and got in behind the wheel. Blake got into the passenger seat, and Luke took the backseat.
“Where is she?” Luke asked.
Garrett passed his phone back to him. “I must’ve not had reception for a while inside the hospital. The app shows her last location, but the cursor hasn’t moved since. I know how to get there, but I doubt she’s just sitting on the side of the road.”
“I’ll call for backup,” Luke said, passing Blake the phone.
“Not yet.” Garrett hit the gas and turned on his lights and sirens as soon as he pulled out of his parking spot. “We don’t know who took her. If I can keep her name out of law enforcement’s database, I think that would probably be best.”
He didn’t miss the momentary look Blake exchanged with Luke, but then Luke passed Blake the phone. “Hopefully she got away from her captors and ran into the woods,” Blake said, looking at the screen. “That’s her best bet until we get there.”
“Agreed. But the longer she’s missing -” Blake started to say.
“I know!” Garrett hadn’t meant to raise his voice on his friends, but he could barely contain the rage flowing through his veins. He should’ve taken greater precautions with Reese staying on his property. The woman had trusted him, not just with her physical safety, but with her secret, and now it looked like he might have to reveal what she’d told him after all. It wasn’t that he didn’t think they’d understand, he’d just hoped Reese would get to do it herself.
He was flying down the freeway, his mind racing almost as fast as his truck. He’d been thinking about Reese all day, especially after running into her at the school. He’d acted like such a jerk. It wasn’t like him, but he was just so surprised to see her there, away from the safety of the guest house and his property. His fingers tightened around the steering wheel until his knuckles grew white. So much for his home being safe. He had no idea what had transpired tonight, but Reese had definitely not left willingly.
“Shit, guys, I have cameras on my property,” he said, remembering the surveillance system he’d installed a few months earlier.
“I’ll call Caden,” Blake said.
Garrett nodded. He’d find Reese, but then he needed to find whoever took her, unless they were still with her. The thought chilled Garrett to the bone. Running through the woods alone at night was scary enough, but having someone chasing her in the dark - he didn’t even want to imagine what she was going through right now.
He nearly floored the gas pedal, willing his truck to go faster. Thinking the guys would say something, Garrett waited for Blake or Luke to tell him to slow down, but neither one did.
They knew exactly what he was going through.
***
Dropping out of the van was both scarier and harder than Reese thought it would be. The back of her head slammed on something just as the rest of her body hit the ground and skid in the opposite direction of the van. She had the sense not to keep her arms tightly at her sides so as not get them stuck or run over, but the pain that seared her entire backside was enough to make her see stars. Her mouth flew open in a silent scream, but she managed to stifle it just before making a sound. In a perfect world, she would be lifted or carried from this spot, preferably with an IV drip of very strong pain medication, but that wasn’t in the cards. She had to get up and move.Now.
The word reverberated in her mind like a silent command, once, twice, and then on the third time, she finally wiggled her toes to make sure she wasn’t paralyzed. She really did need to get moving before - the van came to a skidding stop just feet away from her.
Shit! It was now or never. If they got her back in the van, she’d never get away. She’d probably never see Garrett again or meet his friends, or go to her first day of teaching, or - she scrambled onto her hands and knees, ignoring the dizziness and nausea that threatened to take her down.
How she managed to stand, Reese had no idea, but somehow, she got her feet under her and ran. Even as her knees threatened to give out and one of her shoes nearly flew off her foot, she fought her unsteady gait and focused on the dense woods in front of her. Those trees were her best chance of escaping. The leather jacket was ripped to shreds, but there was no time to register just how much pain she was in, or how badly her back and ass hurt, or how horribly the backs of her legs had been scraped up by the dock and then again by the gravel road. The back of her head was throbbing, and she was sure there’d be a goose egg on it the size of Texas. But none of that actually mattered right now.
Keeping her feet moving as fast as she could, she reached into her pocket, and without pulling the gadget out, pressed the button over and over again in quick succession. Maybe it hadn’t worked when she was in the water. Or maybe it was out of range when she’d pressed it in the van. She knew Garrett would come, she just hoped he’d come before whoever was chasing her caught her.
A branch hit Reese across the face, making the skin on her cheek sting, but she didn’t make a sound except to push it out of the way and continue on. She had no idea where she was or what direction she was headed. She just had to keep moving, because despite hitting the back of her head and being seriously scraped up, she was still alive - and she was determined to stay that way until Garrett found her.
The small gadget pressing into the side of her thigh gave her all the comfort she was going to get in these dark woods that seemed to creak, squeak, and crack with every step she took. Try as she might to walk on soft feet, there was always a twig snapping, a bird chirping, leaves rustling. It was impossible to tell if she was the one making sounds, or if it was just nature being natural. The one thing that was unmistakable, was the set of quick footsteps following not too far behind her.
The men knew she’d escaped and were obviously determined to get her back. This was something she’d considered could happen, but there was not much she could do about it now besides keep moving.
No matter how much she hurt or how the backs of her legs burned from what was going to be a serious case of road rash, she just had to keep going. Keep breathing. Keep praying that the gadget Garrett gave her had worked. She’d pressed it over a dozen times by now, but the damn thing didn’t make a sound. Didn’t seem to light up or buzz, or give her any sort of feedbackthat it had registered her distress call. And it wasn’t like she had time to stop and study it.
Her breaths came out hard and fast in the cool night air, but she pressed on. One foot in front of the other. Eventually she’d either find help, or Garrett would find her. Her right foot caught on a root and she nearly face planted, but caught herself on the trunk of a tree, scraping the palm of her already raw and cut up hand even more. She winced, but held in the sound, still not allowing herself to slow down. Whatever injuries she got could be treated. Right now, the only thing she needed to focus on was surviving.
At least that’s what she kept telling herself. It was better than letting those other thoughts creep in. The ones that started calculating the odds of her finding help, or that the stupid gadget had been destroyed somehow, or had no signal out here in the middle of nowhere.
She briefly considered hiding in a ditch or crawling into the hollow of a big tree trunk, but she hadn’t spotted either one of those yet. There had to be a way to buy some time for Garrett to find her though, because even if she was determined to keep moving, she’d been at this for a while now and she honestly had no idea how much longer she could keep going before collapsing.
***
Garrett pulled the truck over at the spot where the gadget’s app had last tracked Reese, but there was no sign of her. He slammed the dashboard with his fist, anger and helplessness coursing through him. “Maybe it’s a good thing she’s not here,” Luke said.
Garrett glared at him in the rearview mirror.
