Thunder sounded quietly, the noise coming from the road leading out of the clearing back to the highway. The sky was clear. The discordant information niggled at the back of her mind, but she was too busy watching Psycho to worry about it.
Bree gasped for breath like she was on the home stretch of a marathon. She couldn’t keep this up forever. The beaten path the car had made to the cabin continued down to the river. If something didn’t change soon, she might have to consider heading into the water.
The thunder got louder. More mechanical.
It was an engine; Bree’s brain had been too preoccupied to spend any bandwidth trying to identify it. Motorcycle, she finally realized.
The news reports hadn’t mentioned the serial killer having a partner, but with her luck, the guys were withholding that from the press.
Bree didn’t want to turn her back to the new threat, but she had to keep the actual man with the knife as her main priority. Psycho was getting more and more pissed off as he chased her around the car. She processed the insults and curses, and he pounded on the hood while she darted away. She flinched when he put his hand through the passenger window, but she didn’t lower her guard, not for a second. The only thing she did differently was try to track how much blood he was losing from the gashes in his arm. Maybe she’d get lucky, he’d pass out from blood loss, and she could steal his keys and drive away.
The motorcycle engine behind her stopped. “You are so fucked,” the new arrival said.
Nope, her luck wasn’t that good.
“Are you okay?”
Was he talking to her? Of course she wasn’t okay. She was being chased around a car by a psycho with a knife, and all she had to defend herself with were a tree branch and her wits; neither of which were overly helpful at the moment.
But something… “Marcus?”
She shouldn’t have done it, but the thought of an ally was too hard to resist. Bree looked over her shoulder.
She was right. It was Marcus, looking bigger and badder than ever. “Bree, are you hurt?”
Yes, but she answered, “No.” She was still breathing. Anything more than that made her fine.
“Come over here,” Marcus said.
“Psycho has a knife, and he’s pissed. I won’t make it.” Marcus was on the far side of the clearing. He had to start his bike, get it in gear, and be ready to fly as soon as she got on the back. She didn’t have time.
“I can handle—look out!”
Damn, Psycho was fast.
She didn’t get the full effects of a baseball swing, but Bree connected. Unfortunately, it wasn’t on the arm holding the knife. She hit, he hit.
Bree almost lost her grip on the branch, but even through the pain, her instincts kept her from dropping it. She brought it down, one-handed, on Psycho’s head when he lunged again. It glanced off, not slowing him down in the slightest despite the blood dripping into his eyes.
Psycho had a much better aim. His wicked blade punched right through Bree’s knit coat.
Hot. Cold. Pain. Numbness. Bree dropped her club and clutched at her biceps. The blood was hot on her skin in the breezy, spring air. She was with it enough to stumble backwards when she saw Psycho’s next swing, but after that her body stopped cooperating. Bree tripped over her own foot and fell hard. She lost her grip on her arm, and a fresh spurt of blood quickly soaked her chest.
As she lay in the dirt, a fight played out sideways in front of her. Marcus charged Psycho, knocking him away from her. When the biker reached for her dropped branch, Psycho pulled a revolver out of his cargo pants pocket.
“Are you kidding me?” she asked, not expecting an answer. Psycho had brought a gun to his own knife fight.
She blinked for just a moment, and abangforced her eyes back open. Marcus was sitting on the ground, wrapping his belt around his thigh, and Psycho was running back to the car. He dove through the driver’s door, and she heard the locks click into place before the engine roared to life. He slammed the car into reverse and backed down the path.
“He’s going to run us over,” she thought before she blinked again.
“Bree. Bree, wake up!”
Her arm was killing her. It felt like somebody was kneeling on it. Her muscles protested.
“Open your eyes,” Marcus ordered.
He actually was kneeling on her arm. His huge hands were wrapped around her scrawny bicep and he was squeezing, hard. “I can put a tourniquet on this, but you have to stay awake to hold it. I need to catch that fucker.”
