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“Are those bullet wounds? Or stab wounds covering you?”

They were both.

“Help…” Gabriel begged.

“Help him,” Hunter ordered. “I’ve…got to find Shelby…” He almost went down again. Almost took John Henry with him.

“Uh, you can’t find anyone. Hunter? Hunter! Bro, stay with me. Look at me!”

His head had just sagged forward. He might have blacked out for a moment. Hunter snapped his head back. Sucked in a deep gulp of air. He could find Shelby. He would find her. He still had the switchblade. He broke free of John Henry. Lurched and lunged for the woods. She’d already been gone too long. “Shelby!” A yell. He didn’t feel the pain in his body any longer, and he knew that wasn’t a good sign, but Hunter just didn’t care. “Shelby!” This time, it was a bellow. But he had to be loud. If she heard his voice, she’d come to him…

She had to come to him.

Before Kimber found her.

“Shelby!”

“Dammit, I am coming with you!” John Henry was there. Helping to hold him up. “We’ll get Shelby, then we’ll come back and help that professor. I am not letting you run off and die!”

“Shelby!”

“Are you even listening to me?”

He lurched forward. “Shelby!”

Her head whipped to the left.

She’d just heard Hunter. She knew that she had. Shelby bit her lip because all she wanted was to cry out to him. To scream his name so that he could come and find her.

But she couldn’t do that. Because she wasn’t alone.

“How is that asshole still alive?” Kimber demanded. She was talking to herself. Just a few feet away. Her voice kept floating to Shelby. Sort of drifting in and out because Kimber wasn’t being loud, not like Hunter.

Shelby crouched behind a bush. One hand touched the soft leaves. The other clenched the knife she still held. The knife she’d taken from Kimber.

The one that the other woman had intended to shove in my ear.

“Shamus should have ended him by now.” Louder. Closer. Disgruntled.

Shamus?

Tears still streamed down Shelby’s cheeks, but her head had tilted toward the rain again, and her eyes were feeling a little bit better.

“Where are you?” Kimber demanded. Kimber had pulled out her phone, and she was using the flashlight app to shine in the darkness.

Shelby could see that light well enough, but Kimber hadn’t found her. Not yet.

“Shelby!” Hunter’s roar.

“He sounds desperate,” Kimber called out. “Better answer him.”

If she answered, Kimber would attack. But…

All I can see is the phone in her hand. Did Kimber have another weapon? Where was the gun she’d taken from Shelby before? The taser? The mace? She must have something.

“Shamus is going to end him. Did I mention Shamus before? No? I met him ages ago. Slept with him. Gabriel sleeps with college students all the time, and I have to tell you, I do see the appeal. Shamus has amazing staying power. He was always asking me questions about the Sorority Seven Killer, and maybe I just had to brag to him a bit. He was so impressed. Told me that, if we did things just right, we could have the story of a lifetime on our hands.”

Shelby inched forward a little bit.