Chapter 19
Chapter
Nineteen
August 23 rd
1:35 A.M.
Gunshots.
Connor could have sworn he’d just heard gunshots.
Over the roar of the storm, it was hard to be sure, but he thought that’s what he’d just heard.
Since he’d killed four of the men who had come there tonight with the intent of killing him and Becca, only two were left behind. They would be watching over Becca, possibly hurting her although he couldn’t allow himself to think too deeply about that right now.
The chances that Becca had gotten her hands on a weapon were slim to none.
That meant …
As much as he didn't want to admit it, it likely meant that Becca was the one who had just been shot.
Twice.
Because he would have bet his life on the fact that he’d heard two gunshots.
Two gunshots meant two wounds.
Two wounds that could have either ended Becca’s life or she was bleeding out from them right now.
He had to get to her.
Pushing himself harder, Connor ran full out through the storm. Several times he slipped, almost losing his balance. But he kept going. The need to get to Becca was too strong to be ignored. Nothing was going to get in his way. Nothing was going to stop him.
When he reached the bridge they’d played Poohsticks on just hours ago, Connor faltered for a moment. How had they gone from that perfect moment where they’d shared and taken another step to getting back what they’d had to this mess? To running through a raging storm, to fighting for their lives, to blood and death and pain?
Forcing himself to keep moving, Connor pushed harder, fought against the wind gusting against him, trying to push him backward, slow him down. The rain and the dark made it almost impossible to see more than a few yards ahead of him, but he didn't need to see. He knew where the cabin was, and he wasn't going to stop until he got there.
Finally, the cabin came into view.
Light still danced from the window so he knew that Becca and the other two men were inside.
Even though his heart urged him to keep running, to go bursting inside, to shoot anything that moved that wasn't Becca, Connor managed to cling to the last dregs of his self-control and slowed down.
Bursting in there could get Becca killed.
No way was he going to be responsible for her death.
If she was still alive.
Creeping up to the house, keeping to the shadows, approaching from the darker side of the house, Connor stopped when he reached the kitchen window.
There was no one in there.
The cabin stood empty.
Panic stole any remaining common sense he had left, and he bolted for the back door, flinging it open and stepping inside.
It looked pretty much the same as when he and Becca had gone up to bed before the storm rolled in and the generator went out. Except one of the chairs had been pulled away from the table and there were pieces of rope lying around it. Becca’s sweater lay discarded on the floor, and as he scanned the room, he noticed the body lying on the ground.
Even in the thin light of the flashlight, he could tell it was too big to be hers.
That might have given him some relief if Becca was anywhere within sight.
The front door stood open, and other than the body, it didn't seem like anyone else was inside. Still, he hurried over to the body, crouched beside it, and reached out to touch his fingertips to the man’s neck to confirm that he was indeed dead. He was. There was no pulse, and he could see that the man’s chest wasn't rising and falling so he wasn't breathing. He was still warm, but it had only been a few minutes since he’d heard the gunshots.
The shot had hit him in the neck, and he’d bled out quickly. Who had fired the bullet?
Becca? If she had, how had she gotten her hands on a weapon?
The missing man? Had he shot his teammate and gone rogue?
Was that why Becca wasn't there now?
Shoving to his feet, Connor paced toward the stairs. He couldn’t hear any sounds to indicate that someone was up there, but he intended to check. If they had fled out into the storm what did that mean? Where were they?
What the hell had gone on in this room?
Just as he passed the table, something caught his attention. A crack of lightning lit up the world outside, and some light filtered into the cabin. It illuminated the table, and he caught sight of something shimmering on the smooth wood.
It looked like something wet.
Blood.
There was a puddle of blood on the table.
Whose blood?
Becca’s?
It was clear she’d been in the chair at some point, the men wouldn’t have tied up one of their group, that made no sense. So she’d been the one in the chair and yet someone had cut her free. Why?
His gaze landed on the sweater.
It was soaked and lying in a puddle of water. He couldn’t see Becca going out of her way to ask to take it off. She faced bigger problems than sitting in a wet sweater, and even if she had taken it off, her T-shirt and shorts would have been wet anyway.
Someone had taken it off her.
To rape her.
There was no other option.
It was the only thing that made sense, and he already knew what the men sent here had planned.
So one of the men had cut her free from her bonds with the intent of raping her only somehow she must have gotten away from him and gotten her hands on the weapon. She had to have been the one to shoot the other man because, otherwise, the two would have overpowered her together and she’d still be there.
She must have gotten another shot off as well, hit the man who’d been going to rape her. It had to be his blood on the table. With both out of commission, she must have taken her chance and run.
Out into the storm.
Only the second man wasn't dead.
And he wasn't in the cabin.
Connor’s gaze shifted to the open front door. The other man must be out there hunting her, injured but still able to move, and now with a grudge against her.
Did Becca know she wasn't alone out there?
Did she know she was prey being hunted?
Locating the flashlight, Connor switched it off and pocketed it. If the man came back to the cabin, he didn't want to give him any advantage, and if he found Becca and she was hurt, he wanted to be able to attend to her.
Then he took off back into the storm.
It hadn't abated, if anything, it seemed to somehow be increasing in intensity. The wind was so strong even he was struggling to make progress against it, he couldn’t imagine how much harder it was for Becca, who was not only so much smaller than him but had a prosthetic that would give her another disadvantage.
He ran through the woods, desperate for a sign of her, but there were none to track thanks to the rain. It felt like hours had passed since he woke to find the generator had gone out. In reality, it couldn’t be more than an hour. Exhaustion hammered at him, though, the physical toll of running through the storm, along with the gunshot wound he’d gotten was getting to him.
Not that he had any plans of stopping.
The only thing that would stop him was finding his girl.
When he had her safe in his arms, they could sleep for a month.
Since he had no idea which direction Becca would most likely have gone, he was searching blind. She didn't know these woods like he did, she could be running closer to the road or away from it. She could be running toward the closest neighbor or further out into the woods. Or she could be running in circles.
Which was exactly what Connor felt like he was doing. He was trying to cover as much ground as he could in the shortest amount of time possible, so he was zig-zagging about, trying to find any sign that Becca had come this way.
He’d worked his way up a small mountain that he knew had a sheer cliff on the other side, a drop of around fifteen feet to the forest floor below and was about to turn around and work his way back down the mountain and head to the other side of the river when a crack of lightning lit up the night.
For one second, he saw her.
Becca. Standing on the edge of the cliff, looking away from him.
Unfortunately, he wasn't the only one to spot her right when she was at her most vulnerable.
One second, she was there, the next a body slammed into her, and she disappeared from view.
August 23 rd
2:02 A.M.
How long had she been running?
More importantly, how long could she keep going?
Becca trembled from cold and exhaustion. Her leg muscles were cramping, water had dribbled down her leg and gotten into the top of her prosthetic, making it slippery against her stump, and she kept losing her balance and hitting the ground hard.
Kept getting back up, though.
Now that she had this chance of freedom she wasn't going to waste it.
Only it felt like she was wasting it.
The storm had her all turned around, and by the time she’d run in a panic from the cabin and then calmed down a little, she was completely and utterly lost. She couldn’t figure out which way led to the long, winding driveway that would get her to the road, and she couldn’t remember which direction the closest neighbor was. She couldn’t remember anything.
Which led to her just running wildly and hoping for the best.
Not a particularly smart plan, but what else did she have?
Even if she could find her way back to the cabin, it wasn't safe there. She was pretty sure she’d killed both the men, but she hadn't checked so there was a chance one of them was alive and waiting for her there. Connor had to be alive—she couldn’t let herself think he was dead—and out here somewhere in the storm, but she had no idea how to find him.
All she could do was run and pray.
Those prayers came in pretty handy when she stumbled yet again, going down to her knees.
Only this time one of her hands landed on nothing but empty air.
Like it was happening in slow motion, Becca felt her body tip forward. Gravity and her body’s momentum worked against her, and she was positive this was how she was going to die.
Her life flashed before her eyes.
Meaningful moments.
Shared with family and friends.
Laughter, joy, happiness.
Then darker ones.
Pain and loneliness.
Connor.
Her greatest love, her biggest betrayer, her hope for the future.
Her everything.
No.
She couldn’t leave him.
Not like this.
Not when he could be out there somewhere needing her.
She couldn’t give up now, she’d already done the hard part and escaped.
All that ran through her head in the half a second or so it took for her to shift her body weight so she could scramble backward away from the edge of the cliff.
Close.
Too close.
Ignoring her body, which was screaming at her to stay and rest, Becca instead shoved back to her feet. Through the dark, she looked down the side of the cliff she’d almost gone over. It was hard to see how steep the fall would have been, but she was glad she hadn't found out the hard way.
Right as she was about to turn and keep running in a different direction, a bolt of lightning lit up the sky and she got a clear look at what would have been her fate if she hadn't been able to pull herself back in time.
Becca gulped.
That had to be a fifteen-foot drop at least.
Possibly survivable, but not in good shape.
Certainly, not in good enough shape to find a way to get help for herself and Connor.
When something slammed into her, Becca was taken completely by surprise.
For a second, she thought it was just a gust of wind shoving her, then she thought it was a branch from a tree that had hit her.
It wasn't until she was falling that her brain finally clicked into place.
It wasn't the wind and it wasn't a branch.
It was a person.
A person who had shoved her right over the edge of the cliff she’d only just avoided falling over mere seconds earlier.
A scream was ripped from her lips. It was picked up by the wind and tossed about and she was sure that the only two people who heard it were her and whoever had just knocked her over.
Not that there was anyone else around to hear it anyway.
Neighbors were too far away. She had to believe that Connor had been able to kill the other men who had come after them, although she supposed there was a good chance that was just wishful thinking. They could be out there, hunting her, and Connor could be dead.
There was no conscious thought on her part to try to stop herself from hitting the ground.
Nothing more than instinct had her whipping out her hands, and when she found something to hang onto, her fingers curled around it of their own accord.
Her body jerked to a halt.
Stopping its descent abruptly.
Pain jerked through her shoulder, and the weight of another person hanging onto her almost made her let go.
Probably would have, but as she flailed wildly about, her feet were able to find some sort of purchase.
It wasn't much.
With all the rain, everything wasn't just wet, it was slippery to the point of barely being able to keep a grip on it. The wind only made it that much worse.
“Becca!”
Someone screamed her name, but it wasn't the man clinging to her stomach, his legs kicking wildly and almost making her lose her grip.
The voice came from somewhere above her.
“Becca!”
That sounded like … Connor?
All of a sudden, a bright light blinded her, and she cried out and quickly closed her eyes, so unprepared to be able to see anything that wasn't dark and rain and the odd glimpse of the woods that the sudden light sent pain stabbing through her skull.
“Connor?” she called out.
“Right here, moonlight,” his soothing voice assured her.
Tears flooded down her cheeks, joining the steady stream of water. When she looked up, she could see his face as he’d adjusted the beam so it wasn't shining directly into her face.
“I thought you were ...” Becca trailed off unable to say the word.
“Ditto,” he agreed.
“She’s not going to live so say your goodbyes,” a voice snarled right beside her ear, and she realized that whoever had knocked her off the cliff had shifted so he was pressed right against her back and reaching for the hand that clung to an old tree root.
It was the gun man.
She knew she’d shot him, thought he was dead, but he must have survived and come after her.
Now he had her.
She was too weak, too exhausted, and nowhere near strong enough to be able to stop him from taking her down with him.
Maybe she would survive the fall.
But maybe not.
And even if she did, she might wind up wishing she hadn't.
“You're not taking her away from me,” Connor growled.
“Oh, I'm taking you down with us,” gun man sneered, and she felt one of the hands wrapped around her waist like a vice move away.
Becca knew what he was going to do. He was going to grab the weapon that he almost definitely had on him, and he was going to shoot at Connor. Even though Connor was in a better position than either of them he wasn't going to move away from the edge so long as she was hanging there, seconds away from falling.
If she wanted to save the man she loved, she was going to have to sacrifice herself.
Something that, in the moment, Becca found easy to do.
She loved Connor and he’d been there for her through good times and bad. He’d made one mistake over a decade ago that had cost them the future they both wanted, but he’d never stopped loving her and she’d never stopped loving him.
If their positions were reversed, she knew he wouldn't hesitate to protect her.
She owed him nothing less.
By some absolute miracle, the weapon she’d left behind when she’d first spotted Connor’s blood, but kept with her when she fled the cabin was still in her hand.
There was no time to worry about aiming. She couldn’t see behind her, she could barely move without risking falling, and she could feel gun man moving, trying to get aim at Connor and take him out.
Not happening.
Shifting her arm behind her, Becca flinched when gun man fired his weapon at Connor. The sound was loud even though the wind stole most of it. Moving the gun until it pressed against the torso of the man intent on killing her, she fired.
A howl of pain tore through the night.
The arm around her waist tightened, almost making her lose her grip.
She fired again.
The arm loosened a little.
She fired again, and again, and again until there were no bullets left.
Gun man was falling, the arm around her limp now.
“Becca!” Connor screamed and she saw him leaning over the edge just a couple of feet above her.
“I love you, and I want to give you—us—a second chance,” she blurted out, just in case she did get taken down with gun man. If she was about to die, she needed Connor to hear those words.
But gun man drifted away, his hold on her disappeared, and just as she thought she had done the impossible and survived, she felt a tug on her prosthetic.
“Connor!” she cried out in panic.
The beam of the flashlight danced about. “Hold on, Becca. Don’t let go. You hear me? Do not let go.”
She wouldn't.
At least not if she could help it.
But the pull on her prosthetic was dragging her down.
Another shot fired, this one from Connor’s weapon, and then gun man was gone, taking her prosthetic with him.
The smile filling her face died when she realized she was slipping too. His weight had been too much, and now with only one foot, she couldn’t maintain her hold on the side of the cliff any longer.