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16 Nathan

Her injuries pissed me off.

And what pissed me off more was the fact that she didn’t whine or complain about them. No, I didn’t want to hear some whiny female sniveling all over the place, but fuck. She earned it. I can’t even imagine the crap she’d been through in the last fifteen hours.

She was going to end up like me.

Messed up.

She deserved better than that.

I didn’t know her, but I knew enough to realize that kind of life wasn’t what I wanted for her. Hell, I wouldn’t wish this shit on my worst enemy.

Okay. Maybe I would.

But not her.

Never Honor.

God. Just her name in my thoughts was enough to stir up things in me that had laid dormant to the point I thought they went extinct. It was a freaking dandy time for them to show up out of the blue.

Especially in this situation.

Especially given what I had to do.

I fished the flashlight out of the crack between the seat and straightened. “We need to go.”

“Go?” she said. Her eyes widened and looked like two large white marbles.

“We can’t stay here. We’re sitting ducks.”

“It’s raining.”

Yeah, it was. “Exactly.”

“You need to explain,” Honor said, pushing herself up a little higher in the seat. She tried to hide the grimace of pain that crossed her face. I saw it. It pissed me off further.

“Lex slashed my tires. He wants us stranded. He wants us vulnerable. He’s out there. He’s going to be looking for us. He doesn’t want us to get out of these woods alive.”

“He’s going to kill us?” The veiled fear in her words caused my gut to tighten.

“We’re not safe yet. You might be out of that hole, but he still wants us dead. Now more than ever. If we get out of here, there’s going to be a manhunt for that bastard, and I’ll lead the team.”

“I already called the cops.”

“That’s good. I’ll call them too, have them send someone out here.” I probably should have called them when I got here, but I hadn’t wanted to call if she wasn’t here. I wanted to find her first. Of course, once I found her, I was too busy to call anyone.

“We know who he is. What he’s done.” Honor seemed to be reasoning it out for herself so I didn’t bother to reply. I watched as she reached under my jacket and pulled out the necklace I saw in the photo. “He’s done this before,” she said, her voice wavering. “We have to stop him.”

“We will. It’s why we can’t stay here. He will be expecting us to take refuge from the rain. He’ll expect you to be too weak to go on foot.”

“I’m not weak.”

I smiled a little. She was like a kitten with a really big roar. “I know you aren’t.”

“So what’s the plan?”

“The plan is to get moving, work our way to the road.”

“It’s dark. How will we know which direction to go?”

I was insulted. “Sweetheart,” I drawled. “I was trained for this. I could find my way out of a pig’s ass.”

“How the hell would you get into a pig’s ass?”

“Exactly.”

She snorted. It wasn’t very ladylike. It was cute as hell. “You make no sense.”

“You’re going to make me into one of the characters in your next book, aren’t you?” I couldn’t help but tease her.

“Yes. He’s going to have no teeth and one eye.”

I chuckled. “Wow, you got good eyesight. I was hoping the dark would disguise my ugly ass ‘til morning.”

“Whatever,” she tossed out.

As much as I wanted to sit here all night in this godforsaken tiny-ass back seat, I knew we had to go. We’d been here too long as it was. Before, I just didn’t have the heart to make her run off in the rain. She’d been standing there with this lost, hopeless look written all over her, and I could see the dark smudges of dried blood on her skin.

I knew I needed to assess her injuries and she needed a moment to rest.

But rest was over.

We had to move.

I picked up the water bottle she abandoned and handed it to her. “Drink some of this.”

As she drank, I pushed up out of the seat and climbed back up front. “I know you’re looking at my ass,” I told her as I moved.

I heard the sound of water spraying out of her mouth. “It’s too dark too see anything in here.”

“Didn’t keep you from looking anyway,” I quipped as I slid into the driver’s seat and opened the center console. I grabbed the rest of the power bars and the second bottle of water. “Put these in your pocket,” I said, handing her the bars.

Then I stretched over into the passenger side and felt around under the seat until my hand closed over the extra pistol I kept there.

“You know how to shoot a gun?”

“Nope.”

I passed it back to her. “Safety’s off. Point it and then pull the trigger.”

“What if I shoot myself?”

“Don’t.”

“Thanks for the lesson.”

“Anytime, babe.”

Her muffled giggle made me smile.

“You ready?”

All traces of the joking, friendly air that surrounded us up until that point now vanished.

“Yeah.”

Just as I was about to open the door, the sound of a blasting gun cut through the rain. Honor screamed as a bullet tore through the back of the ragtop.

“Get down!” I roared, flinging open the door and rolling out of the Jeep and across the ground. From my roll, I moved right into a low crouch, with the pistol cocked and ready in my hand. My eyes scanned the darkness and my ears trained on every single sound I heard.

I duck-walked toward the Jeep, keeping my back to the vehicle and my eyes open. Another bullet cut through the night, and I turned my head in the direction of the sound. Then I edged my way to the back side of the Jeep and fired off three rapid shots in the direction the bullets came from.

“Let’s go!” I whispered to Honor, leaning in the back seat and reaching down to the floorboard to practically yank her onto the ground.

She stumbled a bit but recovered quickly.

“If anyone, and I mean anyone, comes near us, freaking shoot them.”

She nodded sagely and I backed us up so we moved around the front of the car. All of a sudden, a bunch of thrashing in the woods behind us caused my heart to leap.

I fired off another shot and then dragged Honor off to the side and crouched behind some overgrown trees and shrubs.

The rain was still falling in heavy sheets, my clothes were soaked through already, and the wind made it feel a lot colder than it really was.

I placed a finger over my lips and looked at Honor. She rolled her eyes as if to say, “Well, duh.” She mouthed the word “run” to me, and I shook my head.

Running wasn’t my style.

Outsmarting idiots was.

We sat there for a while. The waiting game was long and arduous, but I knew eventually I would win.

It was probably an hour when I caught the first sign of movement near the Jeep.

Lex was creeping up to the back. I raised my gun to take a shot, but he quickly moved, rushing to the opposite side of the Jeep, hiding him from view.

I watched as he walked slowly, his head appearing over the hood. “Come out, come out, wherever you are,” he called.

Did he really think we would listen? Idiot.

I realized then that he was enjoying this. It was like a sport to him. It was likely the reason he dumped Honor in a hole and left her there. He liked the anticipation. Knowing she was down there, knowing he could have her whenever he wanted.

And now he anticipated a hunt.

I watched him move. One side of his body was a little lower than the other. He seemed to favor the right side over the left.

I knew then I’d managed to shoot him. It couldn’t have been that bad of a wound if he was still up and walking around.

But at least he was injured. He would get tired faster. He wouldn’t move as quickly as us.

He stopped at the hood of the Jeep and stared off into the woods just ahead. He seemed to listen for some kind of sound, but the heavy rain drowned out whatever he hoped to hear. Finally, he began walking again. I thought about taking the shot, about trying to drop him right there.

But what if I missed?

What if he managed one last shot after I hit him? What if that shot hit Honor??

Any mistakes I made could cost Honor her life. I couldn’t live with another death on my conscience. Maybe it wasn’t very Marine-like, but our best bet was to run, to get away. Outsmarting him was one thing, but engaging in enemy fire with some desperate crazy man wasn’t a good idea.

When Lex disappeared from sight, heading the way he thought we went, I made my move. I took Honor’s hand and stealthily led her in the direction from which Lex had just come. I didn’t think he would double back the way he just came.

Of course, I wasn’t one hundred percent sure… but it was a chance I was willing to take.