Chapter 81

81

The sounds of gunshots would echo in Fletcher’s head forever. The sound of a woman’s terrified scream.

He started to run, but hard hands pulled him back. On two sides. It had to be two of them, or they wouldn’t have been able to do it. Ben and Quade.

Holding him back.

“You run in there now, and you could get you both killed,” Ben almost hissed at him. “Dylan ran that way. Go that way. Behind the barn. We’re going after the guy with a gun. He’ll need neutralized before we can get Dylan out of here.”

Fletcher nodded. “We need to hurry. I need to find her.”

“The problem is we are going in dark,” Ben said. Fletcher’s phone buzzed.

Fletcher grabbed it and tossed it to Quade. Fletcher was still trying to see her, anywhere. He’d heard her. He knew it was her.

A sound came behind them. Fletcher jerked around.

“It’s me,” a voice he recognized as Martin’s said. “I just saw Dylan with Bruce. By the far barn. She kicked him hard and ran off. I don’t have any damned signal. Brandt has satellite. He’s updating Sage and Joel about what we’ve got here now.”

“Which direction did she run?” Fletcher asked. There was a security light—behind the main house. Where the barns were.

“Behind the largest barn. Clint and Brandt are heading that way now.”

“And the guy with a gun?” Ben asked. “What direction did he head in?”

“He followed Bruce. But Bruce was following Dylan, Fletch. Everyone is converging in that direction. They all seem to be after her. Phil and Nick are coming from the river side. Derrick and Holton are on horses coming in the back service road. It was flooded out, but Derrick says he can get through. We’re going to cut them all off. And do whatever it takes.”

Fletcher was already moving.

* * *

Dylan didn’t know what she was going to do—she was just getting the hell out of there. Some lunatic had shot her—she thought it was just a flesh wound kind of thing, but she couldn’t tell. And she wasn’t stopping to find out.

She just kept running.

She could hear Bruce behind her. Dylan just kept running.

She fell. Rolled down a hill. Slammed into a rock or boulder or log or something. She just stayed where she was for a long moment. Longer than she should.

She didn’t know how much longer she could take this. She just didn’t.

Yes, she did.

She could take it and take it and take it—until she got back to the people who loved her. No matter what.

She was getting back to them, no matter what.