Chapter 83

83

Fletcher just kept going.

There were small footprints running through the snow. He used the light on his phone to illuminate the path.

Dylan was out there somewhere. The sun had fully set. There was only one light, and it was dozens of yards from the back barn.

She could be anywhere on this place. Anywhere now.

Fletcher just kept following those small footprints.

He had no idea what this was really about, and he didn’t give a damn. All he wanted was Dylan back safely. Everything else, leave it to the damned cops to figure out. But her—she was his entire world.

He was going to find her.

Fletcher rounded the back barn.

Just as someone leaped out at him from the darkness.

Someone equally as big.

They went to the ground. Fletcher started swinging.

He knew exactly who it was. He hadn’t needed a quick flash of visibility in the light from his phone to see.

“Bruce! You son-of-a-bitch. You are going to pay for taking her.” Fletcher’s hand wrapped around his uncle’s coat. He yanked.

“I didn’t take her. That was all Willy boy. What are you going to do, little Fletchie? See you’ve grown up since I saw you last.”

Bruce threw the first punch.

Fletcher was determined to throw the last.

* * *

Dylan recognized Fletcher’s voice in the darkness, and it filled her with hope.

He had come for her, just like she had known he would.

Dylan wasn’t going to just sit around for rescue, though. That was the man she loved fighting.

Dylan scrambled to her feet. But what should she do now?

The two men were rolling around on the ground, fists flying along with curses that would make a sailor blush. Dylan couldn’t see well enough in the dim light to know which man was even Fletcher. They were rolling and slinging and she just couldn’t tell.

She fought nausea from her broken arm from the wound in her leg. From her stomach. Bruce’s shoulder had slammed into her stomach so hard.

Dylan couldn’t see to help Fletcher at all.

But that was his phone. In the mud. The light was pointed down.

Dylan almost crawled across the mud to grab Fletcher’s phone.

People yelled out. Smoke built.

She and Fletcher were too close to the barn. And there was a fire building in that barn. Fast.

People were yelling, and there were a lot more than before.

Hard hands went around her from behind.

Dylan was yanked up off her feet. She screamed Fletcher’s name as she was dragged off into the darkness again.