Page 126 of Kings & Carnage

I couldn't think about that because if any of them were dead I would want to die too. Then I would stop running and give in to the hopelessness that threatened to suffocate me as I ran and ran.

"That way!" a man's voice yelled behind me.

They were closing the distance on all sides, their voices growing louder.

I urged my legs to move faster, trying to ignore the burning in my lungs, the stinging of my skin as it froze in the night air.

And then, from another direction, the barking of dogs.

This wasn't a chase. It was a hunt.

Chapter61

Rock

Hating myself was a welcome distraction from the fear that felt like a lead weight on my chest.

We should have left Blackwell Falls.

We should have taken Willa and gone far far away.

No amount of revenge was worth her life. Nothing was worth that.

I tried not to think about the vastness of the woods as we ran. Willa was a needle in a haystack and we weren't the only ones determined to find her. I couldn't even be sure we were running in the right direction. We seemed to be on some kind of trail but it was hard to tell with the snow cover.

The deeper we got into the woods the deeper the snow became, not the flattened snowpack that had been around the fire, but a good six inches of heavy wet snow.

I tried not to think of Willa, barefoot and half-naked, exposed to the cold and probably fighting for her life.

If I did that I was going to lose it, and Willa needed us all to keep it together.

Up ahead, a low-hanging branch blocked the path. I reached out to swat away and saw something snagged on its end.

I stopped running, panting from exertion, and reached for the branch as Neo and Drago came to a stop next to me.

A feather.

"She's been this way," I said, holding it up for them to see.

Drago reached into the hoodie he'd grabbed from the trunk of the Hummer and withdrew his gun. "If she's been this way, so have they.”

"We should split up," Neo said.

I looked at him like he was crazy because he must have been if he was suggesting we split up with a bunch of killers roaming the woods, looking for Willa and all too happy to kill us before we got to her.

“He's right," Drago said. “If two of us split off we might be able to circle around, intercept Roberto and the other men.”

"You take the path," Neo said to me. He looked at Drago. "You go north, I'll go south." He stared at us both, fury etched on his face. "We save Willa. Anyone in our way dies."

Chapter62

Willa

Iwas running out of steam, the cold and constant running catching up to me as I crashed through the woods.

Voices sounded behind me. "Where are you, little rabbit? There's no point running. We can smell you.”

They were close. Too close.

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