Page 77 of Sniper's Pride

Because as far as she was concerned, there was no fate worse than death.

Mariah wanted to live.

She still wanted tolive.

Walton squeezed, and she knew she had to get her hands up. She had to duck her head to get some air, fight him off, and try to save herself in the maybe six seconds—if she was lucky—before she was unconscious.

She’d hidden the fact that she knew a couple of moves from her abductor, who was standing over by the barn door, watching the interplay between Walton and her like it was a deeply boring television program. She did a lightning-fast calculation. Griffin had told her she would need to run, so she needed to stay conscious no matter what.

Even if she showed her hand.

Or better yet, her elbow.

She moved her head, dipping her chin to see if she could create some space by pressing her chin into the top of Walton’s fingers where he gripped her. She tugged her hands out of the duct tape first, then brought them up to yank down on the hand at her throat, creating just enough room to get a breath in.

At the same time, she shot to her feet, slamming down on Walton’s wrist with one hand to jerk him toward her, so she could use her other arm to elbow him.

Directly in his fleshy, red face.

It hurt.

That was her first thought. In the next second, she understood that the crunching sound she’d heard was probably his nose. She shoved him back from her, paying no attention to the high-pitched, enraged sounds he made as he fell to the ground with a thud and then writhed there.

Like some kind of insane pig.

“You stupid, stupid bitch,” her abductor said quietly.

Mariah pushed away from the chair, kicking it back from her, and then took a few steps away from Walton in case he decided to grab for her.

“I told you I was going to hurt you,” her abductor said softly. With great relish. “I’m going to break every bone in your arms and legs. Then I’m going to watch him fuck you till you bleed. Then I’ll take a turn, and believe me, bitch, you’ll beg for him to come back and give you some more when you see how I do it.”

She refused to dwell on any of the vile, disgusting things he’d said, because they might actually kill her where she stood.

This was about staying alive. By any means necessary.

Be a weed, not a flower,she ordered herself.

“That sounds great,” she drawled. “I don’t know where you’re from, but this is Georgia. Out here in the country, we take ugly words like that as an invitation. To end you. Is that what you’re looking for?”

“Until you bleed,” her abductor said again, with akind of fervent delight that Mariah suspected might give her nightmares after she survived this.

But nightmares were a small price to pay for survival. She believed that with every part of her. Every currently intact part of her.

He took a step toward her. Mariah took a step back.

We do what we have to so we can go home,Blue had told them.

She remembered Griffin’s face when she’d told him she loved him. The way his fingers had traced over the bruise on her cheek. The way he’d kissed her in an empty inn above a lonely harbor, then taken her to bed.

And after all this time, and all those years in Atlanta, she hadn’t truly found her home until she’d taken a ferry across the moody Alaskan sea and stepped off into Grizzly Harbor.

Mariah knew that whatever happened here, she would, by God, be going home one day.

And it was as if someone heard her.

Because something outside the barn exploded.

It sent the man before her diving for cover. It blew Mariah back a few feet. She slammed into the stall behind her, but at least she stayed upright. Her head ringing, her body battered and strange, but upright.

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