Page 76 of Mountain Defender

I come to a screeching stop on the side of the road, jumping from the truck as it’s still rocking. Heart pounding in a frantic rhythm with my feet, I race towards her car. My hand is still clutched around the phone, my only connection with her.

Enzo and Knox come running up on either side of me. “She’s not in the car,” Knox says. “Her tracker puts her about two hundred yards into the woods.”

“I know,” I snap, veering away from the car even as instinct urges me to it. I need to know how badly she’s hurt, how much the car was damaged, if there’s blood…

Fuck.

Is there blood?

How much?

“I’ll check the car,” Knox says. “You guys go after Rory. Keep the call going. If I find anything?—”

“Take a look at the other one, too,” Enzo replies. He jerks his chin, gesturing ahead of him. It’s only now that I realize there’s a second car—a large pickup, actually—parked on the side of the road, about a hundred feet back from Rory’s.

A truck with a dented hood.

And as I glance at Rory’s car again, I spot something new. Not the damaged hood, but deep gouges in the rear bumper. Dents marked with paint that matches the pickup truck behind us.

“They hit her,” I choke out. “Someone hit her. Was it an accident? Did they… Fuck. Someone fucking hit her. Is she running? Trying to?—”

“Come on.” Enzo clamps his hand around my arm and drags me along with him, away from the scene of the accident and into the woods. Over his shoulder, he calls back, “I’ve got the line open. Check for evidence. Call Alec?—”

“I know,” Knox replies. A quick glance shows him half in-half out of Rory’s car, inspecting it. “I’ll keep him in the loop.”

“Come on,” Enzo repeats, turning back to me. “She’s not too far from here. We’ll find her.”

“She has to be okay.” But even as the words come out of my mouth, I’m terrified they’re wrong. With every step, my fear blossoms bigger, until it’s all I can see. All I can think of.

My Rory in the woods, hurt. Scared.

And the driver of the pickup. Who is it? Did they hit her on purpose?

“What if they’re chasing her?” I ask through a narrowing throat. “What if they hit her and she ran off, trying to escape?”

Enzo doesn’t answer right away. For a few seconds, it’s just our feet crunching through dried leaves and grass. A thin branch smacks me in the face and I bat it away, barely noticing the sting it left behind. “They could be trying to help,” he finally suggests. But from his tone, he doesn’t believe it, either.

What’s the likelihood that Rory would leave her car after an accident? Especially knowing how close she is to GMG? Knowing how quickly I could get here to help her?

I look down at my phone, searching for her blinking red dot again. It’s no longer moving, but static, stopped about three hundred yards from us.

“She’s up ahead,” I say, pitching my voice low so it doesn’t carry. “If someone’s after her, we need to be prepared. We need?—”

“I found something.” Knox’s voice comes through Enzo’s phone, even grimmer than it sounded just a minute ago.

Enzo glances at me. His eyes convey a message without needing words. Then he holds the phone up to his ear and replies quietly, “What is it?”

As he listens, we keep running, closing in on Rory’s dot on the screen. I keep stealing glances at Enzo’s face, feeling worse by the second. His features are hard. Shadowed. His jaw twitches.

Part of me wants to yank the phone from him. Demand to know what Knox is saying.

It’s Rory, my heart insists.My girlfriend. The woman I’m falling in love with. I’m the one who should be hearing this.

But I’ve been trained better than that. I know I can depend on my team. So I wait.

Not ten seconds later, Enzo says, “We’re almost there. Get my extra Sig from the cab. The Ka-Bar, too. Call the police if you haven’t already.” Then he ends the call and pockets his phone. His pace slows.

“What are you doing?” I hiss. “Hurry.”

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