Page 30 of My Mountain Man Stalker
He nods and starts typing fast, hands flying over the keyboard.
Micah flicks the headlights off and adjusts the GPS. “Fastest way back to the ridge?”
“Access road,” Nate says. “We’ll be on foot for the last mile.”
“Won’t matter,” I mutter. “I’ll run it barefoot if I have to.”
The truck slams through mud and snow like a tank. Trees blur past. The sky is turning that winter shade of orange-gray, the light before the storm.
“I saw her face,” I say after a moment. “On the feed.”
Nate glances at me.
“She was scared. But she fought.”
“She’s a fighter,” Micah says. “You trained her.”
I swallow hard. “I didn’t train her for this.”
“She’s alive,” Nate says. “That means there’s still a chance.”
“She won’t be if we don’t find them soon.”
My mind spirals. I think of Wren barefoot in the cabin. Wren curled against me, whispering that she trusted me. That shefelt safewith me. I made her believe that. I let her believe it.
And now she’s in Liam’s hands.
Because I let my guard down. I let my emotions cloud the op. I let her get close, and I thought that meant I could keep her safe by sheer will alone.
I failed.
But I won’t fail again.
“I’m going to find her,” I say, voice like gravel. “And I’m going to bury that bastard.”
Neither of them argues.
Because they know what I am when someone comes for what’s mine.
They saw it in the war.
They’ll see it again tonight.
Nate closes the laptop. “Let’s burn the whole world down.”
And I nod.
Because I’ve already started the fire.
12
Wren
This is the kind of place that’s seen too many secrets and not enough daylight.
My wrists are raw where the zip ties cut into my skin. My mouth tastes like copper and dust, and my left cheek still burns from where Liam hit me. My head aches, but I’m conscious. A little too conscious. Every nerve is lit up like a power line in a storm.
There are three other girls tied up beside me.
