Page 85 of Through the Fire
When Elena jerked in surprise, Kit knew she’d guessed right. It probably wouldn’t save her life, but she was still happy to have one more piece of the puzzle—and to know exactly where Elena was heading.
A gleam of metal caught her eye, and she saw the unmistakable curve of a leg-hold trap buried in the leaves. She leaned sideways, using her weight to make Elena veer left.
“Knock it off,” Elena growled, shoving the gun against her spine painfully. “It’s just as easy to shoot you here.”
Saving her breath, Kit gave Elena one more shove and then jumped, praying that it was far enough, that she would clear the spot. Elena made a surprised sound at the sudden movement, and her hand was jerked from Kit’s arm. Just as she landed, Kit dropped, hearing the dull metal clang and a scream just before the crack of a close-range gunshot.
A sharp, agonizing pain shot through her thigh. Kit stumbled, almost falling. Blood pulsed from a hole in her leg, immediately darkening the fabric of her pants with hot liquid that chilled quickly. She stared at it, shocked, but then ripped her gaze away. She needed to run. Elena was still too close and had the gun. It would be easy for her to kill Kit right now. Adrenaline kicked in, and she stumbled forward, feeling a fresh gush of blood running down her leg as jagged pain stabbed her with every step.
Drops of red dotted the pristine snow, leaving a trail Kit knew a kindergartner could follow, but there was nothing she could do. If she stopped to bind it, then Elena would catch up with her, and then she wouldn’t just have a hole in her leg—she’d have a matching one in her head. Gradually, the pain faded and the wound went numb, leaving only a strange wobbliness to the injured leg. She sped up, weaving through the trees, trying to put as many things as possible between her and the gun.
“Bitch!” Elena shrieked behind her, right before the gun fired twice more. “I’ll track you down and kill you slowly for this! You can try to run, but I’ll find you!”
Risking a glance back, she saw Elena prying open the vicious jaws of the trap that had locked around her ankle. Blood reddened the churned-up snow around the trap, and Kit felt a base pleasure in the fact that she wasn’t the only one hurting. Turning back around, Kit fled, flying along the narrow path faster than she’d ever run before, ignoring her numb and shaky leg, even as it tried to buckle under her weight. She dodged around evergreens and plowed through brushy blockades, resisting the urge to look behind her, knowing that would just slow her down. She had to take full advantage of her head start, or she would be dead.
The ground sloped down, and Kit used it to run even faster. The snow and dead leaves under her boots were slick, and the rocky surface didn’t give her any traction. Soon, she was going too quickly to stop, and her boot skidded on a loose rock. Her bad leg gave out, and her arms flailed out to the sides as she tumbled down, sliding and rolling and twisting as she bounced painfully off a tree trunk.
It took several seconds for her to realize that she wasn’t moving. Her leg was starting to hurt again, but the throbbing helped her hold on to consciousness. From the stain soaking her pants, she was losing too much blood. Shaking her head to clear her brain, the urgent need to get as far from Elena as she could hit her again, and she tried to scramble to her feet. As soon as she shifted her right leg, pain tore through her, and she sucked back a scream that wanted to escape.
The second time, she managed to pull herself to her feet, but she only got a few feet before the world spun and her leg folded underneath her. Her brain threatened to panic. Elena was coming to kill her, and Kit couldn’t even move her leg, much less stand. She slammed the mental door on the fear, desperately focusing on her breathing to keep the pain from overwhelming her common sense.
She needed to move. If that was impossible, then she needed to hide. If she couldn’t run or walk, then she needed to crawl or even drag herself to a hiding spot. Looking around, she spotted a downed pine thirty feet away that would provide some concealment. Having a plan, even one as basic as that, helped to calm her shattered nerves, and she tentatively moved her leg again, gritting her teeth against the need to cry out. Just that small shift made black spots overtake her vision. Blinking rapidly, she managed to focus again, but she knew she couldn’t hold on to consciousness for long.
There was no way she was standing or even crawling, so that left dragging herself across the ground. One arm at a time, she pulled herself toward the log, each movement sending jagged spikes of pain through her right thigh. Grabbing a sapling in her outstretched hand, she tugged her lower body across the patchy snow, using her left knee to propel her forward. Her injured leg hit a mostly buried rock, and agony shuddered through her, strong enough to cloud her brain and narrow her vision. Glancing back, she saw the bloodstained trail she was leaving in her wake, the red vivid against the white of the snow.
Stay conscious. Stay conscious.
Her mantra worked, and the woods around her came back into focus.
“Well, now, that’s just pathetic.” Elena’s voice was close, too close. Kit turned onto her side, terror muting the tearing pain that movement sent through her, and saw Elena just a few feet away, limping. There were tears and bloodstains on the calf of her right leg, and Kit felt that vicious satisfaction again that Elena wouldn’t escape completely unscathed. It made Kit’s inevitable death a little less bitter. She knew the final shot was coming. Even if Kit could stand, there was nowhere left to run. She was trapped, just like a rabbit in one of Murphy’s traps.
With a chilling smile, Elena raised the gun and took aim.
* * *
As Wes pulled his truck behind the chief’s squad car, he felt his stomach twist in fear. The previously sleepy house had erupted into chaos. People and dogs were everywhere, their frantic motions projecting the emergency situation. He couldn’t see Kit.
Quickly tying an improvised leash onto Justice’s harness, Wes jumped out of the truck with the dog, running up to the closest person.
“Sam! Where’s Kit?”
Sam turned toward him, and Fifi moved with the teen, pressing herself close to his legs. Sam looked terrified, with a green cast to his pasty-white skin. From his expression, Wes knew that the answer wasn’t going to be good.
“Elena t-took h-h-her.” His tone was thick with concern and self-recrimination. Turning away from Wes, he looked down at his dog. “F-Fifi, f-f-find K-Kit! C’mon, g-girl. You c-c-can d-do this. F-find Kit!”
“She’s not trained yet, Sam,” the chief said, his voice kind despite the tension underlying it. “Justice will find her, but you need to stay here.”
Unable to bear another second of just standing there, Wes tightened his fingers around Justice’s twine leash. “What door did they leave through?”
“The b-b-back,” Sam said, and Wes ran through the side yard to the back porch, Justice, anxious and hyper, bounding along next to him. Sam started to follow, but the chief stopped him. Tuning out their argument, Wes focused on Justice.
Crouching down in front of the dog, he put a hand on either side of Justice’s face. This was it. There was no more time to waste. Kit was out there with a homicidal Elena, and Wes needed to find her—now. Justice looked up at him, his body unusually still, as if even he understood the gravity of the situation. “Justice, find Kit.”
Justice started circling, his nose to the snowy ground. After just a few seconds that felt like an eternity, he bayed and took off for the trees. Wes ran, Justice in front of him, pulling the leash tight. They crashed through the brush, ignoring the evergreen branches dumping their load of snow down his back and over Justice. The dog seemed to fly in front of him, and he cursed his own human legs for slowing them down. He ran faster, weaving through the trees, not knowing what Elena’s plan was or how long she would keep Kit alive. Wes was grateful that he was used to running through the woods around his tower, that his lungs had become accustomed to the high altitude so that he could keep up with Justice as they sprinted after Kit.
Justice didn’t hesitate, following the trail without slowing, but it still felt too slow. As they plunged through a grove of aspen, a gunshot rang out, clear and loud in the cold winter air. Wes froze at the sound, his heart plunging into his stomach, and the dog’s momentum yanked him forward again. His legs felt numb as he ran, but he still pushed them harder, imagining Kit shot and bleeding and dying in the snow.
He almost tripped over the sprung leg-hold trap. The fresh blood smearing the trap and dotting the trail made fear rip through him. From the tracks, it was obvious that one of the women had gotten caught—but which one?
