Irresistible Force (A K-9 Rescue Novel)(48)

He was pulling at her jeans but he couldn't get them down. "Raise up!"

"I can't. You're too heavy. Get off."

He pointed his gun at her. "Nothing funny."

She nodded and, coming up on her elbows, scooted backward out from under him when he rose up on his knees.

He watched with greedy eyes as she slipped her jeans down to the top of  her hips. But then she couldn't do it. Couldn't let him think she'd  wanted this, no matter if he killed her. She had been a victim too often  in her life, at the whim of circumstances beyond her control. Not this  time.

She screamed, levering her torso off the floor with hands curled into talons.

He didn't hit her with the barrel this time, simply struck her in the solar plexus, the blow knocking her back to the floor.

He was on her, this time not taking any time to enjoy the unique  features of the woman beneath him. He even laid his gun down behind his  right knee, impossible for her to reach.

Shay grunted in pain as he tore at her clothing, and turned her head. Not everything was out of reach.

He didn't notice her arm snake out, or the soft click. He had her jeans  to her knees but her boots prevented him from tugging them further. He  tried to flip her over, and she knew what he was planning to do. This  time, she fought back, keeping his attention just long enough.

A lovely blue flame had leaped up by the hearth slate. It ran quickly  along the top of the tequila spill line that ran under the chair and  into the braided floor rug. The rug caught first. He didn't notice. He  only knew she was losing the fight.

In the end Shay found herself crying out, "Fire!"

"What the fuck?"

"Fire! Get off me!" Shay pushed at him with all her might. The flames were only inches from her face.

His eyes went wide as he scrambled off her. He reached for his gun even  as the undercarriage of the chair began to smoke. He backed off and got  to his feet. Seemingly confused by the fire, he aimed his pistol at the  carpet first and then at the chair, as if the flames would surrender to  his firepower.

Shay didn't wait to see who would win. She rolled away from him and onto  her feet. Even as she grabbed her jeans to pull them up over her hips,  she headed for the door.

"You bitch!"

She ran. She didn't look back. She didn't even cower from the shot she knew was coming. Her choice.

The report was louder than she expected. She stumbled at the threshold  as every muscle in her body contracted for impact. The fiery burn of the  bullet still surprised her.

From the room behind her, her phone began playing Katy Perry's "Wide  Awake." It was like music wafting in from another world, a world where  there were boyfriends, and dinners to be cooked, and a fire to cozy up  next to.

And then she was through the door.

Her world was filled with November darkness, the chill thrill of a damp  north wind whipping in from the lake, and the insistent throb of a  burning wound.





CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Go right!

She didn't spare a second to wonder why her brain was directing her  there. Right would take her into the woods. Harder to find. Harder to  track. Yet Bogart would know to look for her.

She heard it, perhaps because she had been praying so hard for it, the  sounds of a truck. Was it James's truck turning off the main road? She  stopped running at the edge of the woods. Maybe if she could just double  back to the road, meet him- She looked back toward the cabin that stood  in the way.

The metallic gun barrel shone under the radiance of the NightWatcher  light as her assailant paused in the doorway of the cabin. He was  coughing and cursing and then he was off the porch at a dead run. She  waited to be certain he wasn't coming her way. She decided he was headed  for the campground parking lot on the other side of this strip of woods  where she supposed he had parked his vehicle. But maybe not. Maybe he  was still looking for her. And if she risked going back into the open  too soon  …

Survival impulse took over the decision. She turned away and took off at  a run, the moist ground sucking at her boot heels as she fled into the  underbrush. But within seconds she came nearly to a halt. She ached in  every part of her body. It was impossible to catalogue all the pain. She  put a hand to her head and it came away with a wet smear. Must be  blood. Her legs were rubbery and her stomach burned with a hollow fire.  Her arm-no. Couldn't think about the arm.                       
       
           



       

The autumn-stripped trees kept the woods from the pitch-black darkness  of a summer-night canopy. Overhead the sky glowed faintly with the Milky  Way. If she didn't find shelter her stalker might find her before  James. She had to move!

She was familiar with this section of wilderness, and during the day she  would not have been afraid to cross it alone. But in the dark, with the  wind whipping her hair into her face, she might as well have been in  another country. Nothing was familiar, or comforting, or tinged with the  presence of another human being.

She thought she heard the moment a vehicle turned off the road into the  hundred yards of gravel path that led to her door. The man behind her  would have heard it, too. She moved on.

Tired, running on adrenaline and fear, she was acting purely on  instinct. And instinct told every hunted animal to go to ground, to  hide.

She fretted because her boots made swishing sounds as she passed through  the leaves that were knee-high in places. If there was anyone to  listen. Bogart!

She almost closed her eyes to pray that Bogart would hear those shussh  shussh sounds and know she was in trouble. She'd never needed a Prince  Charming more.

After several minutes of running and stumbling, she reached a clearing  where a new road was being laid over a narrow stream. Winded and shaking  from nerves, she paused again. And squinted.

The starlight was brighter now that she had reached the other side of  the tree belt. Ten feet away, gleaming darkly as if they were oiled with  tar, long PVC pipes lay stacked like firewood against an embankment.  They had been brought in to form a culvert for the stream that ran under  new road construction.

Shay closed her streaming eyes. Shelter, if only she had the guts to use it.

She had a fear of tight places. Of tunneling into the ground, a cave  getting the farther along she went until she was unable to back up. It  was a nightmare she'd had many times.

Behind her she heard sirens and shouts. And then, from somewhere much  closer, the sound of pounding footsteps. James? Or him? She couldn't  risk being wrong.

She ran the short distance and dove for the opening of the middle pipe in the stack.

As she scrambled into the opening, she tried to stuff the fear aside.  What would she tell a child who needed to take shelter from a-a  thunderstorm, or a bear? Yes, a bear. Big bear. It was November. All the  creepy-crawlies should be hibernating by now. Snakes would have gone to  ground under stumps where it would be warmer than the inside of the  cold PVC piping she was being forced to crawl into. It was safe in here.

She paused a couple of feet in, the throbbing from her injured arm  making her dizzy with pain. No. Mustn't think of that. Think only of  survival.

Though the faintest light glowed at the far end, it was much too dim to  see her surroundings. She felt the walls. The space was maybe thirty  inches in diameter. High enough for her to be on hands and knees and  still not quite touch the top. It wasn't so bad.

Shay crawled a little farther into the pipe. It was corrugated and  rainwater must have gathered over time, making the bottom feel slimy.

I'm not dead. I'm not dead. I'm not dead. The litany pulsed through her  mind, growing louder and faster with every heartbeat. Shay closed her  eyes and made herself breathe. She was safe.

But this time the feeling wouldn't gel. She'd started a fire. Probably  burned down her uncle and aunt's cabin. Her assailant had gotten away.  No one else had seen him. Her words against a phantom. No one would  believe her. Why should they? And what about the cat? No way she could  prove he did that. No way to prove that she was innocent of Jaylynn  Turner's accusations. She should have gotten proof that her attacker was  still out there.

She moaned like a wounded animal as other images pressed in to drown out the first.

Headfirst into a hole. No light at the end of this tunnel. Why wasn't there night and starlight at the other end?

She couldn't breathe. Couldn't see. Couldn't be sure her assailant  wasn't still looking for her. Suddenly she realized it didn't matter,  she couldn't stay here. Had to get out.

She began back crawling backward, whimpering as her hands touched  unspeakably wet and smelly debris lining the bottom of the pipe.

Her panicked jerky movements were uncoordinated. The curved surface  beneath her hands began to tremble. Her palm slipped in something slick  and wet and she lost her balance and fell hard against the concave wall.

She felt something shift beneath her, a slight roll, and then a thud  struck above her head, jarring the pipe in which she was encased.