Page 17 of Danger In The Backcountry
Failure to escape one. Failure to hold on to the other.
Her career had been there to fall back on when she’d needed it the most, but where had it left her? Alone in the middle of a national park with no one but a bear who’d barely managed not to eat her as company. Where she truly believed she’d wanted to be. Except… Her career wouldn’t do her a damn bit of good in the middle of these woods. Her research and data analysis wasn’t coming to save her. And it wasn’t going to love her back.
No matter how many times she’d convinced herself she’d been fulfilled—that the divorce was a good thing and would help her focus on what was important—that hollowness in her chest only grew. The lonely nights, the days where she didn’t talk to a single person, the inability to find a hobby she could stick with or even enjoy, the urge to turn to laugh with a companion at a funny scene from whatever comedy she was watching only to find the space next to her empty. Without even realizing it, those moments had overtaken her life. Sucked all meaning and left her as nothing more than a husk, but she didn’t have to accept it. She wouldn’t. She needed more. She needed to be happy more than she needed another paper published under her name or another research grant application submitted. When was the last time she’d been happy?
The answer had surfaced over the past two days. Right along with the frustrating, impossible, caring man who’d broken her heart. And, right now, he needed her to move. To get to her supplies.
Lettie used the tree at her back to push herself west. Back toward the trail she and Rome had stepped off of. Where she’d stashed her supplies.
“I know you’re here, Arlette.” He hadn’t made a sound during his approach, a true hunter she had little chance of escaping. “I can smell your body wash. Vanilla and amber. Mmm.”
She froze. Her fight-or-flight response paralyzed her from the crown of her head to her toes. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end as movement shifted off to her left. One wrong move and he’d spot her, but staying in the same place guaranteed to end this hunt early. What would he do with her? Drag her back to that tree? Kill her first? Make her watch as he tore Rome apart? Her stomach twisted tighter with every scenario playing through her head.
“I smelled it that first time I saw you. Smelled it every day since, too.” His voice spread through the trees, playing with her mind. The sun hadn’t set fully, but she swore he’d suddenly shifted position without her seeing. Closer than before. “I couldn’t help myself. Getting close to you all those months ago. You didn’t even notice I’d taken the bottle from your van a few days later.”
She remembered that. Thinking the bottle must’ve fallen from its perch on the shower shelf and slid beneath the bed after a sharp turn. It’d happened before with other products and belongings. She just hadn’t gotten around to go searching for it. But now… He’d been in her van. His hints had said as much, but confirmation slicked some kind of dirty sensation through her veins. Lettie didn’t dare respond as her body finally answered her brain’s command to put as much distance between them as possible.
One step.
A twig snapped beneath her boot.
Announcing her position.
Every nerve caught fire as an outline solidified in her peripheral vision. “Hello, there.”
She ran.
Pain lightninged through her ankle and up her leg with every dragging step, but she couldn’t—wouldn’t—let it get the best of her. Heavy footsteps crunched behind her. Growing louder. Closing in.
Don’t look back. She couldn’t look back. Couldn’t give him the upper hand. She swallowed back her terror, focusing on the layout of the landscape. Tree after tree seemed to lean into her path as she barreled through the woods. Rocks shot up from the ground, threatening to bring her down all over again. The pain in her foot intensified, her skin on fire. All of it combined to trip her up. He was close. She could hear him breathing, practically feel the killer reaching out for her.
She couldn’t outrun him. Not even without a swollen ankle. She didn’t know these woods as well as she should have. Didn’t know how to survive out here alone. There was no escaping this cat and mouse game he’d started. She had to change the rules. Lettie leaned into her swollen ankle. She took a sharp right.
His fingers brushed across her shoulders but didn’t latch on. A growl sounded from behind.
She looked back. Only once to see where he’d gone.
Just as the ground dropped out from underneath her.
Gravity suctioned her back to the earth. Harder than her previous fall. Stars exploded behind her eyes as her temple connected with something immovable, but her momentum kept her spinning. Falling. Pain lanced across her exposed skin, nothing more than whimpers escaping up her throat.
Then cold.
It closed in around her. Shocked her nerve endings. Suffocated her. Gentle pressure shoved at one side of her body and propelled her down, down, down. Water shoved up her noseand pressurized the oxygen in her chest. Darkness intensified around her as she clawed upward, but she couldn’t get her feet underneath her. Didn’t know which way was up.
Her jacket tightened around her middle as it caught on something unseen in the river’s depths. Kept her from reaching the surface. Lettie tried reaching behind her, tried to pry herself from what felt like a stripped tree branch stuck in the river’s silt. But it was no use. She couldn’t reach.
Her head pounded. The small amount of air in her lungs burned. This was it. This was how she paid for her failure after years of letting the important things in her life slip through her fingers. Kicking with everything she had, she refused to give into the black edging her vision.
Until she couldn’t fight it anymore.
Chapter Sixteen
He was going to die here.
The steady drip, drip, drip of his wound leaking blood had slowed. Whether that meant the injury was finally clotting or he was running out of blood, Rome didn’t know. His head pulsed with pressure as though he’d resurfaced too fast after a solo dive, his movements not his own. Chills skittered across his skin beneath his blood-soaked clothing. The temperature had dropped with the setting sun, but there was still enough light to determine where he’d ended up.
The rope had been bait. A shiny lure to draw him in. And the snare… Well, it’d done its job. Under normal circumstances Rome would’ve cut through it and gotten himself out of this predicament in an instant, but these weren’t normal circumstances. Then again, bleeding out while Lettie was somewhere in these woods alone didn’t sound like a great option either.
