Page 13 of Savage Desires
No.
I’m not doing this again.
I am not letting him hurt them.
I step forward and grab the gun with shaky hands. It feels heavy, wrong, but I force my fingers to tighten around it anyway. Austin shifts, trying to push himself up, and our eyes meet again.
That look is still there.
The evil.
Like I belong to him.
Like this isn’t over.
Like I’ll never escape.
My hands stop shaking.
“You were wrong,” I whisper.
Confusion flickers across his face, and I pull the trigger. The sound is deafening in the quiet woods. His body jerks once before going completely still. The silence that follows is different now. It isn’t suffocating or waiting. It’s empty. I stare at him for a second longer, my ears ringing, my chest rising and falling too fast. I am hyperventilating. My knees give out, and I drop where I stand, the gun slipping from my fingers as my entire body starts to shake.
“He’s dead,” I choke out, not sure if I’m saying it to them or to myself.
This is what freedom feels like. This is what I have longed for. I didn’t expect to find it looking into his lifeless eyes, but it’s real.
I drop down to my knees and just look at him. I know I am in shock, but I am waiting for something. Anything. What if he isn’t actually dead? What if he is merely pretending to throw me off?
That doesn’t happen because I just sit here, surrounded by darkness, and look at his dead body. The evil in his eyes has drifted away.
Eventually, I snap out of it and find the keys to unlock Brady and Luke. “Sorry,” I mutter. “I got kinda lost…”
“It’s okay,” Brady says, wrapping his arms around me. When he pulls away, I sigh.
“Do either of you have a ?” I ask.
“Yeah,” Luke says, pulling a pocket knife from his shorts. I take it from him and flip it open.
“Whoa. What the fuck are you…” Brady says as he starts to try to take the knife from me, as I slice one of my scars open.
“He put a tracker in me,” I growl, trying to force the tiny object out of me. Blood is trailing down my leg and covering my hands, but I eventually get it out and toss it on Austin’s dead body. Lukeand Brady tear a strip of the blanket off and tie it around my leg to stop the bleeding before they help me get dressed. We then start walking back toward the truck.
When we get there, Austin’s bike is parked behind it. “I’ll go look for a phone and call Maverick,” Luke says. “Kris, try to rest, okay?”
“Okay,” I sigh.
“I’ve got her,” Brady says reassuringly. I get into the truck and curl up on the back seat. They talk for a moment before Brady sits with me and pulls me up so my head is in his lap. He gently strokes my hair, and we let the sounds of the woods take over as I fall asleep.
Chapter Five
Krista
I slowly open myeyes when I feel a warm hand on my cheek. “Daddy!” I gasp and throw myself into his arms as I instantly start sobbing.
“Shhh. I’ve got you,” he says, pulling me into his lap. We are at Maverick’s house, and I don’t even remember Luke coming back. I slept so hard that I missed it all, I guess.
“When did we get here?” I sniff and sit back to wipe my face.
