“What the –?” Dalton gritted out, getting up, whirling, armed with the knife.

It hurt like hell, pain slicing through the wound at my side, but I had to get up, I had to get out of there. I sat up, yanked the gag from my mouth, leaned double and went for the ropes at my right foot.

“He’s got a knife!” I shouted but I did this over a gun blast.

I looked up and saw Dalton go back, blood pouring from a wound in his middle.

Then Jim-Billy was skidding on his knees, stopping at my left foot, he put the gun down clumsily and then his fingers were on the ropes.

“We gotta get you outta here, Laurie,” Jim-Billy said, slurring only slightly, calling my attention from Dalton, who had his back to the wall and his hand to his middle, blood seeping through his fingers, his face pale, his eyes blank, his body beginning to slide down the wall. “Get your other foot free, darlin’.”

I went back to work on my foot as Jim-Billy got the left one untied. Then he shuffled over to my right one, pushed my awkward hands away and worked that one.

I was free and Jim-Billy grabbed my hand, straightening and beginning to pull me up with him, when Dalton was suddenly there. Dalton hit Jim-Billy in a flying tackle, Jim-Billy and Dalton went careening to the side and I fought through the pain and instead of falling back, I pushed to a crouch, one of my hands going to the wetness at my side. The other one reaching out toward Jim-Billy’s gun.

“Go! Go! Go!” The last “go” Jim-Billy uttered ended in a grunt, Dalton rolled off of him and I saw his knife jutting out of Jim-Billy’s belly.

“No!” I screamed.

“Go,” Jim-Billy whispered, I stared into his pain-filled eyes and hesitated.

I looked at Dalton whose eyes came to me.

I was in no shape to help Jim-Billy. I had to find help.

I had to get to Tate.

I stopped reaching for the gun, found my feet and ran.

* * * * *

Tate

“Simpson,” Tate muttered into the cab.

“What?” Wood asked.

“Jane Simpson,” Tate kept muttering.

“Tate… what?” Wood bit out.

“Jesus, f**k, Wood, you remember that girl, she was ahead of us in school, two, three years. Whole town was talking about it. She got knocked up. Then she started dating that guy from Ouray, he was here, forget, working on an oil rigger or somethin’. She moved back to his town with him then she got killed and he got life for doin’ it.”

“Oh f**k. Yeah,” Wood replied.

“She was blonde. Blue eyes. Like her kid. Remember her kid?” Tate asked.

He felt Wood’s head turn to him in the dark. “The Simpson place.”

“Old one lane track. Not paved. Remember it only ‘cause Amelia’s kid went missin’. Cops formed search parties, we went through these hills. I found him by that track, wondered what it was, stayed curious and looked it up when I got back to the station. The Simpsons left it to their daughter and it went to the kid when she was murdered. He never paid taxes on it and the government seized it but never did anything with it. They let it sit. Fuck, no one would know it was even there, they didn’t know to look for it.”

“You remember where it is?” Wood asked.

“Yeah, call Deke, Bub, get everyone headed there,” Tate ordered and Wood moved to pull out his phone.

Even so, he asked, “You that sure, Buck? Pullin’ the boys, focusin’ in one direction?”

Tate had lived by his gut a long time, not only on the hunt or as a cop but also on the football field. You looked at someone running at you, you needed to take them down, or you were following a receiver running a play, you had to go with your gut about which way they’d bolt to avoid you or which way they’d turn to catch a pass because you sure as f**k didn’t want to go the other way. Tate couldn’t say he picked the right direction every time but he didn’t make the All-America team two years in a row picking the wrong direction.

“Get everyone headed there, Wood.”

“Gotcha,” Wood muttered then said in the phone, “Bub, Tate’s thinkin’ it’s Jane Simpson’s son. The Simpson place. Get the word out…”

And Wood talked as Tate drove.

Fast.

* * * * *

Lauren

I was running down the hill, my entire side had gone passed pain and felt like a ball of flame and I knew he was after me. I could hear him crashing through the wood behind me. We both were injured but he knew these woods. He’d already caught me once. He knew them.

And I didn’t.

But they were Sunny’s hills and Tate found people for a living.

He’d know.

He’d know.

He’d know to look for me here.

Pray God, he’d know.

“Help!” I shouted, hoping they were out looking for me and someone would hear. “Help! Help! Please, please, please help me!”

I looked behind me to see him closing in. I looked forward, came out at a clearing and saw the headlights to my left. They shocked me so much my body shuddered to a halt but the truck was right there and I threw out an arm as it skidded across the mud, its brake lights illuminating its tail in a flash of red.

Before it stopped, it came so close to me, my palm came to rest on the hot hood. It did this for only a second before I looked through the windscreen and saw Tate.

Relief flooded through me and I mouthed the word, “Baby.”

Then Dalton hit me in the back in a tackle, pain seared through me and I went down full frontal on the mud in front of Tate’s Explorer, the double blow of pain from hit and landing, not to mention my head landing on a rock, meant I was out like a light.

* * * * *

Wood

“Buck!” Wood shouted but Tate wasn’t listening. Tate was gone. Tate was gripped tight in a fury so extreme nothing was going to break through.

Wood had to break through. Wood had checked her after Tate yanked Dalton off of her and Laurie was breathing and coming to but she was bleeding from a stab wound and beaten. She didn’t need to survive this only to spend the next five to ten visiting Tate in the penitentiary.

Wood got close to Tate who was holding Dalton up by the neck of his t-shirt and beating his already bloodied to a pulp face into a bloodier pulp. He wrapped both his arms around Tate, taking Tate’s arms down to his sides so Dalton crumpled to the ground and Wood yanked Tate back, shouting again, “Buck! We gotta get Laurie down the hill.”