Page 20 of Into the Veins
A groan cut through her excitement.
She directed the flashlight’s beam to the right. Every cell in her body burned with exhaustion. The circle of light caught a large pair of boots in its spread. The same kind of boot tread she’d identified along the washed-out trail that’d led her back to the clearing. Her voice shook as she swept the beam along the length of the boot’s owner. Dark beard growth shaded a strong jaw line and neck, but there was no question of identity in her mind. “Colson.”
“Blair…” Strain drew out her name on his lips., intensified by the drug’s effects on her hearing.
Darting as fast as her body allowed across the forest floor, she gripped his Kevlar vest with one hand and balanced the flashlight beam nearby to highlight his face with the other. A deep laceration split his cheek along one side, but a flurry of appreciation filled her all the same. She couldn’t control the quaking in her hands as she pressed her mouth against his. Salt and copper exploded across her tongue. Pure awareness snaked through her. “You…disobeyed…my order.”
Releasing her hold around the vest, she physically felt for injuries. Streaks of red hair escaped from her ponytail and interrupted her field of vision. Her fingers skimmed over his hand clenched into his side. Warm liquid spread over the pads of her index and middle fingers, and she stilled. The ketamine battled against her brain’s ability to process the information right in front of her. “You’ve been…injured.”
Colson fisted the collar of her own vest and wrenched his head off the ground, pulling her close. He set his mouth against her ear as he struggled to stay conscious. “Run.”
She turned as movement registered in her peripheral vision, but it was too late. A wall of muscle slammed into her from the right, and Blair hit the ground. Her head snapped back, and a moan of pain escaped up her throat.
“What am I going to have to do to you for you to take me seriously, Sheriff?” A fist rocketed into the right side of her face, and an explosion of stars lit up behind her eyes. The killer drew back for another strike.
Blair hauled her upper body to one side, trapped beneath the weight of the killer above her. She grabbed her attacker on either side of her head and headbutted the suspect as hard as she could. Another round of stars filled her vision as the killer fell back. Blair forced herself up, hooking one arm around the back of the attacker’s neck and squeezed. “Let’s find…out.”
The suspect hefted Blair up and got to her feet. One step. Two. She slammed Blair against a tree, and an array of color and pain flashed through every nerve ending she owned. Blair’s grip slipped as the world tilted on its axis. The killer stepped back, the roll of thunder drowning out her voice. “Just as I thought. Weak. Useless. How you ever became sheriff of King County, I’ll never know.” The woman behind the mask wrapped gloved fingers in Blair’s jacket and dragged her away from the tree, away from Colson.
The last remnants of fight drained. Her boots caught on downed branches and rock as Blair struggled to get a sense of her bearings, but there was only agony, loneliness, exhaustion. Wind whipped hair into her face. She narrowly made out the rocky shale scraping along the backs of her thighs. They weren’t in the woods anymore. Her instincts screamed warning at the change.
“You’re so desperate to prove you’re in control, that you can save everybody. You weren’t strong enough to save your parents all those years ago, and you’re not strong enough to save your partner now. He’s going to bleed out. Because of you.” Her attacker deposited her onto the ground as the storm continued to rage. Raw, loose rock cut into the side of her head. “You can’t even save yourself.”
“You can’t do this.” The words barely registered in her own ears. Wind whistled from the sharp drop mere feet from her hand.
“Who’s going to stop me?” The killer pressed her boot into Blair’s gut.
The ground rolled out from under her, and Blair went over the edge.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Pain pulsed through his side.
Colson clamped his hand over the wound, using the pain to stay conscious, but the adrenaline spike was already fading. Bright spots at the edges of his vision pulsed in rhythm to his heartbeat. He added pressure, and an agonizing scream tore up his throat. Rolling onto his side, he scanned the trees around him. Blair. Where was Blair?
He’d heard her voice. He’d felt her mouth on his. He hadn’t imagined it. She’d put herself between him and the killer. She’d saved his life, and he’d search hell and back to find her. He fisted his free hand and forced himself to his knees. Thunder cracked above him, louder than ever before, as though echoing the chaos churning inside of him. His skin prickled to the onslaught of rain. The ground shifted beneath him, and Colson launched forward into the nearest tree for support. The contact burned against his skin as another explosion of lightning electrified the air around him. He peeled his hand from his side, water mixing with blood in the creases of his palm.
“Colson!” Her blood-curdling scream raised the hairs on the back of his neck.
“Blair.” He stumbled forward, securing his hand over the wound in an effort to slow the bleeding, but he’d seen enough of these kinds of injuries to know it wouldn’t be enough. Didn’t matter. He wasn’t leaving this mountain without his partner. Rain turned to sleet in the blink of an eye as he maneuvered through the trees. The uneven ground threatened to tear him down. He’d heard her. It wasn’t a hallucination. Colson stilled, listening for any sign of movement, for another scream—anything to direct him.
There was only silence.
Dirt turned to thin, cracked chunks of shale as he cleared the trees. Pieces broke off as he settled his weight on the small plateau overlooking the cliffside. Rolling clouds hugged the shape of Tiger Mountain, fog consuming dense forest and surrounding hills. “Blair!”
“I’m here!” Her sob cut through him, and Colson stepped closer to the edge. Gravity seemed to release its hold on him as movement registered below, and his lungs froze. There. Struggling to keep hold of a single branch, Blair pressed her toes into the cliff side, but her boots slipped out from under her. A short scream cut short with another crack of thunder around them. Fog swept through the small canyon, whiting out the forest and jagged ridges below, and she was going to fall straight through it.
“Blair, hang on!” Colson dropped to his stomach, ignoring the agonizing rip of pain tearing through his side, and extended his bloodied hand. His heart attempted to pound straight out of his chest as the shale shattered under the pressure of his opposite hand and caught in her hair. Rain slicked his palm as he reached for her. “Grab my hand!”
Pure fear contorted her expression as she stared up at him. Her knuckles worked to break through the skin along the backs of her hands. One wrong move. That was all it would take, and he’d lose her forever. The bark of the branch split with a loud crack between them, and a trill of fear laced his nerves. “I can’t!”
“You can do this! I know you can. Reach!” There was at least six inches and a wall of pine needles between them. The single tree growing out of the side of the cliff bounced the harder she tried to gain her footing, and his stomach launched into his throat. Again, her boots slid down the cliff face, and his entire body clenched. A dozen jobs from the time he’d turned sixteen, but none of them had prepared him for this. Still, Colson steadied his breathing. “Come on, Blair. Look at me.”
Intense emerald eyes centered on him.
“It’s you and me. We have all the time in the world. Okay?” Warm liquid pooled beneath him and spread across his side. The quicker his pulse ticked, the sooner he’d bleed out, but he wasn’t going to give up. Not on her. “I’m not going to let you go. I promise, but I need you to trust me. Can you do that?”
“Okay.” Her voice strained through the hammer of rain around them. The tendons in her neck puckered, and Blair nodded. Ducking her chin to her chest, she adjusted her grip around the failing tree and pressed her toes into the rock face. She locked her gaze on him. “I trust you.”