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“No!” I scream, reaching for him.

But the gun goes off again.

Sam staggers back, clutching at his front.

“Sam!” I scream.

Sam looks down. He’s covered in blood. But he was already bloody. And he shakes his head. “It’s not—”

A crash sounds from Brick’s direction, then another.

I dare to poke my head out. The engine sounds are loud now, and lights shine through the trees by the cabin.

But I’m not looking at those. I’m looking at a beast of a man, who’s lying flat on his face in the brush.

“What—” I croak out.

“Sasha!” a voice yells from the direction of the cabin.

More cracks of twigs, this time softer and coming from behind us.

Sam and I whirl around, our hands up.

But there’s no danger there. Only an old man missing several teeth, breathing hard, a shotgun called Louise gripped in his shaking hand.

“Guess I still got it,” Chester says. Then he collapses.

CHAPTER46

Griffin

Ihold my breath as I watch Sasha’s eyelids flutter. I sit up in the chair next to her bed. Outside her room, two women in scrubs walk by, chatting softly, their shoes squeaking on the floor.

The plastic clamp on Sasha’s finger glows red. Numbers tick on the monitor next to her. They’ve kept her here for observation due to the massive bruise on the side of her head. I want very badly to give a hundred of these to the man who did this to her, but I need to at least wait until he’s out of surgery.

When her eyes open, they immediately lock on me.

She smiles, and my breath catches in my throat.

“Hey, Angel.” I bring her knuckles to my lips. For a moment I just close my eyes, my whole body completely awash with emotion.

“Hey,” she says. “You okay? Is it Chester?”

My guts roll inside me. I shake my head. “They still won’t let me see him.”

He got taken away in a separate ambulance. I couldn’t be in two places at once, so I asked Ford to go with him while I rode with Sasha.

“Ford says they’re keeping him sedated for now. He just overexerted himself. That’s all.”

“He saved my life,” she says, her voice cracking.

I nod. He did. And I’ll forever be in his debt.

Chester must have known he couldn’t run all the way to my place on the path, so he’d gotten in his car. Ford and I figure he must have seen the man called Brick pulling out of my driveway and followed him to the old hunting cabin behind the Rolling Hills.

He was a fair distance away from where he’d parked, though. Yet somehow, in his condition, he still managed to hike through all that rough brush to save Sasha’s life.

And her brother’s.