Page 46 of Beckett (Warrior Security #2)

Audra

The morning sun warmed my shoulders as I carried fresh water to the rabbit hutches, and for the first time, I wasn’t afraid.

Reggie Garrison was in custody. Locked in a cell at the Garnet Bend sheriff’s station. Beckett had sent Lark a text an hour ago and asked her to pass along the info to me.

Interrogation started. This nightmare is almost over.

It was. I could hardly wrap my head around it all, but it was almost over.

And a new beginning was at my fingertips.

“I think we should expand the therapy dog program,” Lark said, emerging from the barn with a clipboard. Her red hair caught the light as she made notes, completely absorbed in her plans. “You’ve got such a natural gift with the anxious ones.”

I set down the water bucket, allowing myself to imagine it. A future. An actual future here in Garnet Bend, working with damaged dogs who needed patience and understanding. Dogs who needed someone who understood what it meant to be scared all the time.

Being here with Beckett. We hadn’t talked about anything permanent, but that was because permanent hadn’t even been in my vocabulary until Reggie Garrison had been arrested this morning.

And now, permanent was all I could think of.

“I’d love that.” The words came out steady, sure. My shoulders weren’t hunched forward anymore.

“We could start with basic certifications,” Lark continued, her excitement infectious, stepping around Jet as he lounged in a patch of sunlight near the barn door.

“I know someone who runs the testing in Billings. Once you get certified, we could take on more complex cases. Maybe even work with some of the veterans from Resting Warrior Ranch.”

The idea bloomed in my chest, warm and possible. Working with traumatized veterans and traumatized dogs, helping them heal each other. Todd would have loved that. He’d always believed in second chances, in the possibility of redemption.

“Oh, shoot.” Lark glanced at her watch. “The dog food delivery is coming today. I need to grab the invoices from the house. Be right back.”

She headed toward the main house, her boots crunching on gravel. I watched her go, then turned back to the water buckets. Just a few more to fill, then we could start planning. Actually planning, not just surviving day-to-day.

The barn felt peaceful in the morning light. Dust motes danced in the golden beams streaming through the windows. The familiar sounds of animals settling in surrounded me—horses nickering softly, chickens clucking in their coop, the rustle of hay as the rabbits moved about.

I was humming. When had I started humming again?

Jet’s sudden whine cut through my contentment like a blade.

I turned to find him on his feet, every muscle rigid, hackles raised along his spine.

He stared at the barn entrance with an intensity I’d never seen from him before.

Not playful, distracted Jet who couldn’t hold a stay for more than thirty seconds.

This was something primal, something that bypassed all his failed training and went straight to instinct.

“It’s okay, boy.” My voice came out less steady than I wanted. “The bad man’s in jail, remember?”

But even as I said it to convince myself as much as him, my body was already responding. Heart rate spiking. Muscles tensing. That familiar cold creep of adrenaline flooding my system. My body remembered danger even when my mind insisted I was safe.

Lark’s voice drifted from the direction of the house. “No. No, you?—”

Silence.

Not the natural pause of someone thinking. The abrupt cutoff of words interrupted.

“Lark?” I called out, already moving toward the barn door. “You okay?”

No response.

Jet pressed against my legs as we walked, his growl so low I felt it more than heard it, vibrating through his body into mine. Every instinct I’d developed over fourteen months of being hunted screamed at me to run. Get to the car. Get out. Not to look back.

But Lark was here. Lark, who’d given me a chance when I had nothing. Who’d paid me cash without asking questions. Who’d just been making plans for our future.

I couldn’t leave her.

The walk to the house felt both endless and too quick. Each step revealed more of the front porch, like a picture developing in slow motion. First the steps. Then the railing. Then?—

Lark lay unmoving on the porch, her red hair spread out around her. Blood was pooling near her head. She wasn’t moving.

Before I could scream, before I could run to her, a figure stepped out from the door.

“Eye for an eye, Audra. Your brother took my brother.”

The words hit me like physical blows. That voice—flat, emotionless, terrifyingly calm—had haunted my nightmares for over a year. But this was the first time I’d heard it clearly, without darkness or distance or terror making everything blur.

Reggie Garrison stood three feet away from me.

Those flat eyes from the mug shot Travis had shown us, the ones that looked through the camera rather than at it, now stared directly into mine.

Close enough to see they were brown, unremarkable brown, like millions of other eyes except for the absolute emptiness in them.

He was smaller than I’d imagined during all those months of running.

Average height, average build, thinning brown hair.

The kind of man you’d pass in a grocery store without a second glance.

That was what made him terrifying. Evil shouldn’t look so ordinary.

“Don’t worry about your friend.” He gestured casually at Lark with the knife in his hand—the same knife, I recognized it instantly, my hand going involuntarily to the scar on my neck. “She didn’t suffer. Much. Unlike what you’re going to experience.”

My body wouldn’t move. Every muscle locked in place, that paralyzing fear I’d felt in a dozen parking lots, a dozen dark rooms, finally having a face to attach to it.

“But… But…you were arrested.”

“The decoy was convincing, wasn’t he?” Reggie’s lips curved into something that wasn’t quite a smile.

“Similar enough to pass, especially after I adjusted the booking records. Your boyfriend’s probably still watching him through that two-way mirror, thinking he’s won.

That I’m the asshole sitting in that chair. ”

The knife glinted as he turned it, catching the sun’s rays. “You lasted longer than I expected.”

He stepped forward, even strides, straight to me. I should run. Every cell in my body screamed at me to run. But Jet was pressed against my legs, and Lark was behind Reggie on the porch. Oh God, Lark. Was she alive? I couldn’t tell.

“I wasn’t sure how long I was going to toy with you.” His conversational tone was somehow worse than screaming would have been. “To be honest, I was bored, but I knew it was my duty to keep on.”

He grabbed my arm, fingers digging in hard enough to bruise, and pressed the knife against my ribs. The point pierced my shirt, just enough to draw blood. A warning.

“Jeremy was twenty-two. Did you know that? Community college student. Never even had a speeding ticket. He was just visiting me that day. Wrong place, wrong time, your brother would have said. Acceptable collateral damage.”

Collateral damage. So ironic that he would say that since that concept was what had led us to him.

Jet whined behind me.

“But what I’m going to do to you? That’s justice. Eye for an eye. Your brother took my brother, so I take you.”

The knife pressed harder, causing me to gasp, and I felt warm blood trickle down my side. This was it. He was going to kill me, and I couldn’t seem to force my muscles to do anything.

And that was when Jet moved.

I’d never seen him like this. In all the days of watching Beckett try to train him, watching him fail at every protection exercise, get distracted by butterflies and birds and interesting smells—I’d never seen this dog appear.

This was the dog he’d been bred to be.

Seventy pounds of German shepherd fury launched at Reggie’s knife arm, jaws clamping down with savage force. The snarl that ripped from Jet’s throat belonged to something wild, something that had never been tamed, only temporarily domesticated.

Reggie screamed, trying to shake Jet off, but those jaws were locked, those teeth sunk deep. For a moment, I thought?—

The knife flashed.

Jet’s snarl turned to a high, horrible yelp as the blade went into his side. But he didn’t let go. Even as Reggie stabbed him again, even as blood matted his beautiful coat, Jet held on.

Then Reggie’s boot connected with Jet’s ribs, the force of it finally breaking his grip. My dog—because that’s exactly what Jet was—flew backward, hitting the deck with a sound that made my stomach turn. He tried to get up, those brave legs shaking, then collapsed onto the ground.

“No! No! Jet!” The words tore from my throat.

“Now, run, little rabbit.” Reggie examined his shredded arm with clinical detachment, blood dripping steadily onto the ground. “Let’s make this interesting.”

I ran.

Not toward my car—my keys were in my bag in the barn. Not toward the house—Lark needed help, but I couldn’t help anyone if I was dead. I ran toward the kennels where Atlas and Duke and Rosie were contained, trained protection dogs who could stop him if I could just?—

But Reggie cut me off, moving faster than I’d expected, given his injured arm. I veered left, trying to circle back to the house, to Lark, to a phone, to anything. But he was there too, herding me like I was one of the sheep in the back pasture.

The tree line. It was my only option.

I sprinted toward the woods that bordered the back of Pawsitive Connections’ property, branches immediately catching at my clothes, scratching my face. Behind me, I could hear Jet howling—not dead, thank God, not dead—that distinctive German shepherd distress call that would carry for miles.

But miles might as well be continents. No one was coming.

“You can’t run forever, Audra.” Reggie’s voice drifted through the trees, terrifyingly calm despite everything. “You already know that.”

He was right. I’d proven it over fourteen months and three states. Every time I’d run, he’d found me. Every safe place had become a trap. Every kindness I’d accepted had been turned into a weapon against whoever offered it.

I stumbled over a root, catching myself against a pine tree, bark rough under my palms. The woods were thicker here, darker despite the mid-morning sun. I could hear him following, his footsteps steady, unhurried. He knew what I was only beginning to accept—there was nowhere left to go.

“Your boyfriend’s at the sheriff’s station with my decoy.” His voice seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. “Your friend is hopefully dead. No one even knows I’m here.”

I pushed deeper into the woods, branches tearing at my hair, my clothes. My chest burned with each breath. Behind me, his footsteps never faltered.

I tripped, going down hard, pine needles stabbing into my palms. When I scrambled to my feet and looked back, he was maybe twenty feet away, walking steadily through the underbrush. The knife in his hand caught a stray beam of sunlight, still wet with Jet’s blood.

“Eye for an eye,” he said, and there was something almost sad in his voice. “It was always going to end like this.”

I turned and kept running, but my legs were shaking now, muscles burning. The woods pressed in around me, darker with each step, the canopy blocking out more and more light. Behind me, I could hear him getting closer, his breathing steady where mine came in desperate gasps.

“No one’s coming to save you. You’ll die alone. They’ll probably never even find your body.”

He was right. In the distance, I could still hear Jet howling, growing weaker. But Beckett was at the station. The team thought the threat was contained. By the time anyone realized the truth, it would be over.

I’d run for fourteen months, and it had all led here. To these woods, this moment, this man with his knife and his empty eyes and his twisted sense of justice.

His footsteps were getting closer. My legs were failing. The woods were getting denser, darker, pressing in like the walls of a trap I’d been walking into since the day Todd died.

I could hear Reggie laughing softly behind me, and I knew with terrible certainty that I’d finally run out of places to go.