Page 27 of Manhunt in the Narrows (Red Rock Murders #1)

She was either going to have a heart attack or faint.

Sayles couldn’t decide.

That voice. She knew that voice. The gravelly undertones urged her to breathe while delivering warning straight to her gut. Elias. He was alive, but she couldn’t discern his condition as the federal agent who’d single-handedly upturned her life lunged.

Mae’s fingernails dug into her arms a split second before the impact.

Elias collided with the Hitchhiker Killer.

Flashlight beams scattered across the cave walls and blinded her.

White lights danced across her vision. She pressed Mae into the dead end they’d reached a few minutes before, completely powerless as the sound of fists and groans and pain ricocheted around them.

“Sayles, go!”

Elias’s command shoved her into action. She grabbed for the woman at her back, boot slipping across the cave floor.

Her escape instantly cut off by the killer. “You’re not going anywhere.” A flashlight beam launched directly for her, but it was Patrick’s fist that slammed into her chest.

The impact crushed precious oxygen from her lungs, and she collapsed back into Mae’s arms. Sputtering coughs were all she could manage.

She kicked against the floor to straighten her torso, to make it possible to breathe, but it was as though she’d gone into spasm.

Her body didn’t know what to do, how to get that next breath.

Sayles grabbed for her throat, heart rate so high in the rafters she feared it would never come down.

Mae’s sobs filled her ears.

And she was finally able to take a breath.

Elias’s strike to the killer’s throat turned the bastard’s attention off her.

The brutality of his attacks—precise and controlled in perfect sync—told of experience far beyond anything she’d ever seen.

And gave her a glimpse of the violence that could’ve turned on her at any point during her marriage.

She scrambled onto all fours, still out of breath but able to move. “We have to get out of here. We have to go. Now.”

“How?” Mae interlaced her hand with Sayles’s. Desperation filtered in through the tight grip capable of blocking blood flow to her fingers. “They’re blocking our escape.”

She was right. And despite Elias’s combat expertise, the Hitchhiker Killer was holding his own.

Taking and delivering blows that would surely wear Elias down within minutes.

He’d survived a fall from 1,000 feet. There was no telling what internal injuries he’d already sustained or if the next hit would kill him.

She couldn’t leave him here, but she couldn’t ask Mae to stay.

Her ex-husband had come for her, killed six people to find her and wouldn’t hesitate to make her the seventh if she ran again.

He’d never stop coming for her. Never stop hunting her.

“Run!” Elias struck with his left fist, then the right, grabbing the killer’s wrist. He yanked the joint hard enough the cave filled with a pop and quickly launched his opposite hand into his opponent’s chest.

The Hitchhiker Killer stumbled back. Rubbed at his chest as though he’d merely been inconvenienced. “No, Sayles. Stay. You know what happens if you run. What I’ll do to you once I’ve finished off Agent Broyles. What I’ll do to my darling Mae.”

A whimper from behind chilled the blood in Sayles’s veins.

This. This was what she’d been afraid of all these months.

Knowing her ex was still out there, wanting to hurt her, to make her pay for having the courage to leave.

She’d broken his rules, after all, thought of herself for once and summoned the will to leave, and the possibility of him finding her had kept her in a permanent state of paranoia since.

Numbness that’d taken months to shed infiltrated her nervous system and held her paralyzed.

One breath. Two. Any minute now she’d lose all control, and there would be nothing she could do.

“Sayles!” Elias’s demand barely reached through the white noise of blood rushing into her ears.

The flashlight in his hand flickered as if traumatized by the violence, like the new light inside her chest. A light that a cocky, relentless, merciless federal agent had lit over the past two days. “Sayles, you can do this! Fight!”

Fight. Hadn’t that been what she’d been doing for so long?

Fighting to cope with the viciousness of a man who’d sworn to love her until death.

Fighting for her life after her arrest for a murder she hadn’t committed.

Fighting to make it one day to the next while behind bars when it felt like the entire world had turned against her. Fighting. She was so…tired of fighting.

But that didn’t make the war disappear.

And for the first time since she’d come to Zion, she wasn’t alone.

Clarity sharpened as Elias clutched the flashlight and shot his fist into the killer’s face.

He’d been rooting for her the moment they’d been thrust together on this assignment.

Empowering her to trust herself, to break free of the self-inflicted weight she insisted on carrying these past few months.

Showing her what real power looked like.

And she could do the same for other womn who’d been in her position.

Mae had been living through hell. So thoroughly tortured without the man ever needing to lay a hand on her.

But she and Mae could rewrite the narrative.

They could take that first step together.

Sayles strengthened her hold on the woman’s hand and maneuvered Mae behind her, acting as a shield as Elias had done for her.

“Stay behind me. No matter what happens, don’t let go of my hand. ”

She felt more than saw Mae’s agreement.

Her partner took the opportunity to lunge.

He threw what looked like everything he had into rocketing his fist into the killer’s face but missed.

Bringing his elbow up, he blocked the next assault, but the one after landed its mark.

Elias stumbled back into the wall, unable to get his balance as the Hitchhiker Killer attacked.

Now, Sayles kept to the wall, dragging Mae behind her.

The killer’s flashlight rolled closer as he and Elias battled for dominance with gut-wrenching violence, but the Hitchhiker Killer’s attention remained solely on survival.

On winning. That was the kind of man he was.

The kind that needed to control, to dominate and come out on top, but Sayles wouldn’t give up little pieces of herself to avoid the consequences of that rage anymore.

She’d face them head-on and help Mae do the same by getting them out of this cave.

The killer pinned Elias against the far wall, both hands around his neck.

Her partner rained hits down on to the bastard’s forearms, but the Hitchhiker Killer refused to loosen his grip.

Elias’s face seemed to swell in the dim light of the flashlight rocking back and forth across the rock floor from the commotion.

Pinched in a way that told her he wasn’t getting any oxygen.

He was dying right in front of her, forcing her to choose between saving Mae or saving him.

There wasn’t a choice. There never had been when it came to Elias.

Sayles grabbed for the flashlight and shoved it into Mae’s hand. “Go. Get out of here. Run east as fast as you can. Don’t stop. There’s a trail there that will take you down in the Narrows. Find somewhere to hide, out of sight. National park rangers will find you in the morning.”

“What about you?” Terror etched into Mae’s face. The thought of being alone—of dying alone—clearly scared her and she gripped onto Sayles’s forearm.

“Get to the Narrows. You can do this. I promise. Go.” Maneuvering Mae ahead of her, she nodded. “It’s all going to be okay.”

It was a promise she’d needed to hear in the middle of the storm. She couldn’t force Mae to believe her, but someday she could look back and see the rainbow peeking through the clouds.

The woman didn’t have to be told twice, her outline blending in with shadow and darkness as she ran for the cave’s entrance. Hiking through the backcountry without supplies brought its own set of complications. In the dark held more dangers, but Mae was strong. She just didn’t know it yet.

Strength drained from Elias’s attempts to get free.

The weak beam coming off his discarded flashlight revealed he’d lost enough consciousness his eyes had fallen closed.

She was already moving. Jumping. She secured her arms around the killer’s neck and pulled as hard as she could to break his grip on Elias.

They fell as one. Then came the pain. Her head snapped back against the unforgiving cave floor.

Another round of bright lights exploded behind her eyes. Weight vanished from her front.

“You just don’t know when to give up, do you, Ranger Green?” The Hitchhiker Killer stood above her. How he’d moved so quickly when she was still reeling from the impact, she had no idea. “I guess now is as good a time as any to punish you for coming between me and my wife.”

Coughing punctured through the high-pitched ringing in her ears. Elias. Was he hurt? She couldn’t afford to take her eyes off the man in front of her.

“That’s one decision I will never regret.

” Sayles scrambled to her feet, unsteady but determined to buy Mae as much time as possible.

She was out of her depth, facing off with a man who’d killed multiple people, some full-grown men, but she wouldn’t budge.

Not because of him. “And she’s not your wife.

Men like you believe you’re owed everything you set your sights on.

I’m proof that we’re strong enough to fight back. ”

She didn’t give him the chance to respond, throwing her fist directly at his face.

He stepped out of her path, and her momentum carried her forward.

Too far. Too close. Sayles braced for the attack, but it never came.

Adjusting to put him front and center and block his path to the cave’s entrance, she swung again.

And missed. That crazed smile that didn’t quite show his teeth and deepened the cracks around his eyes triggered a chill in her bones.

He was toying with her. Making her believe she had a chance only to pull the rug out from underneath her when he got too impatient. A mouse trapped beneath a cat’s paw.

“I must say, Ranger Green, I’m quite disappointed. Surely, NPS trained you better than to provoke a predator.” The Hitchhiker Killer hauled his foot into her chest.

She was flying, her legs swinging out from under her. Slamming into the cold floor. Sayles rolled onto her side. Pain radiated from her shoulder to her hip and across her torso as she sucked in a shallow breath. It was all she could manage.

The second kick emptied her lungs and cracked something vital.

Her scream drilled through her head. The barest hint of moonlight filtered through the darkness ahead.

The entrance. Escape. To lead the killer away from Elias.

To put herself between him and Mae. She owed it to them both.

Every cell in her body screamed for her to move, but all she could do was push off with her toes.

Gaining nothing but a few inches of distance at a time.

She felt more than saw the killer’s presence at her back.

Watching her suffer, enjoying the power it gave him.

“You can’t protect her. No matter where she runs, I’ll find her.

I wasn’t lying about the tracker in her mouth.

Though now I suppose she’ll try to have it removed.

” Weight stacked on top of her calf, halting her in place.

“In the end, she’ll still belong to me, and I will kill any man who dares put his hands on what’s mine before I take it out on her. ”

Sayles had heard it all before—lived it.

He wasn’t anything special, but someone somewhere had taught him he didn’t have to work for the things he wanted.

Taught him he was owed. “Are you finished with your villain speech? I was promised turkey when this case was over, and I’ve got to tell you, I’m starving. ”

The third kick hiked her off the floor and upturned her entire world.

Gravity shifted from the center of her body to the edges as the ground ripped out from underneath her.

Needles of pain clawed across the exposed skin of her face and arms. She was in free fall, out of control and moving too fast to stop down the mountain face.

Three times. Four. Her spine curved around a boulder, a cry spilling into the night.

The killer’s outline crossed the path of moonlight staring down on her.

This park had saved her life. She should’ve known it would require something in return.

Sayles struggled to breathe around the jagged pain in her rib cage.

“It’s over, Ranger Green. Look at you. You can’t save anyone. You can’t even save yourself.”

But she had. With Elias’s help.

A second outline cleared through the shimmer of disorientation.

Or was she seeing double? Movement slashed over the Hitchhiker Killer’s shoulder.

He jerked in place. Then dropped to his knees and onto his face.

Elias tossed a rock at his feet, kneeling beside her to scoop her against his chest. “That guy talks too much.”