Page 5 of Nowhere to Hide

To run and hunt—to kill him.

No.

Apprehend.

But the rage was always so close, and I couldn’t trust it not to end in bloodshed.

End with a stump of a head smashed into the wooden planks.

I shut my eyes tight against the violence humming under my skin.

I focused on the victim.

The woman.

My focus dropped to the slip.

“Fuck,” I muttered. She was tied down. Was she breathing?

Like a magnet, I was pulled into her vortex.

Blond.

Slim.

Helpless.

I crouched and checked her pulse, my training overriding my need to be anywhere but here. I calmed my breath, taking stock of the ropes around her neck, arms, wrists, and ankles.

I reached for my knife sheath at my hip. The rope was so tight around her slim neck. “Don’t be dead.” I pulled at the rope to make space for my knife and her arms stretched over her head.

The rage returned full throttle as I gave the ropes a quick once over. The sick fuck made a series of knots and ties that would pull depending on how she moved.

More like how shestruggled.

I’d seen the worst of humanity in my time on this godforsaken planet, but there were always more to be found. I knelt beside her to reach for the ropes over her head and something wet soaked my jeans. I looked down, calm washing over my body as years of training slammed into me.

Blood.

Unable to be careful, I nicked her skin as I freed her neck. Her arms slumped onto the planks of wood like a doll.

I dug out my phone then set it on her bared stomach, punching in the emergency number before putting it on speaker. I peeled off my shirt and looked for the wound.

“911, what’s your emergency?”

“I’m at the wharf near Derby in Salem. A woman has been hurt—severely. Possible attack.” If that was what you could call this. I didn’t want to move her clothes, but there was no help for it. The edges of her dress that was flipped up now soaked in blood. “She’s been stabbed—probable artery based on the pool of blood. I’m at slip fourteen.”

I tried to give the dispatcher additional details, as I wadded my shirt up to hold it against her inner thigh. “She’s not looking good.”

“Is she conscious?”

“No.” I held my hand firm on the cut on her thigh and checked her neck with my other hand now that she was free of the ropes. “Thready pulse.”

“Are you medically trained?”

“Just for combat. I’m putting pressure on the wound, but the blood is coming fast.” She was insanely pale, and her blond hair was wild and caked with blood. Her bare legs were streaked with more blood and dotted with finger-sized marks.

She must have put up a helluva fight.