I tear through the trees blindly, trying to put as much distance between myself and Cole the killer as I can. I stumble through branches, reaching like the long, bony fingers of the witch trying to throw Gretel into the oven. Twigs smack against me and I hold my hands up in front of my face to stop them from lashing my skin. Gracelessly, I stomp through the brush in the dark.

The beats of my heart are in a race with my feet, and my heart is winning. I can feel my pulse thud in my neck as panic wells up inside me, making it hard to breathe. It’s like I’m drowning from the inside as the fear squeezes my lungs and I struggle for air.

Is he behind me? I can’t tell if he’s following me. I can only hear blood rushing in my ears and the sound of my own frantic feet crunching over the sticks and pine needles.

Where am I going? Is this even the right direction? I’m lost in the woods with a murderer and a rapist. This is like something out of a horror movie. How could I ever have been so stupid? Why did I think I was cut out for any of this? Like a girl who is two years deep in a political science degree has any business pretending to be a private investigator’s assistant out in the vast Canadian north.

I stop running and swallow hard as I desperately try to breathe quieter. It’s damned near impossible when my body is convinced that every ragged breath could be my last. Tilting my head like a puppy learning a new command, I listen intently for sounds of him following me. Each silhouetted tree feels like him looming over me. Every creepy shadow is a potential killer in my mind as I try to adjust my eyes to the dark and hone in my senses.

What was that?

I close my eyes, hoping my ears will work harder and listen better. I can hear footsteps. I pray for them to be a deer. Hell, I’d take a bear at this point. It’s not though.

I know it’s him.

Judging from the sound, he’s not very far behind. It’s only a matter of time until he finds me.

I begin to scurry back through the woods. This must be how a hunter’s prey feels. Except they at least have reflexes and senses born into them to instinctively flee. I pull oxygen deep into my burning lungs and lunge forward, pushing past more whipping tree branches and the air swirls around me as my body falls. For a moment, I have no idea which way is up as I feel weightless in the darkness.

Crunch!

“Ahhh!” I shriek. My ankle folded under me. I curl up on top of it, trying to be quiet as a halo of pain radiates around my leg. Tears that I wish I was strong enough to hold back slide down my face as I struggle to stand back up.

“Fuck!” I drop back to the ground in a clump as white heat sears through my ankle.

Now what? I can hear his footsteps get closer and my body begins to tremble. I’m shaking like I used to when I was a child and I stayed out playing in the snowbanks with my friends until my mother had to physically drag me back inside.

“Your lips are blue!” She’d exclaim. “What were you thinking?”

My breaths are quick and shallow like I’m hyperventilating as I whimper and try not to move.

The footsteps get louder.

Closer.

Then they stop.

I keep my head tucked down. I can’t look up. I can’t face him.

“Jesus,” he mutters. “What are you doing? Are you trying to hide?”

I don’t answer. I know he can see me, but there’s some small part of my brain that’s telling me if I don’t move or make any noise maybe I’ll become invisible. I know it’s stupid but I’m going to cling on to hope where I can find it.

“Listen, after that shit you just pulled I’m just about done here,” his voice booms making me shudder. “If you don’t want my help then you can wait here until sunrise and try to navigate your own way back to town, ‘cause I’m done with your shit!”

I don’t respond. I try to imagine getting out of here even if I wasn’t hurt. Apparently my imagination has limits because I can’t picture it.

Cole sighs deeply, “Fine. Have it your way, I’m going home.” I can hear his feet crunch as he turns away.

Would someone who wants to kill me just leave me like this? Wouldn’t he pounce on this opportunity? Everything I know about Cole McAllister is summed up in his crime. His cold-blooded murder of the twenty-three-year-old son of Senator Turner. With nothing stolen and no known connection between the men, it seemed to be a senseless crime. And yet he was intentionally targeted.

Tonight, when he saved me, I didn’t see a monster in his deep blue eyes. I saw concern.

Compassion.

Caring.

“Wait!” I call out, finally raising my head from the earthy smell of the decayed leaves and mud. “I can’t get up. I’m hurt.”

Cole turns and quickly closes the gap between us. I wince as I hope with all my heart I’m making the right decision and haven’t just sealed my fate in the hands of a murderer.

“You’re hurt?” His tone grows soft and he slides down the small embankment that I fell down. “Where?”

I sit up and my ankle flashes with pain as if to remind me of exactly where I was injured. “Here,” I point and Cole kneels in the dirt before me. His large hands are gentle as he maneuvers my foot from side to side.

“Can you bend your toes?” I can see in the dark that his eyebrows are furrowed together.

I slowly curl my toes over and the pain builds. “I can,” I wince, “but it hurts. A lot.” I answer through gritted teeth.

Cole stands up and holds out his hands to me. “I don’t think it’s broken, but I can’t be sure. I can take a better look at my place, but you need to let me help you,” he looks into my eyes and my fear slides away.

I bite my lip. If I stay here, there’s a good chance I’ll die. The only person who knows to look for me, besides Cole, tried to rape me. Not exactly a knight in shining armor. I meet Cole’s gaze, my trembling subsides and I reach up to his hand.

“Yes.” I whisper. “Please help me.”

It’s like being between a rock and a hard place. Go with him and possibly die at his hands. Although, when I look at him, it’s hard to believe he could ever execute someone like the pictures showed. Or, I can stay here and most likely die in the woods.

Cole wraps his arm under my back and my feet, hauling me up toward his chest. I instinctively slide my arms around his neck to steady myself and I see a small smile pull at the corners of his mouth. He looks handsome when he smiles. Not like the stony-faced pictures I’ve been looking at with Cecil all month.

“Just relax,” his voice rumbles in his chest as he holds me close, “I’ll do my best to get you fixed up, okay? You have my word, I won’t ever hurt you,” his tone soothes me somehow. Despite common sense, despite the file I’ve studied, despite everything my mind keeps screaming about why I shouldn’t believe him, I know that for some unexplainable reason, my heart does.

“Thank you,” I mumble into his jacket and cling on to him tight. My mother always said that the brain is smart, but the heart is wise.

“If you want to know the truth, you don’t read it from a book,” she’d say. “You feel it, here,” I remember how she tapped two fingers above her breast. Before the mastectomies took them both. Before the cancer spread and left my heart no wiser, but certainly more broken.

I tilt my head back against Cole’s arm and look up at the stars above. Up to her. I hope you were right, Mama.