Ashley and Adam came to a jarring halt. Brice’s threat echoed across the land and in her ears. Her heart and lungs seized for one heartbeat, then two.

Is he close?

She wanted to believe he was too far away to catch them. But if he was close enough to hear, he was too close. He’d discovered her gone too soon.

She needed more time.

She needed to get away.

She needed help.

But the night didn’t offer anything but ominous dark clouds closing in to curtain the nearly full moon, her only means of seeing the obstacles in front of her, and a spotlight on her bright dress. If Brice was close, he’d see her.

She tugged Adam’s hand and ran away from the monster stalking them in the dark.

She wouldn’t be a sitting target.

So she ran past trees and bushes, across an open field of grass until the forest swallowed her and Adam again.

Fast and slow, they ran. Through the pain radiating up and down her battered legs, she ran.

Brice’s threat faded into the night long before Ashley stopped. Adrenaline and fear pushed her forward when all she wanted to do was stop and rest. With little energy and even less surety that she’d find a way out of this, her spirits dipped, but she pressed on, telling herself over and over again to just keep going.

They ran as fast as they could for as long as they could into the night, but they couldn’t outrun the biting cold. Her cheeks and lips chapped. Her back and ribs screamed every time her feet pounded against the ground. Adam’s energy sapped out way too soon. She stopped again to catch her breath and pray for a miracle, though all the other times she did so went unanswered.

Adam leaned heavily against her thigh, hurting her many bruises and sore muscles. She pressed her hand to his back, held him close, and tried to think through the still-rising panic.

They needed to get out of here.

For a split second she thought she saw a pinpoint of light in the distance. She second-guessed herself, thinking it too far away to see anything real. Too many obstacles stood in her path for her to have actually seen anything. But her heart pushed her to go forward toward that glimmer of light she could no longer see but which still called to her through the trees and over the rough landscape to that far-off place that promised nothing but a very long night of walking. Even then, she might not reach it by morning. She knew the road lay behind her past Brice’s ranch, but a small voice inside her told her to go deeper into the open countryside.

Adam couldn’t make it on his own. She wouldn’t leave him behind, and they needed to keep moving. She bit back the pain and picked him up. She held Adam close to keep them both warm, ignored the pain slowly being concealed below the cold seeping into her skin and down to her bones, and put one foot in front of the other long into the night.

Thank God the storm held off. Just another ominous presence behind her.

Her head told her to quit, but her heart forced her to push on into hours and hours of perfect quiet.

Adam alternated between walking on his own and her carrying him. He fell asleep with his head on her shoulder, his sweet face buried in her neck for warmth she no longer felt. She forced herself to keep going, keep moving, desperately trying not to let every sound around her freeze her with fear that they’d been discovered.

This was her chance.

The one chance she had to get her life back.

She’d keep going, or die trying, because there was no way in hell she would stop and let that bastard find her. If she was going to die, she’d die trying to save herself, not meek and battered at the hands of a monster. She’d rescue Adam, even if it meant sacrificing her own life.

Light-headed, freezing, hungry, desperately in need of water, she continued on as the first touch of gray lit the black night. Her heel caught on yet another rock or root and was pulled off. Too weary to care about the loss of her shoe, too numb to feel the cold, jagged earth beneath her bare foot, she took two more uneven steps, her eyes drooping, the dizziness and darkness tunneling in her blurry vision. She stumbled and fell to her knees, sad she’d failed getting Adam to safety, but happy she hadn’t died by Brice’s hand, and resigned to the fact she’d done all she could, but she’d been right to believe she’d die tonight.

The light she’d seen before blinked on. So close, just past the trees and a wide pasture, but still too far and out of reach.

Adam jolted awake with a soft whimper. Her arms felt like lead weights. She couldn’t hold on to him another second. “Whatever happens, Adam, don’t let him find you.”

He stepped out of her embrace and tried to hold her up, but as hard as she tried to keep the blackness at bay, it took her.