Willa pushed back against the wall and slid to the ground as she waited for the next gunshot. Her fear that had bordered on unbearable before had now skyrocketed as the shots rang out.

She didn’t know what was happening or who was firing and the not knowing was driving her crazy. She had a lot of faith in James’s abilities, but he couldn’t fight off a bullet. She just had to hope he was the one doing the firing.

The silence stretched on as she waited for something, anything, to let her know what was going on. Damn it. If they got through this, she was hooking James up with a walkie-talkie, pager, cell phone, or anything that would allow her to keep in touch with him. This wait-and-see method just wasn’t going to work.

But before she could mentally debate with herself about whether pagers even existed anymore, a boom echoed through the house. Through the crack at the bottom of the door, she saw a bright flash. She frowned and pushed farther back against the wall. What the hell was that? Another explosion? A gunshot? What would cause that much light?

Nothing good, she was guessing. She tried to contain her nerves as the silence once again set in, but then the silence was gone. It wasn’t a gunshot or explosion that terrified her this time. It was the slow and steady footsteps. Those creaking boards she was so familiar with now sent tremors of terror through her.

She’d only been here a day, but that was long enough to know that James never made any noise when he moved. Whoever was inside the house, it wasn’t James.

She knew that there was some hostile presence in the house, and unless James got there in the next few minutes, she was on her own. He told her this was the safest space in the house, but she had a feeling that door wouldn’t hold out forever.

Willa tried to push herself up, but her knees shook and she decided that maybe crawling would be better. She made her way to the closet where he’d kept the guns and pulled it open and pushed the clothes aside.

The selection of weapons was more than intimidating, but before she wimped out, the sound of someone twisting the door handle gave her added motivation to get out of her comfort zone. The door was locked, but who knew what tricks the bastard had up his sleeve?

She pulled the smallest gun she saw. Smaller was more manageable, right? Damn it, she wished she knew more about guns. She kept the barrel aimed away from her as she tried to figure out what to do. She saw something that looked like a safety and flicked it, but instead the clip fell out of the butt. With shaking hands, she picked up the clip and let out a sigh of relief when she saw there were bullets in it. She didn’t know the first thing about loading a weapon, so that was one thing she didn’t have to worry about. She pushed the clip back inside and settled the gun in her hand. She tried to get used to the weight of it and thought about what she knew about guns.

They hurt people; you point and shoot. That didn’t seem like nearly enough information. There was scratching on the other side of the door, and Willa wondered whether they were trying to pick the lock. Could they pick the lock? She was going to assume yes.

She looked around, trying to find anything else that could help her. Lights. She should turn off the lights. If he couldn’t see her, it would be harder to kill her, right?

She crawled over to the wall with the light switch, which, of course, was right next to the door. Right as she reached for the switch, she saw the deadbolt lock start to turn, being unlocked from the other side.

Shit. Shit. Shit. She flicked the switch and scurried back to the far side of the room, aiming the gun right at the door. Let him come in. The second that door opened, she was going to show him.

The tough thoughts were belied by the gun shaking in her hands. James was still out there, she told herself. He was going to come in any moment and take out this guy.

And then the door was opening. She hesitated as a silhouette appeared in the doorway. For a split second, she hoped it was going to be James walking in. But it only took a moment for her to confirm it wasn’t him. The man scanned the room and she knew she couldn’t wait. She aimed the gun and took a shot.

The explosion in her hand threw her hands back and the gun tumbled to the ground. But the grunt of the man in front of her told her that she at least made contact. She thought that shooting someone would stop him, but the guy dove for her. Before she could reach the gun she’d dropped, his boot slammed into her ribs.

She moaned as an intense pain spread through her side. She still reached for the gun, but before she could even touch it, the man grabbed her by the neck and picked her up, slamming her against the wall.

Her aches and pains all seemed to float away as she struggled to breathe and the fight-or-flight reflex kicked in all the way. Except there was hardly anything to fight against. She clawed and punched the arm holding her against the wall, but she might as well have been fighting a steel statue for all the good it did.

Her toes just barely touched the ground but his grip wasn’t actually strangling her. She tried to figure out where she’d shot the guy. If she knew where he was injured, maybe she could get some sort of leverage to get him to let her go.

She couldn’t make out any of his features in the dark, and suddenly a light shone in her face. The flashlight had her closing her eyes to avoid the brightness and she felt even more vulnerable and helpless.

“Willa Belli,” muttered the guy. “This was supposed to go better for you.”

She didn’t want to know what he meant by that and she wasn’t going to give the son of a bitch validation.

He seemed more than happy to tell her. “This was supposed to be a recovery if we found you. But if you happened to get caught in the crossfire, shit happens, right?”

With his hand around her neck, he used his free hand to hit a button on the radio attached to his shoulder. “I found her. She was injured fatally in the gunfire.” He clicked off the radio and there was silence. He radioed in again. “Alpha, Charlie, check in.”

Even though Willa was getting light-headed from lack of oxygen, she forced a smile. He couldn’t get in touch with his guys. That meant James was still out there. And if he was still alive, that meant he was coming.

The guy must’ve had the same conclusion. In one abrupt motion, he pulled her away from the wall and twisted her in front of his body. Before she could even think of a way to fight back, something sharp pointed into her stomach. She didn’t need to look down to know there was a knife right at the bottom of her ribcage. Oh, God, she was going to die.

She didn’t know why it didn’t feel real until right now, but even if James came running in at this moment, she just didn’t see what chance she stood. He had one hand holding the knife, which pressed so fiercely into her side that she couldn’t even breathe too deeply or it would cut her. His other arm stretched over her shoulder and pointed a gun toward the door. He leaned in close, as though trying to maximize her effectiveness as a human shield. “I need you to scream for me,” he said into her ear.

She shuddered in disgust at his breath and squeezed her eyes shut. He wanted her to scream to lure James in and then he was going to shoot him. No. She wasn’t going to lure James to his death. She couldn’t do it.

The knife pushed harder, and a pained gasp escaped as she felt the sharp metal cut into the skin. She brought up the image of Jules. She’d been so brave and stoic. Willa knew she wasn’t brave, and all she could do was hope that James came to save her, but she could keep quiet. It was the least she could do.

“Scream,” demanded the man.

Willa bit the inside of her cheek and kept quiet even as the knife slipped in more. Oh God. Part of her, the rational part, knew that it was barely there, but it didn’t feel as if she was only slightly being stabbed. It felt as if it was a full-on stabbing.

But she wasn’t going to scream.

“For the last fucking time, scream,” he bit out into her ear, his irritation hitting harder.

“Go to hell,” she managed, working against every instinct to cry out and beg for help.

A gunshot erupted in the quiet room and Willa shuddered as the man leapt to the side, taking her with him. In his retreat, he had removed the knife from her side, and she fell away from where her attacker went and tried to figure out what the hell had happened. No one had come through the door....

Before she truly got her bearings, James came around the bed, gun drawn, and kept on firing. Willa tried to crawl away, but the bed stopped her from moving any further.

All she could do was sit there as James stood over the attacker. Even though he’d been hit multiple times, the guy was coughing and moaning in pain.

“Leave,” said James.

It took a second for Willa to realize that James was talking to her. “I....” Her throat didn’t want to work right. “Should I call the cops?”

James didn’t look away from the man on the floor. “No. Leave, Willa. I’ll be right out.”

She pushed herself up but she didn’t make it out. She couldn’t leave him. She didn’t want to. She needed to see what was going to happen.

She expected James to finish it with a gun, but he didn’t. He knelt down and in the darkness, it was hard to see exactly what was happening. But the coughing man was suddenly quiet and she could tell from the body positions that James was leaning over him, with a hand on his throat.

Willa stood there the entire time. She couldn’t leave. She couldn’t pretend she didn’t know what was happening. She couldn’t pretend she wasn’t involved in this.

The minutes stretched on, and James didn’t let go, even long after the man had stopped moving. Finally James stood and Willa felt as though she were frozen to the ground. What did she say to that? James had just killed a man for her. It was the second time she’d ever seen someone killed. Murdered? The lines were so blurred at the moment.

James walked over to the doorway and flipped on the lights. Setting a hand on her arm, he pulled her into the hall where she couldn’t see the body anymore. “Are you okay?” he asked in his normal tone, as though nothing had happened.

“I....” What the hell was she supposed to say to that?

He didn’t wait for her answer. He knelt in front of her and pushed her hand away from where it was holding the knife wound at her side. She didn’t even realize she’d been holding it until he did that. He lifted the edge of her T-shirt to get a better look, and as her legs wobbled, she set a hand on his big shoulder to steady her. Was she weak from blood loss or was it the craziness of what had just happened?

“This doesn’t look too deep. I don’t think it will need stitches. I’ll grab some butterfly bandages and some antibiotics.”

Well, that probably meant it wasn’t blood loss. She stared down at him, which quickly turned to staring up at him as he stood and continued to look her over. He tilted her face back and moved her head to the left and right, as though looking for any other injuries.

“I think I’m okay,” she managed to get out, trying and failing to have the same calm that he did. She’d been stabbed. People like her just didn’t get stabbed. And they didn’t get saved by people like James Weston.

He nodded at her words, but he didn’t let go of her face. His long fingers reached the base of her neck while his thumb was right under her chin. She was still gasping for breath as she took a moment to study him. His face was smudged with dirt and she could see evidence of bruising on one side of his face. Whatever had kept him from her for so long, it hadn’t been enough to keep him down. She reached up to touch him, almost not believing he was real. He had come for her. She had been the damsel who was so sure she was going to die and then there he’d been.

She was fighting off the urge to kiss him when he crushed his mouth over hers. After everything that had just happened, making out with her personal killer was the worst idea in the world. But all the safeguards in her mind that were supposed to keep her from doing this had been fried in the franticness of the past few minutes.

The kiss was just as feral as James. He didn’t treat her as small or fragile or breakable. He was rough and hard and she held him closer, more than happy to take all of that roughness.

Because at the moment, even though she’d needed to be saved and had almost died, she didn’t feel fragile. She had survived. She fought. She didn’t scream.

She didn’t feel as if she and James were all that different for the moment. So when he backed her against the wall and pressed his body against hers, she didn’t notice any of the pain. All she could do was grab onto his shoulders, her fingers biting into the muscle, as she held him closer and kissed him back.

He held her head steady, bracing her for his kiss. Suddenly he broke away and his forehead rested against hers as they both caught their breath. Even as the reasons that never should’ve happened rushed her mind, all she wanted to do was pull him back in.

“Stay here.” James pushed away and went to the bathroom.

She wished he hadn’t left. The second he was gone, reality crushed back in. Namely, the physical pain of what had just happened. Her hand went back to her side. Putting pressure on her mini stab wound didn’t really do much for the pain, but it was almost an impulse.

He told her to stay there, but she was too antsy to sit still. She leaned in and looked into James’s bedroom. The side wall had slid open to reveal a hidden door. That was how James had snuck up on them. It was strange to have a hidden room, but nothing was really a surprise when it came to James Weston. From what she knew about the layout of the house, the hidden door led to the locked room they’d gotten into a fight over during that first night.

She stepped into the room and glanced over at the body. She wanted to feel bad about the deceased man, but she could still feel the way his palm had crushed her windpipe. Good riddance.

She got closer and kept waiting for him to pop up like the villain from a horror movie, but he seemed to be staying dead.

On the floor next to him was a cell phone that must’ve fallen out of a pocket. She knelt down and picked it up. There was no lock on it, so she started to snoop, looking for a better idea of what had happened. Had her father really sent someone to kill her? Was this the fear she was going to have to live with the rest of her life?

There were no calls in the history, but there were plenty of messages. Some recent, in the past few hours. And as she read more and more, it became obvious that she couldn’t stay here any longer.

Running wasn’t an option any more.

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James wasn’t surprised when he didn’t see Willa in the hallway where he left her. The adrenaline was still pumping through his system and he wouldn’t be able to sit still for hours. But when he made the rounds through the house and still didn’t see her, he started to get concerned.

It had taken him longer than he expected to dig out his supply of antibiotics, but it wasn’t as though he’d been gone for hours. Just a few minutes. And she should know that even though the danger was mostly past, they were by no means in the clear.

He went through every room, one by one, but didn’t see her. Her clothes and bags were still in the room she’d been sleeping in, but there was no sign of her.

When he heard the engine start up, a shot of anger hit him. “No,” he said out loud as he ran to the front door. The remnants of the flash bomb were scattered on the floor. He ran over them until he reached the porch just in time to see the trail of dust his truck left as it disappeared over the desert.

“No,” he said again. His heart, which had barely calmed down, pounded away. She had left him. Son of a bitch. He didn’t know why he was taken by surprise. After what she’d seen him do, it only made sense that she’d run.

But what didn’t make sense was his reaction. Because as he watched that truck disappear, he knew without a doubt that he was going to track her down.

He was going to get Willa back, come hell or high water and no matter who he had to kill.