Page 5 of Crossfire Creek Vengeance

“Deacon,” she whispered, sharper than she meant. She didn’t want to snap at him, but fear had her nerves stretched tight. “Not now. We’ll talk once we’re safe. I promise.”

Safe. A word she wasn’t sure existed right now.

She scanned the tree line again, trying to pick out Wynn’s position. Nothing. No light, no silhouette. Just the restless rustle of night creatures and the weight of the man beside her slowly bleeding into the dirt.

She leaned in closer. “Listen. My SUV is parked about three hundred yards from here, off a deer trail.” She pointed north with her chin. “It’s bullet-resistant. If we can get to it, we can get out of here.”

Deacon’s response was immediate, flat. “I’d rather stay and confront him.”

Of course, he would. The man was made of stubborn bone and bad timing.

She caught his arm again before he tried to push himself higher against the tree. The movement pulled a pained groan from him, and she felt it like her own ribs cracked.

“Deacon.” She kept her voice low, steady. “You’re hurt. I don’t know how deep the wound is, but if Wynn comes at us again while you’re like this—”

“I can still shoot.” His jaw clenched. “I don’t run from threats, Jess.”

“This isn’t running.” She leaned in until their foreheads were almost touching, her breath fogging between them. “It’s regrouping. It’s getting you medical attention before you collapse on me. And then”—she angled her head back, staring into the cold, dark woods—“then we work out how to catch Wynn.”

Deacon’s eyes narrowed. She could practically feel the argument forming on his tongue. She didn’t let him speak.

“You want him stopped?” she whispered. “So do I. More than you know. But we don’t do it here. Not like this with you hurt.”

Silence stretched between them, tense, heavy, broken only by the distant shuffle of branches deeper in the woods. Wynn was moving again. Circling. Watching.

Deacon exhaled slowly, the breath trembling from pain. “Three hundred yards to your SUV?”

“Yeah.”

He nodded. “Then let’s move.”

Relief washed through her sharp as ice. She shifted her stance, lifting his arm back over her shoulders. His weight dragged against her, warm and heavy and terrifying in its fragility.

“Ready?” she whispered.

“No,” he muttered. “But let’s go anyway.”

She adjusted his arm over her shoulder, bracing his weight, and they moved, slow, uneven, but moving. Every few yards she paused, listening. The night gave nothing back but cold wind and the nervous chatter of dry leaves.

They were maybe halfway to the SUV when a low light flickered through the trees.

Headlights.

Too high to be an ATV. Too slow to be a civilian truck. Too damn wrong to be safe.

“Down,” she whispered.

Deacon didn’t argue, thank God. She pulled him behind a cluster of boulders, the cold rock biting through her jeans as she crouched low. She pressed a hand to his shoulder when he swayed, grounding him, keeping them both silent.

The headlights crawled across the distant trail, a restless sweep of white against the dark. Jessa held her breath. Waited. Counted heartbeats.

One. Two… all the way to ten.

But the vehicle never got close. The lights kept moving, then angled away, swallowed by the trees until nothing was left but blackness again.

Still… no voices. No footsteps. No door slams.

Just the dead quiet that made her nerves go razor-sharp.