Page 91 of Chasing Creed

Then she gestured for Brodie to lead the way.

The rain came in drops, and Brodie was grateful. A downpour might scare Orlando off. It would also make it impossible to hear anything. And Brodie was good at listening for things that no one else seemed to notice.

Halfway to the meadow and she could hear him. Clumsy footfalls snapping twigs. An occasional slide on wet pine needles. She stopped once and looked back at Sara. Without saying a word, she pointed with only her eyes to the ledge above them and to the right. Then she gave a slight back and forth with her head, telling her not to look.

When she started again, she went slower as if the terrain had become more difficult. Lightning forked overhead. Brodie avoided looking up. She hoped Sara did so too.

The rain came down harder now. The leaves and branches protected them at first from getting soaked. Now the ground cover became slick. Mud sucked at Brodie’s shoes. It didn’t bother her, but she held onto branches and trunks showing Sara how to manage.

The closer they got to the meadow, the more Brodie realized they didn’t have a plan. Doing exactly what Sara told her to do? Whatever that was about, it was not a plan. Brodie didn’t even have her canister of bear spray. The only thing still in her zippered pocket was the cell phone. Ryder had made all of them carry the silly things around all day with a newly installed app. She still didn’t understand how a phone could save her. Right now, she’d trade it in a second for the bear spray.

She stopped so suddenly that Sara bumped into her. Then she dropped to one knee, gesturing for Sara to do the same. She grabbed at her ankle. From above, she hoped it looked like she had twisted her foot.

She took the opportunity to whisper, “We’re twenty feet from the meadow. Let me go out. You stay hidden and wait for him to show up.”

Sara stared at her. “I’m the one who’s supposed to be telling you what to do.”

“Okay.”

Thunder vibrated the ground beneath them. Sara’s eyes darted around, though she kept the rest of her body completely still. Earlier, Brodie envied Sara’s confidence. There had been an air of self-reliance and assurance. Now, she looked unsure of herself. Like she was forced to make a decision she didn’t expect to make.

Something wasn’t right.

Had Brodie jumped too quickly? She hadn’t had time to think any of this out. She just knew she would not let Sara fight this battle alone. Here was this person who had gone through a similar ordeal with Iris. All this time, Brodie had felt so alone. She thought nobody could understand what it was like. The psychological mind games Iris had played. The brutal punishments that took their toll. The drugs that maintained that constant fog. Here was finally someone else who had experienced these same things.

But beyond their shared experience, she knew nothing more about Sara. Just when Brodie was beginning to wonder if she had misplaced her trust in this stranger, Sara nodded and pulled out the gun from her waistband. The thing looked huge in her small hands. But her fingers were steady.

“Be careful,” she finally told Brodie. “And when the time comes, listen to me. Okay? When I tell you to do something, do it.”

She waited for Brodie to nod. Before she could stand back up, Sara grabbed her wrist and pulled her close again. This whisper had an urgency to it that Brodie hadn’t heard. “Promise, if something happens to me, you’ll take care of Shadow.”

“Nothing’s going to happen to you.”

“Promise you’ll take care of her. Please.”

And now, Brodie got a glimpse of Sara’s eyes and saw something she recognized all too well. Fear. Not for herself, but for the dog.

“I promise.” But Brodie stayed down for a moment longer, even after Sara took her hand off her wrist. And before she stood, she added, “You and me, we got this.”

She had no idea what that really meant. But Jason said it to her every once in a while. He made it sound like everything would be okay. It was a comfort. A promise. Maybe it was only a fleeting hope.

65

Brodie waited and listened before she took the final steps out into the meadow. She saw that Sara had planted her back against the trunk of a live oak.

Smart!

Maybe she was better at this than Brodie had given her credit. Positioning herself like that would make it harder for someone to sneak up behind her.

But when Brodie glanced back a second time, Sara was gone.

It wasn’t possible for him to come up the path the same way she and Sara had come. He’d have to go all the way around the meadow. The ledge where she’d heard Orlando earlier didn’t lead down here. It became a wall of dirt and rocks and exposed roots. Even a seasoned hiker couldn’t scale down it without being noticed. But that’s where her eyes searched.

The rain had eased up but water and mud slid down into the meadow. Leaves dripped. Above, she could finally see the sky, the thunderheads still angry and roiling with bursts of lightning and a constant rumble. The thunder made it difficult to hear anything else.

Slow and steady, she pulled up a branch from under a cedar tree. She’d hidden it there when she first started coming out to this meadow alone. Except she was never alone. Hank was always with her. Missing him tangled a knot in her stomach. But he was safe, and that was more important. She couldn’t stand to see him hurt. Perhaps that was the one thing she and Sara had in common. They’d both been lucky enough to find another being that they loved more than themselves.

The shape of the branch looked like a baseball bat. Thin and sturdy at one end, bark rubbed free and smooth for her fingers. The other end was solid and heavy, but the weight was spread out. She’d practiced swinging it many times. Now, she kept it tucked against her leg.