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Everything was confusion among the trees. Light and shade flashed over her eyes, ruining her vision, and making it hard to understand what she was looking at. The noise of her own passage as she crashed through branches and undergrowth obscured any clues about where the killer and Hayley Sommers might be. All she had to go on was what she had last heard and her own sense of direction – because she was sure the noise had come from the area where the hut was situated.
Laura kept her eyes open, desperately searching for any sign, any glimpse of color, trying to hear any possible noise –
Something hit her arm hard, the arm holding the gun, and she dropped it before she had a chance to react and grip harder. She tripped over something, landing in the dead leaves at the foot of yet another tree, so hard that for a second she was winded. Something grabbed her shoulder. She was dimly aware of her gun spiraling off somewhere – she couldn’t see it when she looked to the side. The person grabbing her forcibly turned her over, making her land on her back –
Laura looked up into the face of the killer.
Now that she saw him in person, she recognized him immediately. She had spent so long trying to make other suspects fit the glimpses she’d had of his face, trying to see if their nose was the same or if those same eyes could be the ones that she had seen flashing in the darkness. But now that she saw him again, she knew that had been foolish. The man in front of her now – none of them looked anything like him at all.
His face was cold, hard, closed. He looked empty. Dead inside already. Like there was absolutely nothing she could say or do, no sob story, no plea for clemency that would ever get through. His mind was made up. She was going to die.
And then he frowned at her in total confusion, like he had no idea who he was looking at – and Laura realized he must have thought she was Hayley.
And in that same instant, she realized she had a moment of advantage – and she took it, pushing him hard in the chest and using the same momentum to roll up and to the side, getting to her feet. She spun around to face him, ready to fight tooth and nail if need be –
And was confronted only with the sight of his back retreating from her.
Laura caught her breath, starting to run after him and then stopping. Her gun. She needed her gun. If she had that she could have just shot him now, but – where was it?
She dropped to her knees again hastily, searching the ground, pushing aside brush and fern growth, trying to find it. She couldn’t even get a glimpse. Laura despaired, realizing she was unarmed now and there was nothing she could do about it – not in enough time to make a difference. There would probably need to be a search effort from the local precinct in order to help her track it down in a place like this, where it could have spun off in any direction and gone under anything.
But Hayley – Hayley needed her now.
Laura got back to her feet, looking in the direction the killer had gone and trying to listen. If he came upon her again, she wasn’t sure the fact that he was surprised to see her would make enough of a difference. In all likelihood, he was just going to turn around once he had killed Hayley and come back to take care of her as a witness.
She couldn’t fight him – not well, at least. He was bigger. Heavier. Used to killing women with his bare hands – at least five of them. Hayley would make six if he managed it. And Laura wasn’t even sure whether her message to Nate had gone through, let alone how long it would take him to get here if it had.
But still. She had a duty.
The hut – she had seen that in her vision. Not the woods. Not Mickey’s or the roadside. The hut.
She had to trust in her vision.
Hoping she still had her bearings, Laura set off in the direction of the hut at a run, believing – because she had to – that she would find Hayley there.
She ran full out until she burst into the clearing, experiencing just one moment of pure exhilaration at the fact that she had been right – she had kept her sense of direction even in the depth of the woods. It was swiftly followed by fear.
Out here, she was vulnerable. A sitting duck. He would be able to see her from the tree line easily.
And it occurred to her there was a possibility that the reason she couldn’t find her gun was because he had taken it with him.
Laura swallowed hard and rushed forward, seeking the relative safety of the hut. She grabbed the door and rushed inside –
And had to bite back a scream.
The other woman, the one holding a rifle and pointing it right at her, also visibly restrained herself, her face a mask of shock. There was a moment when the two of them held their breath, Laura because she didn’t want to be shot and the woman, who had to be Hayley, presumably because she was getting over the fact she had almost shot someone.
“Who are you?” she whispered, a stage whisper, gesturing with the gun for Laura to go deeper inside the room and away from the door.
“I’m an FBI agent,” Laura whispered back, following the directions. They both turned and looked towards the half-constructed door. The only vantage point from which they would be able to see the killer coming. “You’re Hayley Sommer?”
“Yes!” Hayley said, and almost sagged in relief. “You came to find me?”
Laura nodded. “I’m sorry. He managed to disarm me. I don’t know if he has my gun or if it’s just gone.”
Hayley stared at her. “Wait. You’re on your own?”
Laura nodded, guilty, feeling the fact that she had let her down in her bones. If she had managed to neutralize the killer out there in the woods, she could have been a hero. Instead, she was the idiot agent who got herself captured as well by showing up alone and unprepared.
