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Her already laboring heart lodged in her throat, her pulse thundering in her ears. She took off running.
“She’s over here!” a man yelled.
No.No.
Fueled by fear, she ran faster. Branches hit her face and body, her breathing sawing in and out in frantic gasps. Running was not something she did often, she remembered that.
If she made it out of this, she’d swap a few yoga sessions and lattes for running and green smoothies.
All of a sudden, a man dressed in black appeared to her left from behind a tree.
She gasped. It was one of them. Black cargo pants, hard face, mean eyes.
“You have nowhere to go.” His voice sounded like gravel. “We’ll drag you back to the car, and I’ll make sure you don’t get free of your ropes again.”
Dizziness hit and Gemma bumped into a tree.
The man smiled. “The drug is still slowing you down. Just give up. You aren’t getting away.”
She stepped back, and a stick crunched under her bare foot.
She looked down. It was a decent-sized stick, with a sharp point on the end.
As her captor advanced, she crouched, and her fingers closed around the wood. She’d learned that you didn’t always get what you wanted from life, but the chances increased if you took action yourself.
When you fought for yourself.
With a grunt, she surged upward, swinging the stick.
Right into the asshole’s face.
“Fuck!”
He toppled backward, and Gemma leaped over him. She took off running again.
She didn’t stop. She didn’t look back.
Her heartbeat echoed in her head.
Run. Escape. Run.
She heard water running nearby and tilted her head. A river, maybe?
A gunshot echoed through the trees.
With a garbled cry, she took off like a sprinter. She raced through some more damn trees, then she tripped once again. She hit the ground hard.
Pain throbbing through her, she tried to regroup. Were they going to shoot her? Her vision swam, her fingers digging into the dirt.
She needed a plan, but her head was too heavy. It was too hard to think.
She was a baker, for God’s sake. Her best skills were caramelizing sugar and making perfect macarons. Not self-defense or hand-to-hand combat.
Just keep moving.
That, she could manage.
Pushing to her feet, she took off at a jog. Her left leg hurt now, and she was half limping. There were more gunshots, and she flinched. Raised voices echoed through the trees.
