“Lane!” she shouts. “I do not love you. You could take me captive, and I would only kill you the first chance I got. If I couldn’t kill you, I would kill myself before I let you touch me. Is that clear? Do you understand? I will not be yours. I will never—”
“No!” I say. I hear her words, and I hear echoes of others, and I know what is coming, what is always coming in a situation like this.
I run for Sidra, but Petra is closer, and she knows the same thing I do. She’s on her feet, launching herself at Sidra. That whistle sounds. That horrible whistle. Petra hits Sidra and sends her flying, and the arrow hits Petra in the chest. I’m already running at her, and I see it hit and her eyes round, mouth rounding, too, in surprise. Another arrow, this one hitting her in the shoulder, spinning her. She stumbles, and I catch her. I grab her, and her feet scuffle against the ground as she tries to stay upright.
“Cover!” I shout at Sidra and Baptiste. “Get to cover. Storm!”
Storm races to me as I half drag Petra. Baptiste says, “Here!” and I look to see him and Sidra ducking behind a deadfall off to our left. I manage to get Petra there. I glance at Baptiste, but he says, “I’m fine.”
“He’s not fine,” Sidra says, voice quavering, “but his jacket is thick. He’ll be all right.”
Sidra helps me lay Petra down. Petra’s fingers wrap around my arm, her face pale, eyes wide with impending shock.
“You’re okay,” I say. “Relax. Stay with us.”
“Émilie,” she says, and it takes me a moment to remember that that’s her grandmother, one of the board members for Rockton. “The … the hostiles … Your … your theory.”
“Tell Émilie my theory about the hostiles. Got it. But you can do it yourself. Just hold on.”
We don’t remove the arrows, not until we get a look at how deep they’re in. I undo Petra’s parka. While she hasn’t been as lucky as Baptiste, the arrowheads haven’t gone deeper than the head. One is in her shoulder, the other just above her heart. Serious, yes. Life-threatening, though? I hope not. I really, really hope not. I can’t see well enough to be sure, not without removing the arrows.
“We need to snap off the shafts,” I say. “If the shafts are off, we can get her out of that jacket and—”
“Eric,” Petra whispers. “Go look after Eric. And get this guy. Stop him.”
I hesitate, but Sidra shoulders me aside, taking over. “She’s right. We’ll leave the arrows in for now. Just find your sheriff and stop Lane.” She meets my gaze. “Please stop Lane.”
I nod, squeeze Petra’s hand, and then take off.
FORTY-ONE
From the arrow-fire, I know the direction to go. I do what we’d planned before Petra got shot—I sneak up in the other direction, presumably on Lane’s opposite side. I hear Lane before I see him. He’s breathing hard and fast, the sound pulling me easily through the woods, letting me approach alongside him, no danger of running smack into him. Not that I’m too worried about that. His weapon might be lethal, but he doesn’t have an arrow nocked. I can see that as soon as I spot him. He’s poised, bow in hand, his gaze riveted on the place where the others hide behind the deadfall.
He’s waiting for movement. I don’t know what he expects—someone to leap up like a jack-in-the-box? His heavy breathing tells me his adrenaline is pumping, blood pounding in his ears, rendering him deaf and blind to everything except what he wants to see.
Sidra.
He’s waiting for Sidra.
He expects she’ll leap up again to scream at him. Tell him that she’ll never be his, and he will kill her for it. That is what men like him do. He’s been raised to believe he has the right to a life partner, the right to the woman he chooses to fill that role, and if he can’t have her, then by God, no one else will either. He’ll kill Sidra and then himself. That is how this goes. It’s how it always goes.
So Lane waits for his chance, and he doesn’t hear me creep up on his left side. He hasn’t seen the figure to his right either.
Dalton will have heard the commotion with Petra going down, and he’ll have paused long enough to be sure we were safely under cover. Then he came here, where he’ll wait to see what I do before he makes his move.
When I’m far enough behind Lane’s peripheral vision, I lean out and catch Dalton’s eye. He nods and motions a plan. Or I’m sure it’s a plan, but we’re forty feet apart in the forest, and it’s not as if I see more than a few hand gestures. That’s enough, though. I know what we should do, and it seems to coincide with what he’s suggesting.
We both creep toward Lane from our respective positions, staying out of visual range and on either side of him. Then, without warning, Dalton steps forward, plowing through brush, winter-dry twigs crackling. Lane wheels on Dalton … and that’s apparently my cue to swing behind him and cut off his escape route. I dart into place just as Lane looks over his shoulder to find me there, gun pointed at him, Dalton doing the same on his other side.
“If you reach for an arrow, we fire,” I say. “You can run, but this time, we’re close enough to catch you.”
“Also close enough to shoot you,” Dalton says. “Save ourselves the trouble of chasing.”
“I’m fine with shooting,” I say. “In fact, I’d say it might be our best option. Our only option, really. You stole a baby. You murdered Ellen. You hoped to murder the baby with her. Now you’re trying to murder your best friend and the woman you supposedly love.”
“Seems to me he doesn’t know the meaning of that word,” Dalton drawls.
Lane’s face purples. “I’m the only one who does know the meaning of it. Baptiste doesn’t. He’s no friend of mine. Friends don’t do that.”