usually could find her way around anywhere, but in her panic to get away from men shooting at her, she’d lost track of what direction they’d gone. She’d never learned to navigate by the stars, having grown up in the middle of the Smoky Mountains, a long way from the sea. And the heavens had opened up again, anyway, mountain fog and driving rain obscuring everything outside a fifty-yard radius.
She might as well be in the middle of a big, tree-strewn void for all the good her surroundings were doing her at the moment.
Stubbornly quelling the panic starting to hurtle up from her trembling gut, she made herself stop and take a long, deep breath. Look around. What do you see?
Trees. Fog.
Someone moving through the woods ahead.
Shock zapped through her, compelling her to run. She clamped down on the instinct, knowing that movement was the worst possible thing at the moment. Standing very still, several yards from the dark silhouettes she could barely make out moving through the mist about thirty yards away, she had a chance to escape their notice. Her coat was a dark olive-green trench that covered her from neck to knee, and the underbrush covered her legs from toes to knees. Only her face and hands would be visible in the damp gloom, and they might be mistaken for the patchy white trunk of a birch tree.
As long as she stayed very, very still.
Nearby, something rustled in the underbrush. She held her position, ruthlessly suppressing the urge to turn her head and see what was moving around so close by.
Ahead, the two dark-clad figures walking through the trees kept moving. Apparently they’d heard nothing, or if they had, they’d chalked it up to an animal wandering around in the rain.
The pounding rush of her pulse in her ears was so loud it almost eclipsed the staccato beat of the rain, which had risen to a torrent. Even the thick evergreen boughs overhead weren’t enough to keep her from becoming thoroughly drenched. But she didn’t move, not even to wipe the rain out of her stinging eyes.
The dark figures kept moving, gliding with terrifying silence through the fog until they disappeared from her sight.
She ignored her body’s urge to crumple into a boneless heap and stayed still a few moments longer until she was sure the prowling men were no longer in earshot.
She heard the rustling noise again. Closer this time.
Her patience and control left in a snap, and she started running headlong through the woods, heedless of the noise she was making or the painful slap of her unraveling gauze-and-tape footwear against her battered feet. All she could think about was the chill-inducing menace of the men she’d seen gliding through the misty woods like vengeful ghosts.
The tape on her right foot tore away completely, and she went sprawling, barely catching herself from landing face-first on the rocky ground. She hit hard, the impact driving the air from her lungs and leaving her gasping and heaving for breath.
For a few terrifying seconds, the world around her seemed to go completely black as her oxygen-starved lungs struggled to refill. And in that frightening void, Susannah heard her grandmother’s voice, sharp and clear.
“Get yourself together, girl. Ain’t nobody gonna fix your troubles ’cept you.”
Air seeped into her lungs, easing the blackness. Cold, damp air replaced the burning pain in her chest, and slowly her pulse descended from the stratosphere to a fast but steady cadence.
Get yourself together, girl, she repeated silently, gathering up the remains of her ersatz shoe and examining it to see if there was any hope of making a repair.
Nope. It was a goner.
Allowing herself only a second or two of despair, she rose to her feet and shoved the bundle of tattered gauze and tape in the pocket of her flimsy jacket. Gingerly putting her injured foot on the ground, she gauged the discomfort level and, while it hurt like hell, she thought she could bear it, at least a little while longer.
She took a careful step forward. The ground was rough, wet and hard, but she could take it.
The flurry of movement behind her came out of thick silence, like a whirlwind born from dead calm. She had time to suck in a quick breath and take a stumbling step forward before she was jerked back against a wall of hard heat. A large hand clamped over her mouth and a low drawl rumbled in her ear.
“Don’t make a sound.”
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