Page 18 of Catch My Fall

But with killing Austin, I run the risk of hitting Ollie.

“Get her out of here!” Ollie shouts a second before Austin drives his fist into the side of his face. “Go!” he gurgles, and I do as he says.

I carefully carry Sierra up the stairs, her cheek resting over my heart that thumps wildly in my chest.

I did it.

I fucking found her. The feeling inside me right now is unlike anything I’ve ever felt in my life. A million different emotions are flooding through me, it’s overwhelming. So overwhelming, that I don’t anticipate what happens next.

The click of a gun behind me makes me freeze. “Take one more step and you get to watch her die before I kill you too.”

I turn around to find Austin a few meters away, his gun aimed at the sleeping beauty in my arms. His eye is swelling shut and blood trickles from both his temple and the corner of his mouth.

I tighten my hold on Sierra. “I’m taking her with me.”

“Not if I have anything to do with it,” he disagrees.

“Come on, Sloane. You and I both know it’s over.”

His eyes lift briefly to something over my shoulder before returning to me. “Yeah, I suppose it is,” he says with a smirk, and before I have chance to react, I’m smashed over the head with something blunt and hard from behind.

Sierra and I go down. She cries out as she hits the floor and I do my best to brace myself above her so I don’t crush her with my weight.

My vision turns cloudy for a second, my head thick and heavy like I’ve drank too much alcohol because the world around me spins at a million miles an hour.

“Boss, there’s a vehicle parked up not far from here, two other vehicles just pulled up alongside it, it looks like the FBI.”

“Fuck!” Austin shouts, his voice echoing around my foggy brain. “Take the bitch and put her in the van. I’ll be there in a minute.”

“Sir, what about him?” I can only assume they’re talking about me.

“Leave him. Same goes for Ollie, let the cunt bleed out. With any luck they’ll both be dead before help arrives. Now move!”

“D-Don’t touch her!” I try, but my words come out slurred as my mind swims, and all I can do is watch as Sierra’s limp body is dragged away, the jacket I draped over her slipping off, leaving her completely exposed once again.

“A-Alec… Alec!” she cries wearily, her voice pained, as the guy who hit me hauls her out of the room.

Gripping the edge of the kitchen counter, I pull myself up onto unsteady feet, feeling the rush of something warm and wet trickle down the back of my neck and beneath my shirt, but I don’t have time to dwell on it.

I stumble my way out of the kitchen in the direction they took Sierra, led solely by the trail of her blood on the ground.

I fight through the pain in my head as I burst through a door that leads me outside, just in time to see a black van pulling away, but not before Austin, who sits in the passenger seat grins at me through the window.

Before I know it, I’m running. I’m running as fast as my size twelve boots will allow, my steps eat up the dirt beneath me as the van speeds along the gravel driveway, but I’m not fast enough.

Despite the burn in my legs, my effort is wasted. The van soon pulls a lead ahead of me, but I don’t give up. I never will.

Just as the van begins to disappear into the night, a set of headlights appear out of nowhere. A black SUV careens towards the van, cutting them off. The driver of the van brakes sharply, allowing me precious seconds to get closer.

I close in on the van as its wheels screech with acceleration, maneuvering around the SUV blocking its path. Just as I reach for the handle, my grip closes around nothing as the van peels away.

One of the SUVs slam to a halt beside me, the side door sliding open. “Get in!” Max shouts, reaching out to give me a hand.

I climb in just moments before the driver floors it, slamming me against the back of my seat from the force.

My head spins from the hit I took, but all I can focus on is Sierra. “She’s in there. She’s in the van.”

“You okay, man?” Max asks, noticing the blood that trickles down from my head, soaking my shirt.

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