Page 68 of Death Raiser

Agony streaked through my body. I cried out and my mind reeled.

Plan B.

Dirt crunched as Steve moved up the path.

Plan B.

“Oh, Larky…”

Plan B.

With pain clamping my mind and my body, I pushed up and rolled. I rolled and rolled and rolled until I rolled right off the cliff into the ocean below.

Chapter Twenty

The cold water closed around me and shocked me out of the pain. My focus narrowed.

Plan B.

My arm was fucked, but the other one still worked and so did my legs.

Positive thoughts only, Lark.

I kicked and pulled, gliding under the water until I couldn’t hold my breath any longer. The cool water numbed my skin. My heart slowed down—the beat a deep thud consuming my hearing. My vision narrowed and pressure increased in my head and lungs.

I surfaced, took a deep breath and ducked under again.

It would take Steve at least twenty minutes to make it up that cliff, maybe half that if he was better at climbing than me, which he probably was. By the time he made it to the top and discovered I didn’t lay in a puddle of blood, dead, I needed to make it around the point. He’d figure out what I did, but he’d have to climb back down again and then pick a direction. And if luck was on my side, he’d think I died when I fell into the water.

Hopefully, whatever Steve did, I’d have enough of a lead to beat him back to the cabin, find his phone or truck keys, or maybe even another weapon and go from there.

I drew up to the surface again and bobbed in the ocean, sucking in big drags of air. The current had carried me past the cliff and out of view. I took in another deep, ragged breath. I didn’t dive under the surface again.

Objective one complete.

Now for the hard part.

I let the current carry me until my toes began to grow numb. Hypothermia set in around twenty to thirty minutes in the coastal waters of British Columbia in the winter, and I didn’t have a waiting campfire or dry clothes. Thankfully, it wasn’t winter, and the summer weather gave me time to dry and warm up. But the cold water still left my bones numb.

Scrambling up the rocks, I panted and tried to control my breath. My heart raced, beating as though someone punched me from inside my chest with each pump of blood.

How long ago had I hit the water? How much time did I have until Steve caught up?

Had he already reached the top? Would he assume I fell off and died? Or would he assume I was alive?

When I was in the water, I hadn’t fought the current—too weak with a wounded arm. If Steve assumed I survived the gunshot, he’d pick this direction because it made the most sense.

Or he’d just go back to the little cabin and wait.

The thought slammed through my brain.

I hadn’t thought of that before.

What the hell would I do then? I needed to adjust my plan. Now that I didn’t have a tracker in my shoe, Steve would find it a little more difficult to locate me. I needed to put more distance between myself and Steve and find a hiding place.

And then there was the thing I desperately tried to ignore. I couldn’t go anywhere right now. My arm still bled. Pain throbbed from the gunshot wound and my entire arm ached. The bullet had gone straight through, but I needed to get to a hospital. Even if I stemmed the flow of blood, I might’ve lost too much and though I’d essentially washed the wound with salt water, it didn’t one hundred percent negate the risk of infection. Steve didn’t have to find me at all. He could wait for me to bleed out.

First, I needed to stop the flow of blood from the wound somehow.

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