Page 54 of So Dark

She looked down to see that the killer had somehow freed his knife hand and was preparing to swing behind and catch Faith again. Fortunately, Turk rescued her once more, grabbing his wrist in between his jaws. This time, he bit down hard and twisted. Faith heard a crack as the bones in the killer’s arm snapped. He screamed and kicked his legs futilely, but Turk held on until he dropped the knife.

“Damn it!” the killer wailed. “Damn it! You’ve killed me!”

“Not yet,” Faith said, “but keep it up, and I’ll just let Turk have a go at your throat.”

“Go to hell!” he cried. “You and your wolf.”

Faith chuckled at that and handcuffed the killer behind his back. “You hear that, Turk? You’re a wolf.”

Turk bared his teeth at the killer. They gleamed an ethereal white in the glow of Faith’s flashlight. He did look an awful lot like a wolf right now.

“How’s Kelly looking?” she asked Michael.

“She’s lost a lot of blood,” Michael replied. “We need to get her to a hospital ASAP.”

“Not Alaska Regional,” Kelly said groggily. “Kevin works there. He’s an arrogant prick. Amazing with his hands, though.”

Michael shared a worried look with Faith. Kelly was going into shock. Her words might have sounded funny in other circumstances, but not knowing the reason for them.

She pulled her satellite phone out and called Wyatt. “Wyatt, we’ve got her.”

“You do? Where? Is she alive?”

“I don’t know exactly where. We ran for a while off the trail. Can you track my satellite phone?”

“Let me see. Okay, yeah. I’ve got you. You’re about five miles from us. We can get to you in two hours.”

“It needs to be faster than that. She’s injured. Badly. The killer set up bear traps around the cabin, and one of them nearly severed her right foot. We have a tourniquet around her leg, but she’s lost a lot of blood. We need her life flighted to a hospital as soon as possible.”

“Oh, shit. All right. I’ll call the hospital for a helicopter.”

“Do you have a police helicopter out here?”

“I do, but it’s not equipped for patients. Medical helicopters have ambulance facilities that can stabilize her and even give her a few units of blood. They’ll reach her faster than we’ll get her to the hospital.”

“How fast?”

He sighed. “Probably one hour.”

“It can’t be sooner?”

“No. I’m sorry. You’ll have to keep her alive until then. Keep the leg elevated above her heart and keep talking to her. We’ll get to you as soon as we can.”

Faith relayed the instructions to Michael. He lifted her leg and rested it over her shoulder. Kelly smiled at him and slurred. “Hey. You have to at least take me to dinner before you get to do that.”

“You survive for me, and I’ll buy you any dinner you want.”

“Ooh, I like that,” she crooned. “Are you married? Because I dated a married guy once, and it didn’t go well.”

He chuckled. “I’m married, but as long as we don’t sleep together, my wife won’t mind.”

She pouted. “Man. Why are the good ones always taken?”

Faith turned her attention back to Wyatt. "I have the killer in custody, too," she said.

“You have him? He’s there?”

“He’s here. Send that police chopper too. You can take him to jail.” She glared down at the man underneath her. “No more freedom for him. Just the rest of his sorry life in a concrete room.”

---