Page 55 of So Dark

"No," the killer whispered softly. Then he shouted. "No! No, no, no!”

With a roar of effort, he bucked Faith off of his back. She fell to the ground hard. When she got up, the killer was rushing toward the woods, Turk hot on his trail.

Just before he left the clearing, Turk snapped at his ankles. The killer cried out and stumbled, then fell onto the forest floor. Faith heard a loud snap, and the killer jerked, then lay still. From where Faith stood, she couldn’t see what had happened, but when she approached, the grisly truth made itself known.

The killer had fallen face-first into one of his bear traps. Faith's stomach turned. She looked away and saw Turk staring at the scene with similar shock on his face.

“Bold? Are you there?” Wyatt called over the phone. “Special Agent Bold, what is your status?”

"I'm all right," Faith said. "The killer… he's dead. He fell headfirst onto a bear trap, trying to escape."

“Jesus. All right. We’ll send another medical flight. I assume he’s dead.”

Faith didn’t need to check the mess the bear trap had left behind to answer that question. “He’s dead.”

“Got it. Any idea who he was?”

She shook her head. “No. No idea.”

“All right. Well, keep Kelly alive. We’ll be there as soon as we can. Good work, agent.”

“Thank you.”

She hung up and looked at Turk. Her dog had turned away from the dead killer and was now staring into the distance. He looked shellshocked.

She reached down and scratched him behind the ears. “Good boy. It’s not your fault. He made his own choices.”

She wasn’t sure if Turk could feel any guilt at what had happened, but the shock was clear on his face. Just like with her, she supposed he never truly got used to the grislier aspects of their job.

She looked around at the array of bear traps the killer had set up. It was ironic. The great hunter had caught himself in his own trap.

Maybe that was better for him. The fear in his voice at the thought of spending his life in a prison cell was as great as the fear in Kelly’s voice when she called for help escaping her would-be killer. Perhaps to this man, a death in the wilderness was preferable to a life in a cage.

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

The helicopter lifted into the sky, bearing the body of the killer. They still didn’t know his name. When Faith had overcome her queasiness enough to search him for identification, she’d found nothing. Wyatt hadn’t recognized him, and Kelly still wasn’t lucid enough to talk about what had happened.

She had been evacuated twenty minutes ago. She was still conscious, but barely. Faith asked if she would survive, and the EMT had shaken her head and said, “We’ll do our best.”

Now Faith, Michael and Turk waited for Wyatt to arrive. He had told them over the phone that he was forty minutes out.

Faith was beginning to succumb to the cold. Her blood had frozen over her right side, and the holes in her parka let in far too much of the frosty air. The EMT had examined her wound and told her it wasn’t serious. He’d offered to take Faith with her, but Faith didn’t want to leave Michael and Turk behind.

The wound wasn’t serious, but the cold was. She was no longer surviving off of the adrenaline from her fight, and the wilderness now reminded her how truly dangerous it was.

Michael built a fire while Turk huddled close to her, sharing his body heat to keep her warm until then. She watched Michael stack the logs and start the fire, and a sense of longing came over her. She wished she could know for sure if that longing was for him or just for safety. Not physical safety, although that would be nice. Emotional safety. A knowledge that everything would be okay, no matter what. It had been a long time since she'd felt that way.

Once the fire was started, Michael sat opposite Faith and sighed. He stared at the fire for a minute, then looked at Faith. “Okay, Faith. We can have that talk now.”

“Now? Right now?”

“Well… I guess not right now. Sorry. We’ll wait until you’re recovered.”

She sighed. “No, that’s all right. I guess we have to talk about it sometime, and it might as well be right now. It’s not like waiting is going to change anything.”

She took a deep breath and stared at the fire so she wouldn’t have to see Michael’s face as she talked. “You’re right. I have a very difficult time handling change. I think I’ve never really gotten over the fact that the world as I know it was shattered when Trammell hurt me.”

Michael nodded. “Yeah, I know. I can see it. You’ve been grabbing for something to hold onto, and… it seems like you can’t find it.”

---