Page 129 of One Last Chance

“I can’t believe I missed it. He was right there—on Sully’s fishing trips, he has the tattoo . . .” She looked at him. “I got distracted. Which you can’t do when you’re hunting a killer. And Parker nearly died.”

He stopped her, pulled her to face him. “This is not on you, Flynn. We found her because of you. And she’s safe.”

Oh, how was she supposed to walk away from this man? Her eyes burned. “Yeah.”

His hand touched her cheek. “Okay?”

“Okay.”

A crack split through the forest. Flynn grabbed him, pulled him down nearly on top of herself. “Seriously?”

He rolled over onto his knees. Met her eyes. “I’m going to find him.”

“No, you’re not. We’re going to run. He has a bolt action .270 rifle—it takes time to load, and he needs to be set and tracking us to get a good shot. Running is our best option.”

“What about your knee? Can you run?”

She grabbed his hand. “Keep up.”

Then she took off, jagging around trees, over downed logs, ducking under branches.

“Do you know where you’re going?”

“I hope so!”

They came out of the forest into a grassy field, and she scooted around it, keeping near the trees, glanced at the sky, then plunged back in.

“Who are you? Katniss Everdeen?”

“My sister and I spent every summer at wilderness camp in northern Minnesota. They taught us things. Like in the northern hemisphere, moss grows on the north side of a tree. And of course, the sun goes from east to west in the sky. We’re heading northeast. Didn’t you go to Boy Scout camp?”

He had kept up with her. Now he stepped ahead of her. “No. I did things like hunt deer and fish for salmon and swim in rivers—and that, girlfriend, is a deer stand.” He pointed to a wooden ladder that led up to a platform built against a tree. “Which means there’s a deer trail around here.There.”

She followed his point and spotted the thin trail not far from the stand. “Now who’s Daniel Boone? Good job.”

They jogged down the trail, and yeah, her knee had really started to burn, but she gritted her teeth against it because, according to her calculations . . .

They came into another field. Except—“Those are berry bushes with bear cages,” Axel said.

Indeed, thick berry bushes sat inside massive enclosures, reinforced with rebar and wire and wood, cloth over the top to protect them from birds.

And beyond that, as they walked over the hill, a garden, almost an acre of fenced area, with more rebar and wood enclosures.

Chickens roamed another enclosure, a dog lifting his head and rising to bark. Big and white, he resembled a sheepdog, enough to spook or even attack a predator.

Like them. “Good dog,” she said.

Weirdly, the dog seemed to settle, sat and looked at her.

“He likes you,” Axel said.

Something sort of shifted inside her. The action reminded her of Jericho.

The path had widened, and she spotted a barn, along with a number of smaller timber-framed houses. A path ran down to a large lodge, and gray smoke spiraled out of the tall stone chimney.

“Where is this?”

“I think it’s called Woodcrest,” Flynn said. “According to Shasta, it’s an art community.”

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