Page 43 of Burning Justice

She ran anyway, until she stumbled and had to slow. Maria leaned against a tree and looked down at her mangled, broken fingers. The indent where the tracker ring should be.

He’d been interested in it and had cut it off her. Probably why he’d opted to give her a break—so he could show it to the others.

“Go.” Don’t think. If she stopped long enough for her thoughts to catch up, she would be lying in a ball in the dirt, crying.

Not a lifesaving tactic, even if sometimes it was necessary.

Later.

Shouts erupted behind her, back at the cabin.

Maria pushed off the tree and kept going, thinking about her stride. Her breaths. The angle of her hips and how her foot snapped forward again after she kicked it back. The kind of control that got a person through the stall to the end of a marathon.

Through the point where they felt as if they couldn’t continue.

She hugged the coat against herself and just ran. “Don’t stop.” She needed the encouragement, even if it was only from herself.

In her mind, she imagined Kane beside her, urging her on the way he did in training. The way they all did. Cheering each other on with encouragements until things got dire and the encouragement became an order from a superior.

Don’t quit.

You quit and people die. Are you gonna let that happen?

They’d been military trained. She’d been CIA trained. It was always life or death for them, and that was what it felt like for people who were about to lose everything because of a wildfire.

Maria stumbled and her elbow hit the ground first. Blinding white-hot pain sprang from her fingers up her arm. She pushed off with her other hand and stood, glancing over her shoulder.

Too far back to see her pursuers, but they were there.

Chasing her.

She had no clue what this terrain was like, but some of those militia guys had dogs. Elias wouldn’t quit until he had her in his grasp again.

She couldn’t hide and wait it out, even if the sky wouldn’t darken for a few hours yet. It was far better to risk the dangers of the backcountry and keep going.

Don’t stop.

This family doesn’t quit.

A twig snapped to her left.

Maria spotted a black mass between the trees but wasn’t going to slow down enough to meet that creature. She angled to the right, away from it. Ignore me. Everything’s fine. She kept running.

Her head swam.

She sucked in some cleansing breaths.

A river would be nice. Except it would probably be ice-cold snow runoff. Even this time of year the water would be freezing. It would feel good, and it would numb her hand. But before long, it would kill her.

No rivers.

She stumbled to the side, and her shoulder glanced off a tree. She managed to choke back the cry that wanted to escape her lips and grabbed the next trunk with her free hand. Branches covered with pine needles scratched at her face. She wove between them, praying she disappeared into the darkness of the close-growing vegetation.

At least another half a mile she picked her way slowly in erratic directions.

The landscape started to slope down, hopefully bringing her to a valley. One with a busy highway or an airport. She would even settle for train tracks. Not that she could jump on a moving freight car right now.

Dirt beneath her boot moved with her, and she surfed for a second. Maria held her arms tight to her front, resisting the urge to windmill them and keep her balance.

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