Page 33 of My Mountain Man Stalker
The word hits hard, but I don’t flinch from it. I’ve been circling it for years. Denying it. Fighting it.
Now?
Now Iownit.
“I’m going in first,” I say, checking my rifle. “Liam’s mine.”
Nate just nods. Micah slams a round into the chamber and mutters, “Let’s fuck up some monsters.”
We move in fast. Quiet. Controlled.
Two guards posted at the back get dropped with tranq darts Nate cooked up himself—clean hits to the neck. We breach through the south side with a crowbar and a silent count.
Inside, the air is cold and metallic, filled with the hum of machines long dead and the rot of old meat and mildew. There’smovement down the corridor. Flashlight sweeps. Voices in low tones.
We slice through the dark like a blade.
One down. Two.
Then—
I hear her.
A scream.Wren.
I move faster than thought, kicking through a side door into a long hallway stacked with crates. I hit the first guard with the butt of my rifle. He drops like a sack of bricks.
“Wren!” I call out.
Her voice is muffled but close. “Hale!”
My heart explodes in my chest. I follow the sound, Micah on my flank, Nate sweeping the upper level.
We find them in a side room lit by a single hanging bulb. Wren’s on the floor, wrists raw, blood on her face but alive—alive—and three other girls huddled close.
Liam stands between us, pistol in one hand, a knife in the other. Smiling like a man who thinks he still has the upper hand.
“Drop it,” I growl.
“You’re too late,” he says, eyes flicking to Wren. “You don’t get to take her from me.”
“You never had her,” I spit, raising my rifle.
Liam lunges for Wren, gun swinging toward her head.
Bang.
My shot hits him dead center in the chest.
He crashes backward into a steel pole, and hits the ground hard.
Micah disarms the second man who tried to rush the door, and slams him into the wall. Nate cuffs another two, dragging them out with the help of the sheriff and his men who followed ten minutes behind us.
I drop to my knees beside Wren, cutting the plastic tie around her wrists. Her eyes—thosegoddamn eyes—fill with tears as she launches herself into me, arms locking around my neck.
“You came,” she sobs. “I knew you would.”
I hold her tight, burying my face in her hair. “I told you. I always come back.”
