Soul Possession(34)

“Tracking a kill is all about a good blood trail. I can hardly follow a blood trail if there’s no blood,” the woman replied calmly.

She dragged the knife down Jessie’s uninjured leg, making a shallow cut from her hip to her knee. Jessie arched off the table, straining against her bonds as she screamed once again. Tears trailed down her cheeks and she closed her eyes, praying for a way out. Praying for the strength to run when the time came.

“Why aren’t you begging?”

The obvious puzzlement in the woman’s voice made Jessie open her eyes and focus.

“Just let me go and let’s get on with it,” Jessie gritted out.

The woman chuckled. “So impatient to die. I like you. I knew from the moment I watched your interview with the chief and Bull that you’d prove more of a challenge than my past hunting trips. The last one was a huge disappointment. She wouldn’t even run. What’s the fun in that?”

“You are one f**ked up bitch,” Jessie snarled. “Let me up so we can get on with this. I want to stand over you when your ass is arrested and kick you in the teeth a few times.”

The woman adopted a bored look. “Think your detectives will save you?”

The pain was starting to get past the anger-induced adrenaline burst and if she wasn’t set free soon, there was no way she’d make it even a few steps into the woods.

“I don’t think they’re going to save me,” Jessie said tightly. She sucked in steadying breaths as she fought the horrific pain eating away at her. “I’m going to save myself.”

This time the woman laughed but she started to cut the ropes tying Jessie to the table that was slick with Jessie’s blood.

“Consider this an adult version of hide-and-seek,” the woman said. “I’m going to go into the next room and give you a five minute head start. After that I’m coming after you.”

She slung a rifle strap over her arm and strode through the doorway into the back of the house. Jessie didn’t waste a single second. She pulled herself upright and slid off the table, testing the strength of her knee.

Pain tore through her leg and the knee buckled, leaving Jessie grasping the table so she didn’t fall. She staggered toward the door but her mind screamed at her to stop and not to panic.

She was bare-ass naked and had nothing to stop the blood that streamed down her body and left small puddles wherever she stepped. Shit, this was going to make it easy for the homicidal maniac to find her.

She didn’t see anything in the cabin that would help her stop the blood but then she remembered the sound of rain. Excitement coursed through her body and gave her a renewed adrenaline burst.

She limped out of the doorway and bolted off the rickety porch, swallowing the cry of pain when too much weight landed on her knee. She stood long enough to wash the blood off her body and then she ran toward the densest section of woods in her vision.

She gritted her teeth and pushed past the pain. Cognizant of how much she was bleeding, she held her hands over her wounds and ran blindly. After she put some distance between her and the crazy-ass bitch, she knelt and groped frantically along the ground, gathering dirt and mud and packing it over her wounds. She mixed the dirt with leaves and plastered them as widely over her body as she could, knowing she’d need whatever advantage she could muster.

“Smart. Be smart, Jessie,” she breathed as she staggered to her feet again.

She looked frantically around, searching for some point of reference, some idea as to where she should go. But all she saw was thick woods blanketed in darkness. With the clouds and rain, there wasn’t a single star visible and the moon was nowhere in sight either.

She wasn’t going to outrun the psycho. But she could damn sure outsmart her.

Thrashing around the woods like a wounded animal was the very last thing she needed to do. What she needed was a good place to hide and she’d stay there until daylight when she could see where the hell she was going, and more important, see the murdering bitch when she was coming.

Quietly she crept through the dense brush, ignoring the rising panic and the urge to flee. Had it been five minutes yet? It felt like an eternity had passed.

She winced when thorns dug into her feet, but she didn’t stop to pull them out. If she did, she might bleed even more, and she couldn’t waste the precious seconds it would take to alleviate her discomfort. A bubble of hysteria rose in her throat. She had a shattered knee and knife wounds to her body, and she was contemplating how much time and effort it would take to remove a few thorns from her feet?

A flash of light froze her in her tracks. Had she imagined it? She stared hard, scanning the distant trees. There. Again. About three hundred yards away she saw a light bobbing through the woods.

Her heart nearly exploded out of her chest. Panic welled in her throat and she forced herself to breathe slowly, afraid to make even the slightest noise. She had to get away but she couldn’t be stupid about it.

She forced herself to stand completely still as she strained her eyes to catch the direction of the light. For a moment it stopped and Jessie’s heart sped up. Had her trail been picked up?

She glanced down, trying to ascertain if she was still bleeding as heavily but she couldn’t see, so she gingerly patted her way down and cursed when she felt the sticky dampness of blood.

In the distance the light moved again and this time it tracked toward her in a straight line. Fearing she could be shot at any time, Jessie ducked down low and began creeping her way through the trees and bushes and the heavy ground cover. She took a course due east of her current position and then in a calculated risk she started south, moving toward, instead of away from, the killer.