Walker (Bowen Boys, #1) by Kathi S. Barton
Chapter One
Lynne ran. Not that she figured she could outrun them, but she had to try. And if she could get far enough in front of them so that she could turn the tide on them then she’d do it. She no longer looked behind her because every time she did, they seemed nearly ready to grab her. Taking a small stumble had cost her precious seconds, but she recovered and kept running. Soon, all too soon, they’d have her anyway, but she wouldn’t go easily.
Tree limbs tore at her skin. There were cuts on her legs and arms that she knew she’d feel if she ever got to sit down. Her face screamed in pain at her. The last branch that had caught her there had cut deeply and the blood still flowed down her chin. It was only another wound on her already battered face where they had punched and slapped at her. Her arm was broken; she knew this because nothing that was hurting as badly as it did could be anything less than that. But still, she ran.
Three days ago—had it only been that short of a time ago when she’d been in her own bed? The alarm to the windows hadn’t sounded and even the ones to her bedroom door hadn’t awakened her. She’d been sleeping soundly when, suddenly, there was a rag over her mouth and she’d breathed in the first whiff of chloroform.
The first pain that ripped into her shoulder nearly took her down and brought her from her memories. The second one in her thigh had her falling. She had to get up. When she did, she could hear them laughing behind her. They thought they had won. There was blood pouring from her leg and she could only imagine what her shoulder was doing right now.
Limping more, she was off again. She had just made it to the trees when another pain ripped through her, into her calf this time. One of them had shot her again. Pain was pounding at her as hard as her heart was beating and she could barely breathe through it. Leaning against a tree to try and get her bearings she heard one of the men speak close beside her. She figured that they were at least ten feet from her now.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are. Come on, McCray, it’s not any fun when you don’t give us a sporting chance. You come out and run again and we’ll slow down running after you.” He laughed and she knew that his brother was close as well. “Tommy here said he’d give you ten minutes head start. That’s more than you deserve after what you’ve done to us.”
She felt the tears mix with the blood on her face. She hated tears more than she hated these men. All she’d done was call the police on the pricks. She thought they should obey the law of not stealing from your neighbor and they’d broken into her home four or five days ago and kidnapped her. But she was sure as she was standing there that they’d had help. Tommy and Jay Ingram were the meanest men she’d ever encountered. But they were also the stupidest. And today, when they’d told her their plan, she’d never dreamed they were serious.
She was to be their prey and they’d hunt her like an animal. If she gave them a good time, they wouldn’t rape her. If she didn’t play fair, then they’d f*ck her over and over until she was dead then leave her where she lay to let the animals have a feast on her dead body.
“Yeah, you come on out and show yourself to us and I’ll give you those ten minutes that Jay said I would.” They snickered like five-year-olds. “I got me a stopwatch all ready for you.”
Someone broke a stick right where she was standing and she nearly bolted. But at the last second she froze. Right in front of her was the biggest cat she’d ever seen. She didn’t even know that panthers lived in this part of the world.
He was staring at her with the darkest, most intelligent eyes she’d ever seen. And he wasn’t moving. She was sure that if she did move he would take her down and have her for dinner. Right now, she didn’t know if having a big cat chew her up would be preferable to being more than likely raped repeatedly and then murdered by the idiots behind her. When another branch broke, she looked to her left and saw that Jay was almost close enough to touch.
The cat was looking between the man, about two feet away from her and back at her. She didn’t, for whatever reason, want the panther hurt. So she leaned down slowly, praying that her knees wouldn’t pop, and picked up a small rock. She showed it to him and was sure he nodded at her.
Lynne was hurting and couldn’t see well, but tried to think where would be the best place to throw it. Looking as far to the left of her as she could without giving away her position, she held her breath and threw it as hard as she could. When it hit a tree near her, about ten feet away, she nearly cried out in frustration, but when the men took off in that direction, she bolted to the other. She’d have to live to fight another day.
She stumbled twice. Once when the cat stood up and again when she realized that she was not just in pain, but sick with it. Falling to the ground, she turned to see the brothers coming at her and they looked pleased. She didn’t have it in her to fight now, she was all done in.
“That wasn’t very nice, Lynne. We played fair and now you—” The big cat lunged at Jay and took him down. The shot that rang out made her think that she’d been hit again, but saw that Tommy had the gun pointed at his brother and the cat. Struggling to stand, she hoped that the cat ate them and silently thanked him for his help.
Another shot rang out and she heard a scream. Shuddering and still moving slowly forward, she tried not to think about the cat and how he’d saved her life. She might make it if she didn’t bleed to death first.