Page 64 of Glimmer in the Darkness

She lifted her head to face him, blood gushing from her hair.

He tried to get a better look. “What happened?”

“I don’t… I don’t know.”

“Can you flip over?”

Keeping low, he gently turned her onto her back so he could examine the wound. Just behind her ear, an inch-long gash had blood pouring from it.

His first aid supplies were in his backpack at the bottom of the hill.

Cassidy had wrapped her sweatshirt around her waist, so he tugged it off and pressed the fabric to the injury.

“Did you see anyone?” he asked.

“No.” She was shivering, and he wrapped his arms around her, trying to warm her. She couldn’t go into shock, not now. They had to get out of there.

“You’re okay.” He moved her hand to the sweatshirt. “Hold that in place.”

She did, and he slipped off his T-shirt and tore a strip off the bottom. Gently, he lowered her hand and pressed the T-shirt over the wound, getting a better look at it. It was still bleeding heavily, but… “It’s just a flesh wound. It’ll heal.” He tied the T-shirt in place.

As soon as he was finished, she cuddled in beside him as if she were considering a nap. As if she felt safe there. But they weren’t safe.

He kissed her temple. “We need to get moving.”

She nodded, then closed her eyes and tensed as if the slight movement had brought pain. If a nod hurt, what she needed to do next would be torture.

“Let’s get this sweatshirt on you.” He set her away from him and lowered it over her head, careful of the wound and bandage. She was all but limp in his hands as he worked her arms into the sleeves.

How was he ever going to get her out of here?

He pulled his cell from his front pocket hoping that, since they were near the top of the mountain, they might have service.

Nope. Zero bars.

He pulled up the navigation screen and took a screenshot. That would suffice until he got back to the paper map and plotted their location.

Aside from the occasional birdsong, the mountain was silent. It was too much to hope that the shooter had given up. Was he making his way closer? Looking for a better vantage point?

“We’re going to crawl back to the hill we came up. You think you can get back down?”

Her eyes widened. “No. I can’t go down that way. We’ll take the other path, the longer path.”

He didn’t like that idea, but only because he didn’t know that way. He knew this one, and his backpack and all their supplies were at the bottom of that hill. How much time would the long way around take? How much time did Cassy have before the loss of blood affected her ability to move, to think?

“Can you find it?” he asked.

She swallowed, started to nod but stopped, and then flipped onto her stomach and crawled.

He followed, staying low. In this direction, the forest thickened again, and, when they were safely away from where the shooter had to have been perched, they stood.

Cassidy seemed firm on her feet, thank God. He handed her gun to her, and she slipped it into its holster. She hurried forward, still crouching low, whether from instinct or pain, he didn’t know.

He’d have led, but she seemed to know where she was going.

They followed a very narrow path, but more of a path than what they’d taken to get up there.

It wound downward until, suddenly, Cassy stopped.