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A scream catches in her strangled throat. “Behind you!” Billie’s face twists as she locks her wet eyes on the figure racing out of the house, the tall and bulky darkness. “Preston, look out!”
Before he so much as looks over his shoulder, his jaw sets and he shoves her away from him.
Billie falls back, her eyes watching as Blood Hood lifts the knife behind Preston, but then watching the stars and moon glitter in the sky as she falls. Her back slams onto the packed dirt ground.
A grunt catches in her chest.
Winded, she sucks in a harsh breath that wheezes out sharply, and she sits up—right as Blood Hood sinks his blade into Preston’s raised arm.
Billie screeches and scrambles to her feet.
But the leg, her hacked thigh… It gives way and she crashes back down to the dirt. She tries again, but the gash is searing hot pain that collapses her, and she groans a horrid, sobbing sound.
She falls back down, hands splayed over dirt and gravel.
Defeated, she looks up. Her lashes are wet, fringing her cloudy sight with tears. But she sees Preston, the fresh blood all over his arm as he yanks the knife out of his own flesh with only a hiss of pain to escape his gritted teeth.
Then he flips it, takes a step forward—
And Preston plunges the hunting knife right into the killer’s chest.
12
Billie can’t get up.
Her left leg is folded beneath her, pressing against the graveled dirt, but the leg that leaks too much blood is crooked at her side. Her hands push into the cracked dirt, too dry from the summer, small stones cutting into her palms. Her head lolls forward as she tries to keep her grasp on consciousness.
Distantly, she’s aware of footsteps smacking against the ground, running towards her, then muscular arms looping around her. The smell of his cologne and the joint he’d been smoking snakes around her in fresh, familiar vapors.
Preston.
The world is darkening, but through it she can see the blue and red lights flashing over the face of the house as she fights to keep her eyes open. But everything is so heavy. Her lashes most of all.
Like she’s a puppet unthreading, her body starts to sag. Turning limp against the firm arms wrapped around her middle. He’s moving her, she realizes.
Preston pulls her back against his chest. Soft fingers are tender on her cheek: He checks her over as though searching for injuries. He lingers over that wet, throbbing spot on her forehead. Each time it pulses, a wave of nausea hits her hard.
Kate.
It’s all she can think as the sirens start to reach her ears. But the sound of the sirens is muffled, as though she has hands pressed against her ears to block them.
Darkness creeps into her sight. One heavy blink after the other, and she can’t see the lights anymore.
Where is Kate?
Her thoughts muster into spirals that don’t reach her tongue. All she can manage is a breathy moan before she gives a final blink—then slips into the cold, far away from the sirens and the warmth of Preston’s touch.
13
Slipping in and out of darkness, Billie knows that time has passed. But how much time is a mystery. When she opens her eyes just a little, as much as her weakened body can manage, she sees a change around her. The ambulance. Paramedics. That was the first time she opened her eyes.
But that changed, morphed into the clinical, cold white of a chilly hospital room, a scratchy blanket pulled too tight over her body.
Then, again, a nurse leaning over her, but not looking at her. Scratching notes onto a sheet of paper on a clipboard.
And then, him.
Preston. By her side.
