The Fugitive

by Nichole Severn

  Ten feet until they’d reach the trees. Green grass bled to dying wildflowers and slightly cooler temperatures in the shade of the pines.

  “I...can’t. I’m still a fugitive, Beckett. If I go there...they’ll take me into custody.” Her hand slipped from his waist. Color drained from the patches of red along her face and neck, those mesmerizing green eyes suddenly distant. Her breathing changed, growing more shallow, uneven. She stumbled forward.

  Beckett caught her a split second before she collapsed, but her weight and the lack of strength in his right leg pulled him down along with her. Gravel cut into his palms as he braced himself from landing on top of her. She was still conscious. Barely. He scanned the rest of the property for any sign Emily had followed their trail. They couldn’t wait for her to catch up. A scream built in his chest as he worked his uninjured arm under her lower back and hauled her up over his shoulder in a fireman’s hold. His leg throbbed. She was right. She was on the FBI’s most wanted list. They couldn’t walk right into a public hospital without alerting local PD and the feds. She’d be taken back into custody, and he’d have to answer for not bringing her in. “I’ve got someone who can help. A former combat medic. He’s a marshal. I trust him.”

  But could they take the risk?

  “Then that’ll have...to be good enough for me,” she said. “I can walk. You’re still...bleeding.”

  Pressure should’ve released from behind his sternum as they crossed the tree line. They weren’t out of the woods yet, metaphorically speaking, but they at least had a chance to disappear, to find cover. He should’ve been there for her after the arrest. He should’ve known better than to believe she’d taken that money, especially after showing him that first sonogram of the life they’d created together. He’d promised to always be there for her, no matter the circumstances, because that was what she’d needed. Someone she could trust, rely on, someone who cared about her after she’d been discarded by so many others, but he’d run at the first sign of trouble. “You might be out to prove to the world how strong and resilient you are, but that doesn’t mean you don’t need someone to take care of you every now and then.”

  Beckett adjusted his grip at the back of her knees. He wouldn’t run again.

  “Not to the world.” Her voice softened, somehow distant yet reverberating down his spine at the same time. “Just...you.”

  “You don’t have to prove anything to me.” He was the one who’d betrayed her, but he’d spend the rest of his life making it up to her if that was what it took. Beckett pushed deeper into the woods, that knot of uncertainty growing bigger in his gut. It wouldn’t take much for the shooter to catch up with them, considering the amount of blood he was leaving behind on his own and the fact Emily wasn’t carrying another person on her back, but he wasn’t going to stop following the shooter’s prints in the mud. Not until Raleigh was safe.

  Up ahead, sunlight glinted off tinted glass, and Beckett slowed. A dark SUV had been parked in the thickest part of the woods to cover Emily’s approach to the ranch, and he’d never been more thankful at the sight of a standard black vehicle in all his life. “Almost there. Just hang on. I’ll get you out of here.”

  Silence descended around them. Moss-covered pines towered overhead, blocking sunlight from reaching the forest floor in some spots, and the hairs on the back of his neck rose on end. Damp wood and earth tickled his senses. Something was wrong. Well, other than they were fifty miles from the nearest hospital. Hell, from the nearest town.

  Cold metal pressed to the back of his neck, and Beckett froze, air stuck in his lungs.

  “I’m not leaving without her, Marshal.” Emily’s voice shook, but the barrel of a gun pressed to the base of his skull remained steady. She must’ve had a backup neither him nor Raleigh had noticed. One wrong move, and she’d pull the trigger.

  Raleigh didn’t have that kind of time. Neither of them did.

  “You’re already looking at the entire US Marshals Service coming down as hard as they can for attempted murder of a federal agent, Emily.” His head throbbed, his pulse loud behind his ears. He didn’t have a weapon and happened to be holding the one thing she wanted that he wasn’t willing to give up—Raleigh. “You can end this now. All you have to do is let me get her to a hospital, and I can put in a good word with the district attorney after you turn yourself in and admit your part in all of this.”

  “You’re right.” Emily cocked the gun. “I can end this now.”

  Beckett tightened his hold on the woman in his arms and launched himself off to the right. The gun went off next to his ear. High-pitched ringing threw him off-balance, but he caught himself before letting Raleigh hit the ground. Rolling, he released his grip on her and shot to his feet before Emily could target him again. He wrapped one hand around her wrist and shoved to get the shooter as far from Raleigh as he could. One strike to her midsection. Two. He positioned her arm over his shoulder, hauled her over his back and slammed her onto the ground.

  The rush of her lungs emptying didn’t slow her for long. Swinging the gun toward him, Emily shot to her feet with a rolling growl escaping her chest. “You’re only making this harder on yourself, Marshal. On both of you.”

  “Go to hell.” Beckett reached out, wrapped one hand around the gun barrel and crushed his knee against her wrist. The gun disappeared into the underlying brush. He dodged the left hook aimed at his face and blocked the second attempt as he backed low out of her reach, but his leg slowed him down. Her knee landed hard against his jaw, and he stumbled back.

  “Been there. Only this time you and your fugitive are coming with me.” Emily spread her stance, ready to charge.

  Three distinct gunshots exploded from a few feet away.

  Emily pulled up short, brown gaze wide. Dropping her chin to her chest, she let her mouth fall open as blood spread across her front before collapsing face-first into the dirt. Dead.

  Beckett located the second shooter, and his gut twisted. “Raleigh.”

  She held a hand to her bleeding side, dark hair wild around her face. Exhaustion etched deep lines around compelling green eyes staring down at the woman she’d shot. She lowered the gun, expression smooth and distant. “She can’t hurt us anymore.”

  * * *

  HE FELL TO his hands and knees, one hand over the stab wound in his thigh.

  “Beckett!” Raleigh rushed forward. She’d neutralized the threat by shooting Emily, but he was still in danger of going into shock. Soon he’d lose enough blood to cause his organs to start shutting down one by one. She had to get him out of here. Emily’s SUV. It was the only chance they had. Sliding her free hand across his muscled back, she forced him to sit up, fire igniting along her side. “We need to get to the car. Come on.”

  Her head pounded, fatigue overwhelming, but she wasn’t going to give up on him. Because he hadn’t given up on her. He’d had the chance. He could’ve brought her in after he’d discovered her hiding at the cabin, but he hadn’t. He’d chosen to help clear her name, even if it’d been for the sake of their baby. He’d made the choice to break that legendary code of his and given his word to a fugitive. Now it was her turn to help him.

  Raleigh dragged him in to her side, letting out the scream of pain that’d been building since she’d escaped the fireball set to kill her, and found a small rush of release. Something real and raw she hadn’t felt in years. One step toward the shooter’s vehicle. Two.

  “Raleigh, stop,” he said.

  “No.” She stumbled, unable to keep hiding the pain, unable to ignore the hurt she’d shouldered all these years. It crashed down around her as she battled to get Beckett to the SUV. Tears burned as mountains of uncertainty, doubt and effort slipped from the dark crevices she’d held on to protect herself. She’d convinced herself everything she’d been through—all the trauma, the betrayal, the shame—had carved her into a strong, emotionally impenetrable woman who never
faltered, never failed, never relented. Who’d learned to rely on no one but herself, but she was so tired of holding it all together, tired of being numb. Day by day, she’d systematically become a black hole of nothingness to everyone around her after the incident on that beach, most recently Beckett. Invisible, unknown, void of anything to the naked eye, but over the past eighteen hours the man at her side had forced her to face the light, to feel, and she couldn’t hide anymore. “I’m not letting you die out here. She doesn’t get to win. She doesn’t get to have this control over us.”

  “Find...” he said. “Reed.”

  “Reed?” Emily’s gun still in hand, she hefted Beckett against the hood of the passenger side and fumbled for the door. The truth of the matter was she wouldn’t have survived the past few hours without Beckett. She owed him her life—hers and the baby’s—and she’d never be able to pay that back, but she was going to try. She wrenched the door open and maneuvered him to sit against the front seat before hoisting his legs inside. “Stay awake, damn it.”

  Rounding the front of the SUV, she clutched on to the hood as a rush of pain gutted her from the inside. The bleeding in her side hadn’t slowed, but she couldn’t stop now. Not after everything they’d survived. She closed her eyes, nails digging into the vehicle’s paint. “You can do this. You have to do this.”

  Because she couldn’t lose him. Not again.

  The pressure in her gut released after a few seconds, and she pushed one foot in front of the other until she reached the driver’s-side door. After hauling herself into the seat, she set the gun between her and Beckett and pressed the ignition button.

  The engine growled to life for a few moments, then cut out.

  Raleigh hit the ignition a second time, one hand tight around the steering wheel. Her heart thudded hard in her chest. Seconds slipped away. She punched the start button again. “Come on.”

  Nothing.

  She slammed the palm of her hand against the steering wheel. Emily had to have a safety feature in place that prevented anyone else from taking off with her vehicle. Every minute she wasted here was another minute Beckett didn’t have. Her hands trembled as she pulled the release for the door and slid from the car. Using the SUV for balance, she slipped her hand along the cool metal until she reached the front of the vehicle a second time and hesitated as her fingers traced the edge of the hood. The metal didn’t line up, as though the hood had been popped. Hope flooded through her as she inserted her hand between the hood and the SUV’s main frame and lifted slightly. The hood released, and she dropped it back into place. She slid back behind the steering wheel and pushed the ignition button. “We’re going to make it. Stay with me.”

  The engine growled to life, and everything inside her released. She pulled the vehicle out of Park and maneuvered beyond the patch of pines as best she could before aiming the SUV toward the main road. Dirt kicked up alongside the vehicle on either side of them as she sped away from the ranch, away from Emily. Beckett’s head swung toward the passenger-side window, but she didn’t need to see his face to know he was running out of time. His shirt and jeans were already soaked through, and there were only so many pints of blood he could lose before he hit the point of no return. Raleigh floored the accelerator, Oregon countryside blurring through the side windows. The nearest hospital was at least fifty miles from here, but Beckett had said he knew of a combat medic. Someone he trusted.

  She slid one hand across her abdomen, patches of dried blood starching her borrowed sweater. Bringing Beckett to a former combat medic, a marshal—someone she didn’t know—would expose her, put her at risk. Was that the Reed he’d been telling her to find? Raleigh slid her attention to the bloodied man in the passenger seat. She’d have to take the chance. She’d have to trust him. “This baby deserves to know her daddy, Beckett, so I’m not letting you off that easy. If you’re not going to hang on for me, do it for her.”

  The shooter’s phone slid from one side of the middle console to the other as Raleigh took the turn onto the national forest road 21. The cell Beckett had given her had been crushed when she’d jumped from the car before it’d exploded, but there was a chance she could recover the SIM card. Gravity pulled at every cell in her body. Her eyes were heavier than a few minutes before as adrenaline drained from her veins, but she couldn’t stop. One hand on the wheel, she tugged his phone from her back pocket. The screen was broken, sharp edges digging into her skin, but from what she could tell, the side of the phone hadn’t been damaged all that much. She might be able to save the data card. Eyes on the road, she carefully and slowly pried the small green chip free and replaced Emily’s with Beckett’s. The screen lit up, and something inside of her threatened to break.

  It’d worked.

  But... A pitiful moan of defeat escaped her mouth. Her thumb hovered above the ten-button configuration of numbers. The phone was asking for a password. Beckett’s password. Neither the facial recognition nor the touch identification would work until he’d entered the six-digit code since she’d transferred the SIM card. Damn it. She had to think.

  Most people used the same passwords across devices and accounts. There had to be a code he frequently used, something easy to remember. She just had to remember any instances she’d seen him use it. Only, if she entered the wrong code three times, his entire contact list, along with any other data on the phone, would be erased, and she’d have no idea how to reach the person he’d called Reed. If that was even his contact’s real name. Locking her jaw against the pain, Raleigh tugged on the wheel as the road curved around. They’d almost reached the Paulina Lake Campground. From there, she could either head south on the national forest road 500 or keep heading west, but she had no idea where this Reed person was, where he lived, if he could help them at all, and she wouldn’t know any of that until she was able to get into Beckett’s contact list.

  Her blood pressure spiked. He’d already lost too much blood. How much longer before his body decided to shut down for good? “Okay. Six digits. Birthday?”

  Using her thumb, she punched in the numbers for his birthday into the phone, but the passcode reset. Wrong sequence. Too easy. She had two tries left before the phone locked her out permanently and erased all the data on the SIM card. The split off ahead was coming up too fast, and Raleigh pressed her foot onto the brake pedal. “Beckett, I need you to wake up. I can’t get into the phone without your password.”

  No response.

  “Come on!” She forced herself to breathe as the main sign for the campground slid into view. She’d have to stop. She’d have to risk a few more minutes Beckett didn’t have. The gunshot wound in his shoulder, the injury to his thigh... This was all her fault. She’d brought him into this mess, and she had no idea if she was going to be able to get him out of it. “Okay. You can do this, Wilde. You can do this.”

  She tried his mother’s birthday next, but the small bubbles at the top of the screen reset again.

  Nausea swirled in her stomach. They weren’t going to make it. At least, not to the former combat medic. She’d have to take him to a public hospital. She’d have to risk being arrested a second time, never seeing her daughter once the birth was over, but if it’d save his life, she’d do it. For him.

  Her gaze slipped to his empty shoulder holster and a flash of memory lit across her mind. That was it. It had to be. His gun safe. He’d kept it under his side of the bed when they’d been together. It’d had an electronic lock with a six-digit passcode, which... She inhaled on a shaky breath. Which had been the day they’d met. Raleigh pulled the vehicle off to the side of the road, her heart in her throat. He wouldn’t have kept the same digits. Not after everything that’d happened between them, but she didn’t have a whole lot of other options either. Most people didn’t change their passcodes over time. Too hard to remember when habit had already rewired the neural pathways in their brains, but that didn’t mean his hatred for her—for what she’d be
en accused of—wouldn’t break that habit. Her hand shook as she entered the date, her lungs fighting for a full breath.

  The screen went black.

  Chapter Nine

  “Gotta hand it to you, Foster. When you’re trying to piss someone off, you go for the knockout,” a familiar voice said. “It’s amazing you’re still alive. Thanks to me.”

  Beckett slid back into consciousness breath by slow, agonizing breath. Waves of soft light cascaded over the pale wood paneling overhead, one side of his body cold from the floor-to-ceiling windows stretching along one wall. He shot upright on the modern sofa—the kind with angles rather than cushions—automatically searching the space as his nervous system vaulted into his fight-or-flight response. He’d recognized the voice, but the man perched in one of those ridiculous wicker satellite chairs looked as though he’d aged years in the span of only a few days. Or maybe Beckett was superimposing what he felt like over the marshal who’d obviously saved his life. But where did that leave Raleigh? If she’d brought him here, she’d put herself at risk for arrest. “Reed.”

  “Yes?” Finnick Reed, former combat medical specialist turned US marshal, clutched a bag of cookies in one hand, rooting through the contents until he found one good enough for his particular tastes. Blue eyes lightened with the help of the firelight dancing on the television screen built into the side of a kitchen island across the room. Despite everything he’d seen, everything he’d been through, the ex-soldier fit perfectly with the stainless-steel, modern feel of the cabin.

  Beckett’s head pounded as he settled back against the awkward, uncomfortable sofa. Stars peppered the night sky through the windows. How long had he been out? Bits and pieces filtered through the haze clouding his memories. The barn, Raleigh leading them into the woods. Emily Cline’s eyes widening seconds before she hit the ground. All of it fought for his focus as he listened for movement throughout the rest of the house. No movement. No sign of her. He clutched the edges of the sofa, his clothing stiff with patches of blood. “Where’s Raleigh?”