For long, tense minutes after Travis left the bedroom, Annie remained immobile, listening to him clanging about in the rest of the house. She wasn’t as out of it as he thought, and she hoped to use that to her advantage. When she’d miscarried, she’d learned that her body metabolized sedatives too quickly. What would have knocked out most people and kept them out for an hour only knocked her out for a fraction of that time. It had been a near-disaster then, but it might save her life now.
When she was certain he was in a distant part of the house, she tried to sit up and pull her hands loose. Moving as carefully as she could, doing everything possible not to make too much noise, she managed to flip onto her stomach and get up on her knees. With her hands in front of her, she made quick work of the knots.
“Stupid man,” she muttered as she removed the tie he’d gagged her with. “Where’d you learn how to tie knots? You sure as hell weren’t ever a Boy Scout.”
Once she was free, she searched the bedroom for anything she could use as a weapon. There was nothing—not even a lamp, as those were mounted to the wall. She slid the nightstand drawer open as quietly as she could, and she couldn’t believe her eyes.
Under a glossy magazine, the nose of a silver revolver peeked out almost as though it was hiding.
“There’s no way…” With shaking hands, she reached into the drawer and closed her hands around the butt of the gun. Until she touched it and felt its solid weight, she’d thought it might be a toy. “Please be loaded, please, please.”
It took her a couple of tries to get the cylinder open. The gun was just like the one she’d learned to shoot with as a girl, the one that had so terrified her, so she knew what to do, but her hands were clumsy. With a grateful sob, she finally got her fingers to work enough to do the job. It was fully loaded.
“Thank you, thank you.” She slammed the cylinder back into place, the sound of Travis’s footsteps approaching outside the bedroom competing with her own pounding heart.
“Honey, I’m home. Did you miss me?”
Just as he came around the corner, she turned toward the door, pointing the gun straight at his chest. “You will not do this to me.”
He stopped dead, a quick flash of shock crossing his face. “Shit. How the hell did you—never mind. It doesn’t matter.” His mask of civility dropped away, leaving pure evil like nothing she’d ever seen in its place. “We’ll see who does what, you bitch.”
Then he charged.
The smell of gunpowder was strong in the closed space of the bedroom. Annie felt as if every muscle in her body had turned to Jell-O. She’d started pulling the trigger as soon as he’d moved, and she hadn’t stopped until the gun quit kicking.
Travis was sprawled facedown on the floor between her and the door, much nearer to her than she was comfortable with. She knew she’d hit him at least twice, but she wasn’t going to stick around and take the chance that he wasn’t badly injured. She wasn’t going to leave the gun behind either, like some dumb horror-movie victim. Just because she was out of bullets didn’t mean he was.
After crawling over the bed, she stumbled out of the bedroom, using the walls and furniture for support as she made her way through the house. Her mind was racing frantically with all the things she needed to do to protect herself, but at the same time, she felt so sluggish she couldn’t tell if she was functioning or not.
“Maybe this is all a dream. Oh, God. What if I’m imagining this whole thing and I’m still tied up? What if I’m dead?”
Panic threatened to overwhelm her, and she stopped in the kitchen to collect herself.
“Think, Annie!” She turned her head toward the closed door in the corner. “Of course, the garage.” With Travis’s truck as her destination, she let go of the counter, almost falling before she got her feet under her again. “Legs, don’t fail me now.”
She hit the button to raise the garage door and made her way around to the truck’s passenger side. The keys weren’t in the truck when she opened the door, but her purse was on the floorboard. Her purse—if she was very lucky—still contained Chase’s cell phone, which—if she was luckier still—would get signal this far out in the middle of nowhere.
“Come on, come on,” she said as she dug through the bag. “Where—yes!”
She grasped the phone tightly. A sound from inside the house caught her attention. Certain it was Travis, she dropped the gun in her purse, slung the strap over her shoulder, and ran as fast as she was able. She wasn’t about to wait around for him to find her, not when she’d gotten this far.
“I’ll get back to the main road, then I’ll worry about making the call,” she said as she ran, panting heavily. The drug still in her system was enough that her body was fighting her, making her flight difficult but not impossible. “Keep going. Don’t look back. Get to a safe distance first.”
She had the mad thought that somehow, even if she survived and lived to be eighty years old, she’d be running from this day for the rest of her life.
“If that’s what it takes, then that’s what it takes.” She wasn’t about to give up now. She had too much to live for, too much to lose, and she wasn’t going to give up Chase and what they’d found together without one hell of a fight.