For a minute Will couldn’t manage his voice. “You shouldn’t have come back for me,” he got out finally.
“You have the car keys.” Taylor was working the knots frantically. Thin, strong fingers wriggling and tugging — apparently without luck. “Fuck.”
“I can run like this if I have to,” he reassured softly.
Bullshit with which Taylor didn’t even bother to argue.
He did more picking and pulling and plucking and prying, and finally Will felt the cords around his wrists loosen and fall away. He shook his hands free, and Taylor grabbed up the rope and stuffed it into his jacket pocket, which was good thinking since it was hard to know what might come in handy later.
Clenching his jaw against the torture of blood rushing back into his arms and fingers, Will was dimly aware of Taylor’s hands rubbing, trying to aid circulation. He was astonished when Taylor suddenly pulled him into his arms, lowering his head to Will’s. For a moment he was held fiercely. He felt Taylor’s lips graze his cheekbone, and then Taylor had let him go again, turned away.
Will yanked him back, running his hands over him until he found the bullet hole in his jacket.
“I knew it. You were hit.” His probing fingers found the punctured flask. “Taylor… Christ.”
“It’s okay. I’m fine. A couple of bruises.” And he freed himself, crawling out of the thicket, moving slowly, stealthily. Will followed — shaky with an emotion that had nothing to do with their peril or the pain in his arms and hands.
Since Taylor now seemed to have a plan, Will kept silent until they found the place where the trail branched off.
In the opposite direction they could hear the crack of sticks and twigs, the echo of voices. Every so often a light flashed through the trees.
“It’s not going to take them long to figure out we doubled back,” he warned.
Taylor nodded, and started down the sharply descending path.
The crack of a rifle split the night.
The echo ringing off the mountains made it hard to judge direction. It was possible that they had been spotted, or that Orrin and company were shooting at something else.
To the left there was a clatter of falling stones, a small slide maybe — hard to identify in the darkness. Taylor started running — Will right on his heels.
They sprinted down the crooked trail like deer outracing brush fire, flying — sometimes literally — over the dips and rocks and fallen tree limbs, feet pounding the muddy trail. Taylor slithered once, and Will’s hand shot out, steadying him. Will tripped a few yards further on and Taylor grabbed him by the collar before he went tumbling. Both times they barely slowed their headlong rush.
The miracle was they didn’t break their necks or at the least a leg in the first three minutes. The stars were fading in the sky but there was no light to speak of, and even if there had been, the trail was mostly in the shadow of the mountainside, which was to their advantage in one way — and not at all in another.
But it had a kind of amusement park ride charm to it, Will thought vaguely, barely catching himself from turning into a human avalanche yet again. That time he saved himself by jumping and landing, still running, on the trail winding below.
Somehow they made it down to the bottom without killing themselves. Taylor dropped down on all fours, gulping for air. Will walked a loose circle, giving his burning muscles a chance to recover, trying to catch his breath, listening for sounds of chase.
Throwing a look at the face of the craggy mountainside just beginning to materialize in the dawn, he was belatedly stricken at what they had attempted. It was a good thing he hadn’t realized it before they started running.
At muffled sounds of distress, he turned his head. Next to a small rivulet splashing down into a rocky pool, Taylor was on his knees, being quietly sick. Will didn’t blame him. That trail had to have dropped five hundred feet in less than a mile. Will thought he might have left his own stomach somewhere around the last bend.
Kneeling, Will put a hand on his shoulder. “You okay?”
Taylor nodded, scooped a hand in the water and splashed his face, further smearing the mud and sweat.
Will gave him a moment, rising and scanning the mountainside for the flashlights, for motion, for anything indicating pursuit.
Nothing.
That didn’t mean they weren’t being followed. The tiny waterfall rushing down into the pool at the foot of the path effectively drowned out the most immediate of the night sounds.
“We’ve got to keep moving,” he said, and Taylor nodded, got one knee under and shoved himself back to his feet.
They staggered their way down the canyon, finally taking shelter behind a series of sandy rock formations as the blackness of night began to dull to gray. From this vantage point they’d be able to see in all directions once it turned daylight. But once it turned daylight, they needed to be moving again. Will lay on his belly, watching.
There was nothing.
Taylor was on his back, his head leaning against the edge of Will’s shoulder. Will listened to him struggle to catch his breath. He thought Taylor’s inhalations sounded funky: sort of squeaky…wheezy; was the injured lung holding up to the strain?
“Okay?” he asked, undervoiced.
Taylor nodded. Then shook his head. “Need a…minute.”
Yeah. They both needed a minute. But Taylor sounded winded. And Will could feel him shaking with exhaustion. Not that Will wasn’t shaky himself, but he was in better shape than Taylor. He turned it over in his mind. He didn’t like being on defense, but Taylor’s fatigue made any kind of offense impossible for now.
Assuming Orrin and Bonnie didn’t give up and go home — and he couldn’t see how they could
