Adrenaline broke her paralysis.

She saw Max’s indistinct shape charging into view. She had a rock in her right hand, having planned to throw it and distract him one final time before she raced toward the lodge. Now she hurled it toward his increasingly clear face and ran into the forest.

The drizzle started to dissolve the mist.

Trees began to materialize.

Hearing Max curse behind her, she stretched her long legs farther, faster. Finally able to see where she was going, she zigzagged frantically through the bushes and trees.

• • •

FOR A MOMENT MAX THOUGHT that he’d been shot, but then he realized what had struck his forehead.

A rock.

He raised a hand to the already throbbing, swelling lump and felt blood.

“That’s something else you’ll pay for,” he screamed.

His pain-blurred vision cleared.

He heard Sansborough crashing through the forest.

Let her run.

With the mist dispersing, it would be easy to follow her now. He fired once more in her direction, wanting to spur her into a panic, knowing that adrenaline would soon make her hyperventilate and sap her strength.

It wouldn’t be long now.

He took the almost-expended magazine from his pistol and stuffed it into a pocket. He freed a spare magazine from his belt and shoved it home. A round was already in the chamber. He didn’t need to rack the slide as so many stupid Hollywood actors unnecessarily did.

But never in a Rambo movie.

As the drizzle beaded on his windbreaker, he broke into an easy, confident jog, taking care that his breath rate didn’t increase.

That was the secret.

If his breathing remained steady, everything else about him would be steady. It didn’t matter how far Sansborough got at the start. He could easily track her down, using the “find” app. Ahead, beneath an evergreen branch, he saw something that made him smile.

Blood.

One of his bullets had struck home.

Now he had yet another way to know where she was heading.

• • •

LIZ LEAPED OVER A FALLEN tree, landed on wet leaves, slipped, and nearly dropped.

Her right arm felt numb.

She wanted to clutch it, to try to stop the flow of blood, but she had to keep a tight grip on the knife in her left hand. Racing onward, she didn’t understand why she felt out of breath. She’d run in marathons, for God’s sake. With all her stress training, she shouldn’t be breathing this hard this soon. But she’d never run a marathon after being shot.

“Sansborough, what you did to Rudy I’m gonna do to you,” Max yelled behind her. “But you won’t die as fast as Rudy did.”

Her brain raced. How had he known that she’d headed back to the lodge? The only noise made had been when she stepped on the gravel. Nothing before that. Straining to fill her lungs, she veered around a tangle of bushes. Her legs almost buckled, but this time it wasn’t because of slippery leaves.