Curl Up and Dye - Liliana Hart Page 0,21

weapon and catch his breath. He’d never been so glad he’d been keeping up his workouts at the gym. Every muscle in his body was aching.

Hank moved in a low-crouched position toward the hearse, and stifled a grunt when something tangled around his legs and caused him to fall forward on his hands. He kept hold of his weapon, but his other hand took the brunt of the fall, and he knew the skin was shredded from the rocks.

He stayed motionless, listening for sounds that indicated his cover had been blown, and then he untangled the garment from around his feet. It was a long-sleeved shirt—one he recognized belonging to Agatha.

He looked from the shirt to the hearse and inhaled the smell of death, and then he prayed like he’d never prayed before that he wasn’t about to find Agatha dead.

He made himself move, flinging himself toward the hearse and skidding to a halt by the back tire. The smell made his eyes water, and flies buzzed around him, agitated he’d disturbed their scavenging.

He took out a small penlight from his pocket and cupped his hand around it, sticking it through the broken window so he could see inside the hearse. Then he let out a sigh of relief when he realized it wasn’t Agatha, but the man Hazel had shot.

His cell phone buzzed again in his pocket and he looked around the wide-open space and then back toward the cover of trees and the jagged drop-off that led to the bone yard. Agatha was still out there somewhere. She could be injured. He had to find her.

His best bet was to go back to the tree cover. That was the smartest place to hide until she could make it back to her car. He took a step forward and the bullet smashed through the window of the hearse, exactly where he’d just been standing. There was no time to think or panic. He ran with everything he had left, zigzagging his way back up the rocky incline as bullets continued to ping around him.

Chapter Eight

Agatha jerked at the sounds of gunshots, and she hunkered into a ball behind the shrubs she’d found for cover. She heard the rushing footfalls and hoped she didn’t get tripped over. She’d been able to elude the killers since that first shot almost claimed her life.

Her muscles had cramped up from staying still so long, and she didn’t know how quickly she could move if she had to. Had she been there minutes or hours or days? She had no idea. All she knew was that she was alone, and Hank would eventually come to look for her. She’d sent him the address, and potentially lured him directly to the killers.

Her breath caught in her chest at the thought and panic overwhelmed her. Her mind felt slow and sluggish. The killers were shooting at someone. Someone who shouldn’t have been there. It had to be Hank. She had to believe that or she might lose her mind. And he had to be okay.

She didn’t know where she was. Running back up the rocky hill had been more of a challenge than coming down, and she’d slipped off the edge of the ravine into the bone yard, the sharp fragments cutting into her like little knives. She knew she was bleeding and hurt, but she didn’t know how bad.

Adrenaline and survival mode had kicked in and she crawled her way out of the ravine and back into the trees, and then she’d kept going until she’d found a rocky ledge overgrown with bushes where she could hide. They’d come to look for her. She’d heard their footsteps and their shouts to each other in a foreign tongue. But as the sun had gone down they’d retreated back into the plant.

The footsteps were getting closer and she could hear murmured voices as they canvassed the area, and she held her breath as leaves and twigs snapped beneath heavy footsteps. There was a grunt of pain as branches rustled on top of the ledge where she was hiding, and then a loud thump as a body fell over and landed on the ground only a few feet from her.

She was frozen in her spot—afraid to move—afraid the enemy was within arm’s reach. Staying still and hidden was the best course of action. She could decide what to do in the morning when daylight came.

That might be easier said than done. She was freezing, and her teeth had