“Ghost stories,” Jodi whispered.
“Or so we thought.” But he’d had that damn feeling that he couldn’t shake. “After fighting it throughout Saturday night, I took off at first light on Sunday morning, loaded down with gear, including a radio and my weapon.”
“Smart.”
God, he wished he’d taken more. “I knew where I wanted to go—but I didn’t know what I would find.” The seconds ticked by while he fought the images.
To her credit, Jodi didn’t press him.
“It was damn near nightfall when I heard her screams.” Sometimes, when he tried to sleep, he heard the tortured cries still.
They’d echo in his head, over and over...much like they had on the mountain.
Hunter lowered his voice, straining around the memory. “At first I couldn’t tell if they were animal or human, or from what direction they came. I only knew that someone or something was hurt. My gut urged me to run to the person, but my caution is somehow ingrained.” Furious at himself, he squeezed his eyes shut. “I radioed it in, giving my location, and then I started picking my way forward. It was shadowy enough, the woods rocky and rough, that I knew I could fall and break my damn leg, then I wouldn’t be able to help anyone.”
“You did the smart thing,” Jodi reiterated.
“I should have given in to the urgency.”
With no sign of condemnation, Jodi asked, “What happened?”
It wasn’t easy, sharing something that he’d tried so hard to bury. Talking about it made it all fresh again, constricting his lungs, causing his muscles to tense. Sharing made it real, when he’d prefer to file it away as a nightmare.
Bad as it was, Jodi had a right to know, so he forced out the awful admission. “By the time I found her an hour later, he’d nearly tortured her to death.” Regrets, as raw as ever, bombarded him. “He had her staked out naked on the ground, blood everywhere, and he was...” Bile rose in his throat, but he choked it back. “He’d cut her all over, long, shallow cuts, on her arms, legs and torso, a few on her face. I remember seeing her eyes, wide and wild, and in the firelight, her skin was so pale.”
Surprising him, Jodi pushed back the quilt and crawled into his lap, nestling against his chest, her cheek on his shoulder, and her arm around his neck. “Go on.”
Bemused, Hunter pulled the quilt over her and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. Her closeness was exactly what he’d needed, and somehow she’d known that. When suffering her own memories, she’d shied away from being touched, but for him...
The words emerged as a whisper. “He had the knife to her groin, in that tender spot between leg and pelvis, and he was making small cuts while smiling at her.” Miserable sick bastard. Never again could anyone tell him that monsters didn’t exist. He knew better, because he’d seen them.
Jodi breathed a little faster. “You had your gun.”
“Yes, and I shot him, no questions asked. I should have ordered him to back up, should have restrained him.”
“Screw that,” she said with heated passion. “That’s a shoot-first-and-ask-questions-later scenario.”
Her attitude gave him a small smile, one of relief that she understood, but also admiration, because she was so fierce. “It was like I wasn’t me anymore. I saw that poor woman, and without making a sound, I put one into his chest. He fell over her, the knife trapped between them. That had her screaming hysterically again, but she sounded weak, as if she had no reserves left.” Hunter squeezed his eyes shut, but only for a moment. “God, I was afraid that I’d caused her death, that I’d been the one to force a fatal cut. I grabbed him off her and tossed him aside. The knife was in the ground between her legs.” Anger at himself forced him to draw a deep breath. “I didn’t secure the area. Instead, I told her she was safe, that help was on the way, while I used the knife to cut her hands free. As soon as she could, she curled in on herself, her body limp like a rag doll, but slippery with blood.”
“Dear God.”
His heart started pumping too hard, painfully slamming against his ribs. “The smells were awful. I don’t know how long he had her staked out like that, but it was far too long. One fucking minute with that lunatic would have been too long, but he’d had her for more than two days. I could smell the infection on her, and urine, and all that blood.” And now came the worst part.
“Did she live?” Jodi asked simply.
Such a difficult question. Hunter bypassed it for now. “Unfortunately, my shot hadn’t killed the bastard, and I was still cutting her right foot free when he clubbed me in the back of the head. Stupid. So fucking stupid for me not to have secured him. I...” He shook his head, still furious at himself. “I saw her and my only thought was getting her free.”
“Pretty sure anyone would have felt that way.”
“It was a rookie mistake because I let emotion cloud my judgment. I knew better. Remember, I was the guy who put things together, the one who saw what others didn’t.” What a joke. “When I left that morning, it was with a hunch that something awful was happening. And still it took me by surprise.”
“You expected a kidnapper, Hunter, not a lunatic.”
It was a sad truth that they both knew too much about the evil in the world. “The hit on the head dazed me, everything was swimming and combined with the smells... I almost passed out, but I saw him drawing back to hit her, the log aimed at her face and...”
“You couldn’t let him do that.”
No, he couldn’t. “He wasn’t alone, Jodi. Another man shouted from the woods. He yelled Nevil, like they were friends and he was worried.”
“Damn.”
She’d just broken her own rule about cursing. “I had the knife in my hand, and I knew with my head pounding that I couldn’t take on two men, so I went on autopilot.”
“Good.” She hugged him again.
“I started stabbing him, over and over again, even after he fell back, I couldn’t seem to stop myself. I stabbed him more than he’d stabbed her. In more places. Deeper cuts.” Remembering the carnage he’d left behind, Hunter clenched. “I should have just cut his throat, but what I did was so much worse—”
“Survival isn’t pretty.”
No, it hadn’t been. For either of them. “I’d just gotten my gun drawn again when the second man entered the clearing. He saw Nevil, or what was left of him, and he roared.”
“You shot him, too?”
“I emptied my gun into him.” Talk about overkill. “I didn’t know if there’d be a third man, or a fourth, but the woman’s cries were different. Less hysterical and weaker. I asked her if there was anyone else, but she just kept sobbing.”