Doranna Durgin - Survival Instinct

“You’re wasting time,” he said, sounding really annoyed this time. “You can take me to your doctor and live, or I can beat his name out of you and leave you here to die-again.”

“Someone will see you,” she said, breathless. He just laughed. She didn’t blame him. No one had yet driven by. She hunkered down behind the back fender of his car, the trap in hand-in both hands, actually, no matter how it hurt. Now for the bait. “Dave has a phone, you know. We’re not going to be alone for long.”

“Long enough,” he said, striding around the end of the car, reaching down for her-

She leaped up to meet him, thrusting the trap out before her. His hand skidded off the trip plate and the trap slammed closed around his arm and this time he was the one who shrieked. He was the one to lose his balance, stumbling backward to tip over the guardrail at a gentler part of the outcrop. His cry stopped short as he crashed through the branches and finally hit something strong enough to hold him.

Karin dismissed him, at least long enough to hop around holding her wrist and crying, “Ow, ow, ow, ow, dammit, ow!”

“Ellen!”

And here came Dave, roaring around the end of the car, his face flushed and his hair totally ruffled, his coat still flapping open to reveal a sweatshirt with the absurd logo of a red bird flexing impossible muscles. He stopped short, just as she halted her little pain dance. He said, “Where-”

Karin gave a haughty little nod at the guardrail. “Turnabout is fair play.”

In some disbelief, he leaned over the guardrail. When he straightened, he was shaking his head. “He’ll need help getting out of that.”

“Call for it,” she said. “But I’m not waiting. I’m all bent up and I’m still cold and I’m starving. I’m driving on to Bluefield.” She headed for her truck.

“You’re-oh, no. Not alone, you’re not.”

“Then follow me. You’ve probably got a sneaky way to do that, right? Some other little tracker thing?”

At first abashed, his expression hardened. “Hey, you want to talk sneaky-what the hell did you put in my drink?”

Improbably, she felt her cheeks pinking up. Ellen’s Xanax, that’s what. “Didn’t hurt you,” she muttered, mustering exhausted dignity to pull at the tire chains.

He grabbed them away from her in one big mass and dumped them into her truck bed. “I’m not kidding. You’re not going anywhere alone. I’ll follow you to a safe place to leave that thing and then I’ll take you to the Bluefield hospital.”

“I’m not waiting,” she told him, opening the truck door to fumble around for her keys. She could drive one-handed if she had to, even on these curves. For a while, at least. And somewhere in here she had Goldfish crackers.

He stood frozen a moment, then gave a bemused shake of his head. “Hey,” he said. “About that cliff thing. You’re welcome.”

“Yeah,” she said, climbing in behind the wheel. “About getting those tire chains back down to you while Mr. Mad Sheep Man was tossing me around…you’re welcome.”

He shook his head again. This time it looked like a more subtle version of throwing his hands up. “I’ll catch up with the local LEOs later.”

She couldn’t help a smirk. “Let him explain about the leg-hold trap on his arm…yeah. And oh-tell them he doesn’t really have Mad Sheep disease, whatever he says.”

That stopped him short. He held her gaze a long moment. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll tell them. But boy, do we have to talk.”

“Yeah,” she told him. “That goes both ways. And I want food before we go to the hospital. No way I’m going to wait on an empty stomach. And no way I’m eating hospital crap.”

This time he held up his hands for real, total capitulation. “You win.”

She gave him a victory smile. But as she shut the door and started the truck, she looked at what her life had become and she suddenly wasn’t so sure.

Dave took Ellen to a truck stop just outside of Bluefield. She ordered a huge breakfast and savored each bite. For a while he just watched her. The way she ate, the way she interacted with those near her, the way her gaze flicked around to keep tabs on those around her. If he hadn’t known she’d spent the night out on a cliff face… Oh, her appearance was ragged enough-scuffed, torn and dirty clothing, her cheek scraped, her left arm tucked protectively into her lap. Her eyes gave away the most-no longer piercing, but rimmed with exhaustion. Not quite the same face as the one he’d once interviewed…but she’d mentioned that the accident had broken some facial bones. Not the same demeanor, either.

In fact, she was someone a little bit different with everyone to whom she spoke. To the older man who’d seated them, she’d been a daughter figure. To the waitress, a sister. To the trucker who’d hesitated long enough to give her a questioning once-over, dismissive enough so the man had turned away, not so blatant that he’d taken offense.

So there was plenty to look at. Plenty to ponder. And Ellen, even stiff and battered and grimy and exhausted, was still striking enough to catch Dave’s eye by surprise time after time. More vibrant than she’d been before. It made him wonder if she’d been abused by Longsford…if now he saw what she would have been like without the man’s influence. Or if-

“The accident really changed you,” he said, though he hadn’t meant to speak out loud at all.

She looked at him with one of those dry expressions, the eyebrow raised, her wide mouth quirked up at one corner in a way that emphasized the unusually straight line where her lips met. “You’re just now figuring it out?”

“I’m sorry about the tracker,” he said, and took a sip of his coffee. Unleaded, because he didn’t need any more caffeine for a week. Maybe two. “It was insurance against Longsford’s men. I didn’t mention it because…frankly, I didn’t want you to think I was concerned about keeping you safe.”

“I’m sorry, too,” she said crisply, taking a slug of milk. White foam traced the left half of her upper lip. “There’s only one moment you could have planted that thing, and I’m really sorry that you even thought of it. I know I was thinking about other things.”

He winced at her words. “Trust me, it wasn’t-” And then he fell silent, caught in her gaze as she looked up at him, her expression making it perfectly clear what she had been thinking about. He stuttered to a stop there, and then finally took a deep breath into aching lungs. Slowly, he sat back in his chair, still holding her gaze. He thought about the conflict of interest and he thought about professionalism and he gave an abrupt shake of his head, freeing himself from the moment.

The scary thing was, he wasn’t convinced. Not where it counted. Witness or not, he wanted-

“You’ve got a milk mustache,” he told her.

Calmly, she licked her lip clean and went back to her pancakes.

It wasn’t until later that he realized they’d never talked about why she’d run.

At the hospital emergency department, Karin fell asleep with her head on Dave’s leg, curled up on the padded bench seat while she waited for her turn. She woke to the sound of Ellen’s name to discover his hand resting on her hip, his head tipped back while he snored gently. He still wore that silly sweatshirt and his jeans were as ragged as hers, but…he somehow still looked as if he’d walked out of the pages of a catalog.

She slid out from beneath his hand and he didn’t wake. No little wonder, after the crash course of drugs his system had gotten. Might as well let him sleep on. He’d taken it pretty hard that she’d gone over the cliff as a result of his tracking bug. She guessed that his out-to-save-the-world directive didn’t leave much room for nearly getting someone killed.