Tag: writing prompt

Before she could even blink, Liam pushes Cara behind him to try to protect her. As much as she loved that he wanted to look out for her, they were a team. Maybe they hadn’t known each other for long at all, but given what they’d fought through these last two days, it felt like that time was fifty times longer.

Running a hand down Liam’s arm, Cara curled her fingers around his, and took a step sideways so she was beside him rather than tucked behind him.

Ignoring both the way Liam stiffened, his fingers tightening around hers, and the way the man before them let his gaze roam her body, she offered up a tentative smile.

“Who are you? Why are you at our cabin?” Cara asked. As far as she could see the man wasn’t still armed, but he’d been firing at them, so he must have it on him even if she couldn’t see it.

“You cabin?”

“Well my boyfriend’s cabin,” she said, tilting her head sideways to rest on Liam’s shoulder, trying to pretend they were closer than they were. Not that she’d say no if he asked her out … not that it was the time to be thinking about that.

“Sorry, I must have made a wrong turn, thought it was my cabin,” the man said with a shrug.

“You don’t know which road to take to turn to get to your cabin?” Liam asked, angling his body a little so it was slightly between hers and the man who had shot at them.

Another shrug. “Must have gotten confused with the trees down because of the storm. Sorry for shooting at you, thought you were intruders.”

The way he said it like trying to kill them was no big deal made her shudder. Even if Liam hadn’t recognised the man she wouldn’t have been buying what he was trying to sell.

“Okay,” Liam said slowly, “no harm done, I guess. Why don’t you head off to your cabin now then.”

“Actually I could use a trip to the bathroom first, if you don’t mind,” the man said, offering them a leering grin that made Cara shudder again.

Everyone was tense, there was no way Liam was going to willingly go back inside the cabin with this man, and it didn’t seem like the man was going to just walk away, even if it was obvious they didn’t believe his half-hearted excuse for shooting at them.

Before she could try to say something to ease the tension, try to get her and Liam out of this alive, all hell broke loose.

Liam lunged at the man.

The man pulled out a weapon from his waistband and swung it at Liam.

It connected against Liam’s head with a sickening crunch, and he dropped, unconscious, to the ground.

As he said the words, Liam’s gaze scanned the forest before them for a place to hide. If he didn’t find something quickly enough Cara was going to pay the price.

Even though he knew they might not have survived, he was starting to wish they’d just waited out the storm in Cara’s wrecked car. The freezing temperatures could have made them hypothermic, but with their combined body heat they could have made it, and at least they wouldn’t be running from a criminal now.

“There,” he said, pointing to a broken tree, obviously struck down in the storm. The trunk was large, and the way it was positioned meant they could wriggle between it and the ground. It would be a tight fit, and uncomfortable, but at least they’d be shielded from view.

Dragging Cara along with him, he kept low to the ground, and they reached the fallen tree just as the sound of pounding footsteps reached them.

Pushing Cara under first, he didn’t know what the man had seen, he might know there was two of them out here or he might not. If he didn’t and they got spotted then he’d play things out like it was only him, do whatever he could to protect Cara.

Even if meant sacrificing himself.

Just as they shuffled under, his body offering another layer of protection for hers he spotted the man. Well the man’s feet anyway.

Praying the man just ran on past them, Liam held Cara’s trembling body close to his chest, and counted the seconds.

One.

Two.

Three.

Footsteps continued to pound the ground.

Four.

Five.

Receding as the man kept running.

Six.

Seven.

Eight.

Definitely fading.

Nine.

Ten.

Gone.

“He went past,” Cara whispered, relief evident in her voice as she pressed her face against his neck.

“Let’s wait a bit longer,” he whispered back, rather safe than sorry.

After a full minute had passed and they didn’t hear any more sounds, Liam decided it was safe, and he carefully climbed back out, then offered a hand to help Cara.

No sooner had they both straightened than he heard the slight crack of a twig.

“Come out come out whenever you are. Well, well, well, what do we have here?” a cold voice chuckled.

One second Cara was running like her life depended on it-because she knew that it did-ignoring the aches and pains littering her body, and the next a loud crack split through the night.

Before she could even process what was happening, she was sailing through the air. The landing knocked the air from her lungs, even though she knew that Liam did his best to cushion the fall with his own body.

For a second she stared up at him, doing her best not to lose herself to the panic threatening to overwhelm her.

As far as Cara was concerned there were only two options. Laugh or cry. And crying right now was a really bad choice because it would only hamper their ability to get away.

Laugh it was.

“Well things weren’t exactly going to plan. Huh. What WAS the plan again?” she joked, doing her best to force out a laugh even if it sounded completely fake even to her own ears.

“Oh this is definitely the plan,” Liam joked back, his smile as tense as her own. “Don’t get shot. Pretty good plan from where I’m standing.”

“Don’t get shot, I like it,” she said as he grabbed her hands and pulled her up with him. “But he saw us, and I’m guessing he’s going to shoot at us again. Where are we going.” While she didn’t want to sound pessimistic she wasn’t sure how long she’d be able to run. Not that she’d give up, well not willingly, but her body was already weak and it was going to give out on her sooner rather than later.

“There’s another cabin a couple of miles to the east. A road about two miles to the west. The cabin is probably empty, and given the storm yesterday there probably isn’t any traffic on the road.”

“So what do we do?” she asked, aware they had only seconds to make a decision before it was taken out of their hands.

“We hide and hope he walks right on past us.”

One of the things Liam had loved about this cabin when he first saw it was that it was set in a small clearing. Almost a perfect circle with trees surrounding it, wildflowers covered the open space, but nothing else, and he’d enjoyed being able to sit out here on summer evenings and get an uninterrupted view of the stars. Sometimes he even caught a glimpse of the Northern Lights when the conditions were perfect and the natural phenomenon showed up.

Now he hated the clearing.

It gave the man with a possible body in the trunk of his car a clear view of them as they ran for the trees. All he had to do was turn his head and they’d be spotted.

Possibly be dead.

“Well this is getting suspenseful,” Cara said, as they ran towards the trees.

Her sarcasm in the face of her fear, especially when he knew she had to be hurting from the accident, made his feelings for her grow exponentially. This woman was something else, and he wasn’t going to let her become this man’s next victim.

“Yeah it is,” he agreed with a chuckle, tightening his grip on Cara’s hand when she stumbled. “But we’re almost there.”

“You have a plan for when we get there?”

“I do.” He wasn’t going to waste energy explaining it while they were running, but the fact that she trusted him so implicitly only added to his desire to protect her.

They were almost there.

In fact Liam was sure they’d made it and had slightly slowed his pace to accomodate Cara who he knew was struggling even if she wouldn’t admit it out loud.

But then he heard it.

A shout.

The crack of a shot.

They’d been spotted.

How long had Liam been out there?

Why didn’t he come back?

What was she supposed to do if he didn’t come back?

Not that Cara thought he’d abandon her or anything, he wouldn’t have worked so hard to get her to safety if he planned on turning his back on her later one, but what if he didn’t abandon her by choice?

It was clear from the beginning that Liam was uneasy about whoever had been staying in his cabin, if he was right and it was someone dangerous, what were they supposed to do?

Crammed as she was in the bottom shelf of the pantry her entire body was aching. All those bumps and bruises from the crash making themselves known the longer she hid here.

It couldn’t have been more than a few minutes, but she hadn’t heard anything. No voices, no gunshots, nothing at all.

A sudden tap had her jerking up, her head bumping into the shelf as she peeked through the crack between the two doors she’d pulled closed behind her to find Liam staring through the window gesturing frantically at her.

What was wrong?

Did he want her to come to him?

When he waved his hand at her again, she assumed that he did, and Cara didn’t hesitate to obey. Wriggling back out of the pantry she hurried to the window, and helped him ease it open.

“We have to go,” he said, reaching in and grabbing her, dragging her out as she scrambled to help.

“What happened? What’s wrong?” she whispered as her bare feet hit the ground.

“I’ve seen that man before, he’s a criminal and he’s supposed to be dead. He pulled something out of his trunk wrapped in a tarp, and I don’t want to hang around to find out what it is. We have to get out of here now, call in help,” he told her as he grabbed her hand and started pulling her along with him as he headed back out into the forest.