I knew that didn’t bode well for me, especially since I was on a bike and he was in a truck. My heart rate ticked up to the point that I could feel my pulse in my throat as I took the next curve a little sharp. I managed to pull out of it without eating gravel, but my slow down had the truck gaining even more on me. Two more curves, and not a hell of a lot more road before I knew the end would be upon us and it was all over anyway. His bumper hit my back tire and I couldn’t correct in time. My front tire caught the loose gravel at the edge of the road and propelled me right over the edge. I found myself thankful that we hadn’t been at a steep drop-off point along the road. Instead my bike careened right down the side of the mountain along a deer path. I wasn’t able to slow it enough that I was able to control it into a stop though. I was going downhill and headed straight for a tree where the deer path gave out and made a sharp curve to the right, forcing me to bail off and roll into a jagged piece of rock, catching my shoulder as I did.
The rock stopped me from rolling any further in pretty abrupt way causing me to let out a scream. I wasn’t worried about him hearing me, because he’d see the bike – my precious 883 Super Low – wrapped around that tree. Still, I knew I didn’t have a whole lot of time to get gone from my position. Cradling my arm tight to my body I moved, using the mountain to aid in my momentum for a bit and allowing it to take me down and further into the cover of the forest. I stayed clear of the trails, deer or otherwise, and thanks to my small stature I was able to make good headway without being noticed. I could hear someone tromping through the brush somewhere in the distance behind me, but there was no way to judge how close they were since the sound traveled like crazy out here.
When I heard the babbling of a creek nearby I winced at what I would have to do. I turned left and headed away from the sound, despite everything my dad had ever taught me when I was young about how to navigate through the woods if I ever got lost. “Follow the creek, it’ll lead you to safety and keep you hydrated until you get there.” I could hear him in my head giving me those same instructions now, but I had to ignore it, because I knew that whoever was following me would probably think the same thing. The left hand turn I’d taken to move away from the water sent me on an uphill path for a bit that did my injured shoulder no favors when I had to reach out to steady myself on a difficult portion of the climb. It also meant I was slowing down, which I wasn’t happy with, but again, I was praying that the person following me went for the creek instead.
It wasn’t long before I crested over the top of the peak, and was able to get my bearings a bit better. I was crossing part of the Appalachian Trail at this point. That was both good and bad. I knew I could find my way from here, but that would mean staying on, or close to, the trail which would make tracking my movements easier. On the other hand, it also meant that I might run into hikers who could possibly help. As soon as I thought it, I discarded that possibility. Anyone who might be able to help might also get killed for trying.
“Are you all right?” I heard from not too far away.
“No,” I decided to be honest. “Listen carefully, there’s a man after me. He ran me off the road. I’ve been running for a while, and not sure he’s still following, but please call the police as soon as you get somewhere with signal. Don’t stay here though.”
“You should come with us,” the woman called out to me in a loud whisper. The man next to her gave her a meaningful look that told me he wasn’t stupid.
“It’s not safe,” I told her. Keep going up the trail. There should be cell signal at slightly higher ground up there. Please, let them know JoJo Mason was run off the road, and she came through here heading west, okay?”
“No offense lady, but we’re in the woods. How are we supposed to tell them you went west? From where?”
“Did you pass a shelter along the way?”
The man grinned then. “Yeah, Blue Mountain Shelter was back down the trail about a mile or so,” he answered.
“Okay, so tell them this,” I looked out to where I’d come from. “About a mile north of Blue Mountain Shelter I moved west into the woods, uncertain if I was still being followed. Avoiding trails, because I’d be easily spotted.”
“Fuck!” We heard shouted from somewhere off in the distance.
I turned to the couple with fresh panic in my eyes. “Go, tell them. JoJo Mason,” I reminded them. I didn’t give them my married name in case it wasn’t recognized by whoever they spoke to.
“We will,” the woman said quietly as the man she was with pulled her further up the trail and away from me. I turned, hoping they were able to get a hold of someone and I headed west off the trail where I wouldn’t be found as easily.
“Do you see her?” A man called out.
“No, but Jared said there’s no trace of her down by that creek.”
“Let’s go,” the first man called out.
Shit! How many people had been in that truck? I kept moving despite the pain flashing through my shoulder and throbbing down my arm. I had been gritting through the almost numb, tingling sensation until I stumbled a bit causing my muscles to spasm. I knew there were tears in my eyes because my vision became temporarily blurry until I was able to wipe at them with the bottom of my shirt. Still, I carried on, because a bit of pain and discomfort in my shoulder was nothing compared with being dead or worse. Yes, there was worse than dead. There was ending up like MiMi when she had been taken, but never finding a way out until you lost even the hope that death would take it all from you.
I was sweating buckets and my legs were numb by the time I was able to find my bearings again. I’d managed to drop down through a valley and crest yet another peak before I found myself staring down the old Adams’ junk patch. It was a defunct junkyard that was once run by Gunther Adams ages ago. He had some weird car collecting fantasy, but all he ever got were people’s scrap heaps. He would tote them up the mountain and deposit them on land he had there, letting the forest swallow up some of them while the rest sat in a large clearing along with a small cabin he’d built.
Now, there was also a garage on the property, because Greg and Geoff Adams, Gunther’s sons had taken the place over once he passed, and they both had skills with cars that their father had never possessed. The Adams boys had been able to part out a lot of the scrapped cars on the mountain to help with rebuilds. That was where we got a lot of parts that were discontinued for the older vehicles people brought in to my shop. Geoff had been killed up here in an accident a few years back, but I found myself praying to any god that would listen that Gregg was still around.
I hadn’t even made it to the clearing yet when I heard a gasp and then my name. “JoJo?”
“Gregg!” I called out in relief even as pain laced through me once again at the sudden movement his calling my name had caused.
“What the hell happened to you, girl?” I turned to see him barreling toward me then.
“Gregg, someone ran me off the road over near Lucinda’s place,” I explained. Everyone knew Lucinda’s place because she was one of the families who still distilled their own moonshine in the middle of the Georgia mountains.
“Lucinda’s place? Jesus, girl. How long you been out there? Why the hell would you come this way for help?”
“Whoever ran me off the road is tracking me, Gregg.” He moved so quickly I almost didn’t register it before he had my arm – the uninjured one – in his grip and was moving me toward his cabin.
“We better get prepared while we call for help then,” he told me as I damn near had to jog to keep up with his long-legged pace. He set me to making sure some of the guns he had were loaded and ready to go while he used an old HAM radio to call for help. “Yeah, I have JoJo Mason up here on my property,” I heard him tell whoever was on the other end. Then I heard another man’s voice call out from somewhere in the distance.
“Think she’s here?”
“Keep your voice down, numbnuts,” came the answer.
“At least two unidentified me
n on the property now. Better rush that help, because shit’s about to get ugly. I don’t know what these guys want with JoJo, but they can’t have her.”
I turned to look at Gregg who tipped his chin to me, indicating the rifle I’d been holding. I tossed it to him and picked up the 9mm off the table instead. There was no way I could hang on to a rifle in my condition.
“Hikers called it in that she was being chased a while ago. She made good time getting to your place. Make sure she has water, Gregg,” I heard the man on the other end of the radio call out.
Gregg indicated some bottles on his counter and I took one, before I moved closer to the back door of the cabin. “We’re sitting ducks if we stay in here,” I whispered, mindful of how noise traveled.
“I know it,” he told me before grabbing up some extra ammo and a bottle for himself. “Come on. I think getting lost in the junkyard is our best bet.”
I followed him to a back door and we eased it open, squeezing through, before ducking low and running into the maze of vehicles that had been left to their demise. It was a literal graveyard of lost cars and I had every intention of not dying in it. We moved quickly and quietly. I trusted Gregg to get us into a position where we could fight and stay hidden. He knew this place better than anyone else since he never left it. I was counting on that. I was counting on a lot at this point. I was also thanking a couple of hikers, because they’d definitely done as promised and sent for help.
Chapter 14
White hot pain burst through my leg as we ducked behind one of the sturdy old junk piles. I miraculously held in the yelp that wanted to escape at the stinging pain that spread through my right leg from the knee down. “Shit!” Gregg huffed out as he turned to see what had slowed me down before tugging me down further so I was completely covered.
“I don’t know how many there are. I thought it was just one guy, but then I heard two of them earlier and they were discussing a third who had followed Joel Creek to see if I went that direction.”
“It’s okay. How bad you hit?”
A metallic ping noise caused both of us to forget about any wounds I might already suffer. It didn’t matter that my left shoulder was out of commission or the fact that my right lower leg had taken a bullet and I could actually feel the blood oozing down my calf. What mattered in that moment was trying to stay alive.
“I’m sorry I brought this to your door, Gregg,” I told him before I carefully leaned around the corner of the metal monstrosity we were hiding behind to see if I could spot any of the people shooting at us. Luckily for me, I spotted him before he was able to see me and I fired. I hit my target, though I couldn’t tell you where or if it would be fatal, because he went down with a groan and didn’t bother to fire again.
“Don’t you dare apologize. I’d have been pissed at you if you’d kept running in the woods. I don’t think you had much left in the tank, darlin’.”
He could say that again. Instead he managed to find a little hole to stick his rifle through, took aim and dropped another man who was checking on the guy I got. It wasn’t long before heard engines, and at first I thought the Calvary had arrived. They had, just not the one from our side. “We can’t stay pinned down here forever,” Gregg warned me while glancing around at the maze of broken cars and trucks behind us. “I don’t see our chances being any better moving through there though.” I knew exactly what he meant. Moving made us vulnerable. Staying put also made us weak, because they already knew our position.
“Come on out and maybe you’ll live through this!” A booming voice called out. I leaned out, took aim, and shot. Someone grunted and went down. The same voice called out again, “Not smart!” Then no one else spoke and a hale of bullets fired down around us. The acrid smell of smoke washed over the area too, and I just knew what had been done.
Gregg didn’t hesitate even knowing that his home was burning as we had been held down by the shots pinging all around us. He took aim and shot again. I didn’t hear anything so I assumed he missed and I followed suit, quickly unleashing a few bullets into their midst myself before making sure I had plenty of cover in order to reload while Gregg took his turn again. Several shots were volleyed our way throughout all of this, but luckily neither of us took on any more injuries. Mine was bad enough. I couldn’t feel the blood trickling down my leg anymore, but I didn’t think my lack of sensation was a good thing. A numbness had worked its way into the wound that was startling. My shoulder was a different story though. Every time I had to adjust my position to shoot it screamed at me, making me want to just eat the damn bullet myself, but I wasn’t the only one who would lose if I did that. My child would as well. Steel would lose both of us.
That was all of the resolve I needed to keep going. I had a baby to think of. I might not have had babies on my mind when all of this started, but he was on the way and I’d be damned if I allowed anyone to take him from me now. I turned and shot into the distance again. I didn’t see anyone out there this time, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there. Gregg did the same just as I pulled back and the onslaught of bullets that fired down on us took their toll. Gregg was hit in the shoulder before he could pull back.
“Fuck, that hurts,” he complained as he scooted in closer to the center of the junk heap we were hiding behind.
“Good news,” I told him. “It only hurts until it doesn’t.”
Gregg gave me a dubious look and then glanced down at his wound before trying to assess how my leg was doing. He wasn’t able to get far in his assessment as I moved the minute I heard the loud pipes roaring up the mountain road. There were motorcycles coming, and from the sounds of it, there were a shit load of them.
“I hope like hell that’s your club on the way, Jo.”
“Me too, Gregg. I’m really sorry,” I told him eyeing his shoulder again before I turned and fired into the men who had been attempting to gun us down. I wanted them stuck between a rock and a hard place if that was my club. I also wanted to take out as many of them as I could in case it wasn’t my people coming to the rescue.
“Save a couple of those,” Gregg told me as I leaned back in. I nodded knowing full well what he meant. Neither of us wanted to be prisoners. We would either be rescued or die on this mountain shortly.
“Sorry, baby,” I said to my belly and the life that had been growing inside of me.
“You pregnant, Jo?” Gregg asked, looking even more alarmed.
I gave him a bitter smile and a nod of my head as answer.
“Fuck,” he hissed out again. “I wish you had said so before.”
“We had no time.” He couldn’t argue that. We’d barely made it to the junk pile for cover as it was. Had we stuck around in the cabin to dress my wound or grab more water we would have been dead by now. We bought ourselves precious moments by not tending to my needs. I prayed the baby would be fine, but time would tell. I wasn’t sure if it was exhaustion, dehydration, or blood loss, but I was beginning to feel dizziness wash over me in bursts.
“Hang in there with me Jo,” Gregg called out. I had been about to lean out to shoot some more, but had to tuck back in because I nearly passed out. Gunfire sounded and it almost felt like it was far away instead of close by like I knew it was.
“Gregg, I don’t think I’m going to be much help,” I informed him.
“I know, darlin’. You just hang in there. He glanced around again. “That’s definitely your crew out there. Won’t be long now,” he offered up, but I was already fading. The last thing I heard was a familiar baritone voice calling out my name and quick pops of gunfire.”
“Steel,” I tried to call back, but it came out more of a whimper before everything faded.
Chapter 15
The first thing I was aware of as I came to was the blaring of a siren, but not long after, the world faded to black again and I was down for the count.
The second time I tried to open my eyes, it went a lot better. The lights were low in the room I occupied and everything was quiet for t
he most part. “She’ll be fine,” I heard Steel say to someone else. “No, we don’t know yet. They’re bringing in an ultrasound machine in a few minutes to check everything. I’ve heard the heartbeat though. Yeah.” Pause. “Yeah, you do that. Make sure you save some for me.” Another pause. “No, none of them get to check out before I get to look each and every one of those fuckers in the eye. They’ll die, but they’ll do it when I say so.”
He must have been talking on the phone to someone because I didn’t hear another voice. “I know the sheriff managed to pick up two of them. I want someone by the jail watching. They get released, they’re ours.” He was quiet again for a moment. “Yeah, do that.” Then he tacked on, “no, I’ve got it. Thanks.”
“Steel?” I questioned and he was by my side again.
“Jesus, babe. You scared the shit out of me.”
“I know,” I told him miserably. “This is all my fault. I just wanted to go on one more ride on the way to MiMi’s.”
“Shh, I know, babe. You couldn’t have known this would happen.”
“Who?”
He shook his head, the little bit of light overhead glinting off the bald skin there. “We’re still working on that. You and Gregg took out four of them, babe. Two were picked up by the Sheriff, but we hauled the other three off ourselves.”
“Nine.” The one word tasted funny on my tongue. There had been nine men shooting at me. “Gregg?” I asked remembering it hadn’t just been me they were shooting at.
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