The Complete Colony Series. Lisa Jackson

toward her, then she heaved her arm back and hurled the stone at him as hard as she could. It smashed into his forehead, knocking him off his stride.

      “I am God’s messenger!” he bellowed, staggering.

      Becca turned and ran with renewed energy, tearing down the road, her lungs on fire, leg muscles burning.

      Faintly, she saw the glow of headlights far ahead, somewhere through the trees. She cried out in desperation, staggering, running, near collapse. She ran toward the approaching vehicle, waving her arms, silently praying this wasn’t some kind of backup for the sick monster chasing her.

      The car, a Jeep, slowed to a halt and the driver got out. A man. Becca, muddy, blood-splattered, and sick with fear, shrank away from his stark headlights. When he suddenly ran toward her, her pulse spiked and she stumbled over her feet.

      “Becca?” the voice called urgently. “My God, are you all right?”

      She knew him. She knew that voice. She turned back, then shot her gaze in the direction of her attacker. The highway steamed in the glow of her savior’s headlights but there was no one chasing her. No one there.

      He was beside her now. She recognized him, but not her own shaking voice when she said, “Detective McNally?”

      “I’ve been trying to reach you. What happened?”

      She broke down, falling limply, but his reactions were swift and he grabbed her before her knees fully cracked against the blacktop. “Levi!” he called over his shoulder. “Get out here!”

      The passenger’s side of the Jeep opened and a man stepped out. He half loped, half walked their way, and then hung back. A boy, Becca realized belatedly. She could scarcely think. Her brain was muddled.

      “Hudson’s hurt,” she burbled out. “We had an accident.” She pointed behind her to the underbrush. “Down there. Back a ways. He was pushed off the road. The truck with the grill guard. He tried to kill us!”

      “Where?” McNally demanded.

      He helped Becca to her feet and she pointed in the direction the Jetta had careened off the road. McNally didn’t waste time. He barked to the boy to get a flashlight while he asked Becca if she could stand on her own for a moment. She nodded and he raced back to the Jeep, pulling it farther off the road but leaving the lights on.

      Then he came back and helped Becca lead the three of them in the right direction. It was easy to find. The crash through the underbrush had left branches torn, the bark gone, their exposed white interiors ghostly in the flashlight’s beam.

      Spying the back of the Jetta, McNally scrambled down the hill, yelling at the boy who was following a tad more slowly to keep the flashlight’s beam ahead of him. Becca slid down the hill on shaking legs, scratching her hands and feeling mud slide into her shoes.

      As soon as McNally saw Hudson he attempted to open the driver’s door. It took several tries and a lot of swearing before it wrenched free with a scream of protest that sent Ringo into paroxysms of barking. The front side of the car was sprung sideways and Hudson was wedged firmly. McNally twisted the keys and the engine coughed and sputtered but didn’t catch. He pulled the seat lever and moved the driver’s seat backward a couple of inches. Hudson’s body slipped forward over the wheel. He was free, but still unconscious.

      McNally laid fingers against his throat. “Strong pulse.” He checked his cell phone and swore softly. “Someone ran you off the road?”

      “Yes.”

      “You think it’s the same guy who rammed Renee Trudeau’s car over the cliff?”

      “Yes.”

      “We need cell service.” He flipped his phone shut and stared hard at the boy Levi, who was talking to Ringo through the window. The little dog was torn between trying to reach Hudson and lick him and wanting to dig through the window. McNally fumbled with a button and the rear window slid downward and Ringo scrambled to get his head through. Levi petted and cooed to him, calming him down.

      “Someone’s got to drive back and call 911. We need an ambulance.” McNally was looking at Becca.

      “I can’t leave Hudson,” she chattered.

      “I’ll stay with them,” Levi said soberly. “You go.”

      McNally wanted to protest. Becca could tell it was all he could do to leave them and go for help. But there was no choice. She couldn’t go, and Levi was too young to drive. “As soon as I make contact, I’m driving right back here,” he said tautly. He hesitated a moment, then withdrew a handgun from the inside of his coat. As if choreographed, Levi stepped up and took it from him. McNally looked like he wanted to argue about that, too, but he sent Becca a swift look, said, “Don’t hesitate,” then climbed back up the bank in record speed.

      Levi switched off the beam of the flashlight, then removed the keys from the car, quietly petting Ringo’s head, which strained out the window. “No need to advertise where we are,” he said into the sudden dark.

      Near exhaustion, Becca settled herself inside the driver’s door next to Hudson. She found his hand and linked her fingers through his.

      Spawn of Satan. I am God’s messenger. Sister…

      He’d seen Jessie. He’d shared Becca’s vision.

      He knew them both.

      “He’s still out there,” she said. “He chased me. Through the woods.”

      Levi moved closer to Becca. She saw the gun was in his hand. She heard a click and realized he’d removed the safety. “You know about guns?” she asked him.

      “No.”

      “You’re not—McNally’s son?”

      “Yeah. I just don’t know him that much.”

      “And you don’t know about guns.”

      He was staring into the dark, not at her. “I know video games,” he said, and for some reason that was enough to comfort Becca.

      The rain eased up and finally quit. Becca kept feeling Hudson’s pulse but it was strong and steady. Eventually, they heard a car approach and saw it was Mac’s Jeep. He scrambled down the bank and took the gun from his son, resetting the safety. He assured them an ambulance was on its way. They would take Hudson back to Ocean Park Hospital. He felt Becca should be looked at, too, and had told the 911 operator there were two victims.

      Ringo, who’d waited patiently till now, started renewed whining and bouncing in the backseat, so Levi pulled the dog from the car and held him while Ringo reached his tongue toward Becca. She leaned forward and let him wash her face, hugging him hard.

      “Can I take him home?” Levi asked her. “I’ll take good care of him for you.”

      Becca started crying in earnest. She couldn’t stop. She nodded jerkily, and in the distance came the wail of a siren.

      She gazed off in the opposite direction and wondered what had become of her assailant. “He had his truck around the corner,” she told McNally.

      “I’m going to find him,” the detective told her with certainty.

      Becca turned to Hudson. Please be okay, she prayed. Please, please.

      And then the ambulance arrived in a blinding flash of red and white strobes and the welcome scream of its horn.

      Chapter Twenty-Four

      “Sister.”

      The word was a sibilant sound searing through Becca’s mind.

      “Ssssisssster.”

      Oh, God, no!

      Becca’s eyes flew open, the hiss of his voice still ringing in her ears. Her heart was pounding, her pulse racing from the terrifying nightmare. In the dark dream, she’d been running