Free Run Wild by Shelly Thacker Page A

looks like you
are
going with me.” He tested the wind, chose a direction. “So let’s go.”
    Taking her by the arm, he headed into the forest.

Chapter 6

    M adman.
    The word echoed through Sam’s mind, louder than the lingering report of the pistol shot. But when he turned and set off, the chain that bound them and his unyielding hold on her arm gave her no choice but to go with him.
    He headed into the woods as if the dogs of hell were howling for his blood, seemingly oblivious to the bullet in his shoulder and the blood soaking his shirt. But the shackles hampered their every step. She couldn’t match his stride or his speed. And the jangling chain caught on every root, rock and fallen branch in their path.
    She stumbled alongside him, struggling to keep up, still bruised and dazed from their fall down the hillside. Tree trunks and swirling shafts of sunlight danced before her eyes in a blur as they fled, her mind reeling with images of the unspeakable violence she had just witnessed.
    The rogue’s fists mercilessly beating Swinton into unconsciousness. Blood. Pistol shots. A flashing knife. Leach’s lifeless eyes staring skyward.
    The pictures ricocheted through her head, sent the world spinning around her just as it had when they plunged down the ravine. In shock, she ran for several minutes before reason finally penetrated her daze. Like one of the beams of sunlight breaking through the trees, it hit her with stunning clarity: she was no longer on her way to London to face the magistrates and her uncle’s retribution.
    She was in far worse trouble. Racing headlong into Cannock Chase with a madman.
    And she was going along like a sheep.
    “N-no!” She tried to wrest her arm from his grip, stumbling.
    He held her up and pulled her forward with him, giving her no choice but to keep moving.
    “Stop!” She resisted again, desperately trying to shake him off. Running, gasping for breath, she tried to think of some way to reason with him. To get the shackles off so she could get
away
from him. “W-we should go toward a town—”
    “Every town for miles will be crawling with lawmen before the sun sets.” He ducked under a low-hanging branch and kept going, his blunt, strong fingers holding fast to her arm.
    “But I d-don’t think—”
    “I don’t give a damn what you think.” He swept her along with him.
    “Well, I don’t give a damn what you say! I am
not
going into Cannock Chase with you!” She stopped suddenly, digging in her heels.
    And he was moving so fast, she yanked him off balance.
    The chain jerked taut, tripped him. He went down face-first and the sudden tug on the shackles pulled her feet out from under her. Arms flailing, she fell backward with a startled cry and landed flat on her back in a carpet of leaves and pine needles, sending a shower of both into the air.
    She could hear the rogue groan a low sound of pain as she lay there struggling for breath, coughing on the cloud of dust that billowed up from the forest floor. Every inch of her felt pummeled, scraped, aching. Her left ankle throbbed painfully from the sharp pull on the tight iron cuff.
    He sat up first, pushing himself to his knees with an oath... turning to look at her with a thunderous expression on his face.
    The instinct to scramble away flashed through her head but he was too quick. He lunged toward her, pushed her down into the leaves.
    She screamed, trying to throw him off, but he pinned her with his weight. An icy blast of unreasoning terror swept through her.
    Memories of her Uncle Prescott.
    “
No!
” She struck at the rogue with her fists, struggled with all her strength. She would never let herself be hurt that way again.
Never
. “Get off of me! Get—”
    “Shut up.” He grabbed her wrists, fastened them to the ground on either side of her head, breathing hard, his eyes piercing hers. “Shut up and stop making trouble for two seconds, damn it—”
    “Let me go!” God help her, she hadn’t realized until