Free Fight or Flight by Natalie J. Damschroder

tall grass could have been made by people, and a couple of branches at different spots along the edge of the trees were bent.
    “It seems fine,” Tyler called to her. He joined her on the roadside. “It’s not a cop car.”
    “Great.” She took a deep breath. She’s okay. She’s got to be. “We have to follow them. It looks like they might have taken off and been chased. God, I hope they weren’t caught.”
    “Don’t think about that.” He helped her down the short slope to the grassy ditch and let go as soon as they were on level ground.
    She started trotting, but pain flared through the cut on her hip and her jarred shoulder. The flip-flops weren’t helping, either. “I’ll never catch up like this.”
    “Let me scout ahead,” Tyler offered. “You follow best you can. I’ll pick out their trail so we don’t have to backtrack or anything.”
    “You can track?” It was one of the few things she hadn’t learned how to do. She’d never thought she’d be doing the chasing.
    “Sure. Military training.” He smiled and headed off. She followed as quickly as she could, listening to his progress.
    The phone in her hand beeped. The battery was dying. Why hadn’t she asked if he had a charger? They could have been charging it as they drove. She looked at it, torn, and finally shut it off. It might be necessary later.
    “This way.” Tyler’s soft call barely carried to her. He did know what he was doing. The bad guys would have to be very close to have heard him. She angled left and caught up to him a moment later.
    “Whoever was following them is good,” he said. “They veered off their initial path, and it wasn’t obvious, but the two guys following them saw it. They have training.”
    “Same kind of training you have?” she couldn’t help asking.
    He hesitated. “Maybe.”
    Just great. He could be leading her into a trap. Not that it mattered, if Kelsey was there. She’d do anything to get to her daughter right now. “Let’s keep going.”
    Tyler took off again. Regan sucked in a deep breath and picked up her pace. Every step took her closer to Kelsey. She had no choice but to push through the pain.
    Despite all her training, all her preparation, she’d never had to do this. It was much harder than she’d thought it would be. But dammit, the wherewithal to do it was inside her. She just had to dredge it up.
    ***
    There was nothing. They’d struggled along the tree line for what felt like forever, but all they found was more trees. They probably hadn’t gone as far as it felt like, but exhaustion swept over Kelsey. This wasn’t working. She stopped and put her hands on her knees. “We can’t just keep running,” she panted.
    Van collapsed on the ground beside her. “What else we gonna do?” Kelsey knew Van was tired or she would have said a hell of a lot more.
    “Circle back,” said Tom. They looked up at him. He was leaning against a tree, watching behind them. “Cut back through the woods to the highway, follow the verge back to their car. Maybe we can take it.”
    “That’s brilliant,” Kelsey said. “But what if they kept their keys?”
    He shrugged. “I don’t know what else we can do. Some of these farms out here are huge, and there are a lot of miles between exits. We could run until we die of exposure.”
    He was exaggerating, but she knew he was right. “If there are no keys we can try to flag someone down. But we have to be careful.”
    Van struggled to her feet. Her efforts were showing, with her hair flattened and dripping with sweat, and her shirt torn in two places by branches.
    “I’m sorry, you guys. I never meant to drag you into something like this.” Despair threatened to engulf Kelsey. “If anything happens to you…”
    “Shut up.” Tom closed his hand over the back of her neck. “Let’s go.” He pointed into the woods. “There’s a deer trail. Run full out, and stay together.”
    “Okay. You okay?” she asked Van, who nodded and clutched