Chapter 136: Ugly

I breathed once.

“We see you, stranger.”

My eyes went wide as the man’s voice cut through the trees. It was loud, controlled, and way too close. In the same breath, I heard it. Metal shifting. Safety clicks. Multiple guns locking onto the exact spot I was hiding behind.

Shit.

“Come out with both your hands raised.”

I stayed still for a second, hoping they were bluffing. Hoping they had just seen movement and were guessing.

“Get a move on!!!”

Yeah. Not guessing.

I exhaled through my nose and stepped out from behind the tree, slow and deliberate. My hands stayed visible, but my eyes stayed low, shadowed. I let the frustration sit on my face. No point pretending otherwise.

Too tired for the shit.

I dropped the bag at my feet.

Four of them stood ahead. Three men. One woman.

My eyes narrowed slightly as I looked past her.

There was a fifth.

A kid. Younger than the rest. Late teens, maybe. He stood just behind the woman, trying to look tough but failing at it.

So that made five.

The man in front stepped forward just slightly. He did not lower his gun.

“Check him,” he said, nodding toward me.

The kid hesitated.

The man’s eyes narrowed.

That was all it took.

The kid stepped forward, his face stiff, trying to hold some kind of confidence together as he reached me. His hands moved quick, but not clean. He patted down my sides, my jacket, my pockets.

He pulled out the knife first.

Then the bullets.

Then anything else he could grab.

I watched him the whole time.

“Thanks,” I said flatly as he stepped back and shoved my things into his pocket.

Something burned in my chest when I saw that.

“You stalking us, kid?” the man asked.

I looked at him.

“Why the fuck would I be stalking you?”

“Hey, watch your mouth, dipshit,” the kid snapped, trying to sound tougher than he was.

I frowned and held my tongue. No point escalating yet.

The woman leaned in close to the man after a moment, her voice low but not low enough.

“Harold, this looks like a false alarm. The guy seems harmless. Let’s just go back and regroup with the others.”

Harold.

I locked that in.

Harold looked at her for a second, then back at me. His expression shifted. Something colder settled in.

Then his eyes dropped to the bag at my feet.

“Looks like you got some more goods we should be taking from you.”

My jaw tightened.

The kid stepped forward again, reaching for the bag.

I moved without thinking and kicked it back behind me.

Harold’s face twisted.

“Look,” I said, keeping my voice steady. “Like your friend said, I’m harmless. I’m just trying to survive out here just like you people.”

“Not my problem,” he said.

The woman frowned, but she did not interrupt again.

The kid reached again.

“It’s a dog eat dog world, kid,” Harold added.

Yeah. I got that already.

I studied him for a second longer.

The way he stood. The way he spoke. The way the others looked at him.

Authority.

Old habits. Probably law enforcement before everything went to hell. The kind of guy who believed he was right even when he was not. The kind who took what he wanted and called it necessary.

The kind who snapped when you pushed back.

I exhaled slowly.

He stepped closer.

That was his mistake.

I moved fast.

My hand shot out, grabbing the kid and yanking him back into me. My other hand came up just as quick, the Glock pressing hard against the side of his head.

Everything froze.

“Sneaky bastard!!” the kid choked out, his body going stiff in my grip.

I felt him tremble as my gun pressed closer.

I ignored him.

“If you guys leave, I’ll let him go,” I said. My voice stayed calm, even. “This doesn’t have to get ugly.”

I wasn’t even sure how I’d see myself if I let it.

My moral compass had been all over the place lately.

The air shifted.

Tension tightened like a wire ready to snap.

“Harold!” the woman said, panic breaking through now.

I glanced at her, at the way she looked. Her expression and all.

Yeah.

That was her son.

That look told me everything.

I tightened my grip just enough for him to feel it. Not enough to hurt. Enough to remind everyone what was at stake.

Harold stared at me.

No panic. No fear.

Just anger.

That told me enough too.

After a few seconds, he lifted his hand slightly.

“Let him go,” he said.

I watched him carefully.

Then I shoved the kid forward and ripped my belongings back from his pocket. The knife. The bullets. Everything.

I pushed him hard enough that he stumbled back into the woman. She grabbed him immediately, pulling him close. He looked like he was about to break down, his face pale and shaken.

I picked up my bag without taking my eyes off Harold.

For a second, no one moved.

Then I saw it.

That shift in his face.

That small tightening in his jaw.

That spark.

His ego was bruised.

And men like him never let that go.

He waited.

He waited until the kid was fully behind him.

Then he raised his gun and fired.

The flash lit up his face for a split second.

I was already moving.

I twisted my body to the side, the bullet cutting past me and slamming into the tree behind me with a sharp crack.

I did not hesitate.

I raised my gun and fired back.

One shot.

Clean.

It hit him in the stomach.

Harold folded, his body jerking as the air left him. His gun dropped as he clutched the wound, stumbling back.

For a split second, the others just stared at him.

Then they snapped back to me.

Guns raised.

Too late.

I grabbed my bag and ran.

My legs burned as I pushed through the trees, branches snapping against my arms as I forced my way forward. Behind me, I heard shouting. More gunshots. Bullets tearing through leaves and bark.

None hit.

I did not look back.

I just kept running.

Because I already knew how this ended.

Out here, it was simple.

You hesitate, you die.

And I was done hesitating.

—

Lila had never been a tracker.

She did not know how to read footprints properly or tell how long someone had passed through an area just by looking at the ground. She had never needed to learn any of that before.

But she made it work.

She followed what she could. Broken branches. Tire marks that faded in and out of the dirt. The occasional sign that someone had passed through and did not care enough to cover it.

More than that, she followed him.

Adrian was not random. He never had been. Even when things went to hell, he moved with some kind of thought behind it. Some kind of direction.

She knew that.

She gripped the steering wheel tighter as the car rolled over uneven road, the engine rattling slightly with each bump. Her eyes stayed forward, focused, even as they burned from exhaustion.

She knew his patterns.

When he felt cornered, he moved. When he had nowhere else to go, he chose the most logical path forward. The one that gave him the highest chance to survive.

Canada.

They had talked about it before everything fell apart. It had been a plan back then. A distant one. Something to hold onto.

Now it was real.

Her jaw tightened.

Aubrey would have been better at this.

The thought came uninvited.

Aubrey had found them once before with almost nothing to go on. She had a way of piecing things together, of staying calm and thinking it through.

Lila’s grip tightened even more.

No.

She was not going to give her that chance.

Not this time.

The car sped up slightly as she pressed her foot down harder on the gas. The road stretched out ahead, empty and quiet, with only the faint outlines of abandoned buildings and broken signs passing by.

Her body was tired. Her arms felt heavy. Her eyes burned every time she blinked.

But she kept going.

She had to.

Her mind would not stop.

Images kept forcing their way in.

Adrian alone.

Adrian bleeding.

Adrian surrounded by people worse than the last group.

Her stomach twisted.

Then another thought pushed in, sharper than the rest.

Adrian thinking she was dead.

Her grip tightened so hard her knuckles turned pale.

She had seen it before.

In him, specifically.

The way he moved on when he thought someone was gone.

To Aubrey, no less.

The way he filled that space with someone else. Something easier. Something safer.

Someone that was not her.

Her lip curled slightly.

She hated that.

She hated the idea of him finding comfort in someone else. Talking to someone else the way he talked to her. Looking at someone else the same way.

It made something dark stir in her chest.

She wasn’t gonna let that happen.

Her voice sounded rough. Dry.

The car hit another bump, jolting her slightly, but she kept it steady.

She was not just racing against distance.

She was racing time.

That was the part that scared her the most.

Being too late.

Finding nothing but blood. Or worse, nothing at all.

Her breathing picked up slightly at that thought, but she forced it back down.

Her eyes stayed locked on the road ahead.

He’s alive.

She repeated it again in her head, like it was something she could force into being true.

He had to be.

Because if he was not…

Her grip tightened again, and the car pushed forward into the dark road ahead.

She did not let herself finish that thought.

She just kept driving.

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