The pain in my left leg threatened to consume me, but I was going on pure adrenaline.

I was in bad shape. When Wade saw me on his phone, he lost it. My left arm now hangs loosely by my side due to him once again dislocating my shoulder. My already broken ankle had been further smashed when he took the frying pan I had hit him with to my leg, smacking me in my knee until I was bloodied. Pretty sure I was also dealing with broken ribs and I couldn't stop the blood from the open gash on my stomach. I could no longer see out of my left eye, my nose was definitely broken.

But was it worth it? Hell yes. Even if I don't survive the next hour.

I managed to get my licks in, too. As he was carrying me out of the cabin over his shoulder, I slipped out, kneeing him in the nose and breaking it. I have his skin underneath my fingernails from scratching his face. I'm hoping I managed to at least hurt one of his ribs before limping off.

Was that worth it? Knowing that if he gets his hands on me again, it will mean my death? Yes.

I could barely use my left leg, but I couldn't let that stop me.

I tried to keep my body low in the tall grass, doing everything I could to stay behind the trees. In the distance I could hear a low whistle accompany an occasional cough or high pitched wheeze.

Yep, I hurt his ribs too.

"Alexis." Wade called out. "Show yourself now, and spare yourself from further humiliation."

Humiliation? You mean, like hiding naked in the woods while a mad man searches for me? I don't know how much worse it could get, but I didn't want to find out.

"Lexi!" I heard an impossibly familiar voice cry out.

Phil! The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. But if I called out to him, Wade would hear me.

"Lexi, I'm here!" Phil called out to me.

It wasn't a electronic recording or my imagination. He was really here.

"Lexi!" Another voice from a different area called.

Ambrose?

"Come out from hiding, Alexis." Wade's voice sounded much closer than the other two men.

All three went silent, but I could still hear movement around me. My heart thudded in my chest, trying to come up with a game plan. Wade was definitely closer to me and I couldn't risk giving away my position.

If only I could climb up a tree to see where Dean and Phil was, but there was no way that was happening. I couldn't keep moving, not in my condition. I sank down to the cold grass, leaning up against a tree. It was becoming harder to breathe, my heart pumping hard, making more blood drip out of the gash. If I was still, it was fine, but if I breathed in, it hurt. Soon, I would be lost either due to lack of blood or the pain rendering me unconscious.

Out of the corner of my good eye, I saw a large deer. I threw a rock to make the deer run. I had hoped I would be lucky enough for the deer to cause enough of a distraction that Wade would think it was me.

My luck had just ran out.

"Alexis." Wade calmly said, clicking his tongue at me. He gripped me by the shoulders, forcing me to my feet. I cried out from the pain, struggling to stand up properly.

Everything next happened so fast. I heard Dean and Phil call out to me, telling me to hold on. Wade stood behind me, his arm wrapped tightly around my throat, starting to cut off oxygen.

"It really didn't have to be this way." Wade said low in my ear. I felt the tip of his knife rest under my rib cage.

"Let her go." I heard Phil order.

"One more step and I'll break her neck." Wade told him.

"She doesn't have to die."

"Doesn't she?"

Wade had been so focused on me and Phil that he didn't hear Dean come up behind him. Dean hit him hard across the back of his head with a heavy tree branch, sending us both flying. Unfortunately the knife was also plunged into my side. Dean pulled Wade off of me and I lost track of them. Phil cradled me in his arms, cupping his hand under my chin.

"Lexi." Phil softly said.

"You...you came." I managed to get out.

"Of course I came. You need to hold on."

With extreme care, the knife was removed from my flesh. He wrapped his hoodie around me, putting pressure on my fresh wound.

"Lexi, don't leave me." He implored me. "Stay awake, you hear me?"

Yes, I heard. But I couldn't say anything. I wanted to reassure him that I was going to be fine now that he was here.

But I couldn't. All I could do was look into his chocolate eyes. It became a struggle to breathe and my eyelids became heavier and heavier.

"Lexi! No, no you can't. Hold on." Phil sobbed, gripping my body tighter.

What I wouldn't give to tell him in that moment that I'd been in love with him for a long time.

That was the last thought in my mind as I slipped from this world and into the next.