Silent Scream by Maria Rachel Hooley, Stephen Moeller

up the receiver.  “Dispatch this is Sam Martin from Owens PD.  I’m just down the road and can assist.”
    “10-4.”
    Sam replaced the receiver and gunned the engine as he flipped the siren on.  As he zoomed down the road, funnels of dust flew behind them.  Just ahead, Gabriel saw a woman running, and he inhaled sharply as he noticed one of her arms drawn into a sling.  Maddie.
    “There she is.  I’ll get her.  You go to the house,” Gabriel said, prying open the door. Sam stomped on the brakes long enough for his brother to jump out and then sped past toward the house.
    Gabriel rushed toward her.  “Maddie?  Are you all right?”
    She kept running as though she’d never heard him.  He closed the gap between them, but as he reached out and started to grab her shoulder, her knees buckled and she crumpled to the ground.
    “Jesus,” Gabriel said, kneeling over her, his face close to hers.  He held his breath, waiting to feel hers cross his cheek.  He did.  “Maddie,” he said, lightly tapping her cheek.  “It’s me, Gabriel.”  Her eyelids fluttered but did not open.  “Maddie?”  He tapped harder.
    Nothing. 
    “Damn.”  He peered at the way her shoulders appeared uneven resting on the gravel road.  “You’re going to have one hell of a backache when you wake up.”  Slipping one arm beneath her back and the other beneath the bend in her legs, he hoisted her into his arms, and wondered where to go.  Two seconds, later that was the least of his worries as a hellcat replaced the woman he’d picked up.  She tried to arch her back and flail her legs outward.  “Let me go!” she screamed.
    “Damn it, Maddie, be still,” he snapped, cinching his hold on her.  “I’ll be more than happy to put you down, but I don’t think you want me to drop you, right?”
    “I know you,” she whispered, frowning.  “Gabriel, right?”
    “Last time I checked.”  He lowered her to the ground, but the minute her right foot touched the gravel, she started to fall.
    She clutched at his arm.  “I think I twisted my ankle.”  She gazed back toward the house.  “There’s a man in my home.  The one who....”  Her voice died as she studied the gravel chunks on the road.
    “I know.  You can keep leaning on me if you need to.”  He tried not to look at her, tried not to see the fear in her eyes because he knew the last thing she wanted was for him to see it.
    “How...how did you know?”  Her grip tightened on his shoulder as she leaned against him to walk.
    “My brother is a cop from Owens.  We were in the neighborhood when the call for assistance came in.”  He gazed toward the house and thought of his sister.  God, he missed her.  He would always miss her.  “If the perp is still there, he’s getting a bit more than he bargained for, trust me.”
    “What if he’s fled?  What if he’s watching us?”  She stopped walking and gazed about, scrutinizing the tall weeds on either side of the road.
    “He’s not getting to you, if that’s what you’re thinking,” he said, following her gaze to the weeds surround the road. 
    Maddie felt the muscles in his shoulder tense.  “What do we do now?” she asked, looking at him instead of the road where a pothole almost made her stumble.  As she stepped into it with her right foot, she gasped, pitching into Gabriel.
    “We go back to the house.”  He stopped walking, turned to her, and lifted her into his arms, carefully avoiding her broken arm. 
    “What are you doing?” she started to thrash against him.  “I can walk.”
    “I’m saving your ankle, something you’ll thank me for when it’s swelled only three sizes bigger than the normal four.”  He quickened his pace toward the house, and in the distance, he could hear a siren screaming toward them.  More back-up.  Had they caught the SOB who had done this?  “Sounds like the cavalry is on the way.”
    “What do you think is happening?”
    He could hear fear