Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 73947 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 370(@200wpm)___ 296(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73947 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 370(@200wpm)___ 296(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
I turn and run, part of my brain realizing that while two men are coming for me, the other two aren’t panicking or scattering. They’re continuing their work.
Branches scratch my arms and catch at my braid, and loose needles slide under my boots as I flee. I cut across the most obvious descent, then I climb until my lungs burn, and keep climbing.
There’s a service road below, and if the men know the terrain, that’s where they’ll expect me to have gone.
A flashlight beam cuts through the trees behind me. Then closer. Too close. I drop behind a deadfall, crawl over slick bark, and land hard on the other side. Pain bursts through my right knee, but I keep moving.
One of the men’s voices carries to me, and I go faster.
I find the narrow notch between two boulders by feel more than sight and squeeze through sideways, scraping my shoulder hard enough to make my eyes water. The sound behind me changes as the men spread farther apart.
Below me, the flashlight sweeps low across the route I didn’t take. Then a second beam angles higher. They’re not following in a straight line anymore. They’re trying to bracket me. One below, one off to my left, both pushing me toward open rock where I’d be easier to see.
I keep climbing, and a loose stone skitters under my boot and drops through the darkness. A beam of white light snaps toward the sound, slicing across the boulder below my knee.
I go flat against the slope and hold my breath.
The light holds for a second. Then another.
Then it moves on.
I keep climbing as my pulse pounds so hard in my ears I have to concentrate to hear the terrain under my feet.
The trees begin to thin, and moonlight shines brighter over granite. I scramble over the first shelf and drop behind the boulder Cade had marked as a shielded spot when we planned for this. I hadn’t expected to need the escape.
With shaking fingers, I key the radio Rhett gave me. “I’m compromised.”
His response comes immediately. “Location.”
“Rock outcrop above the secondary extraction route. Two men coming upslope. Two others down at the bend. There’s another cache site, and the men aren’t poachers, Rhett.”
“Stay concealed. Cade’s moving toward you. Boone and I are on our way.”
CHAPTER 11
WREN
A low voice comes out of the darkness less than a minute later. “It’s me.”
A shadow moves between the rocks to my right, then Cade emerges with a rifle held low and safe, his face shadowed beneath his cap. I sag an inch, and hate that I do.
Everything about him looks controlled except for his eyes, which are feral. “Are you hurt?”
“No.” My knee throbs in disagreement.
“I was too far back.”
I stare back at him, not sure how to respond to a man apologizing for giving me too much space.
Meanwhile, a flashlight beam cuts across the slope below.
“They split,” I whisper. “Two kept moving with the packs.”
“I know.”
“Whatever they’re carrying matters more than finding me.”
He puts his body between me and the lower slope. “We need to stay put. They’re not close enough to rush this position, but they’re too close to move you yet.”
We stay low in the rocks while the two men search below us. Five minutes pass, then ten. Despite my fear, I’m almost as aware of the nearness of Cade’s body as I am of the danger below us.
A sound rises from farther down the slope, and another sound answers from the west.
“They’re pulling back,” I whisper.
“Maybe.”
We keep still and wait until eventually the beams move into the distance and disappear completely. Even after that, we don’t move.
Rhett and Boone arrive without making a sound. One minute they’re not there, then they are.
Boone reaches me first, and his face changes as he scans my body. There’s a flash in his eyes that makes me wonder if he’s really as harmless as he’s led me to believe. “Wren.”
“I’m okay.”
Rhett crouches beside us, his fury so cold and contained, I swear I feel the temperature around us change.
“You’re angry,” I say.
“I’m a long way past angry.”
“At me?”
His eyes meet mine. “No. At the fact that those men were out here.”
Once they confirm I’m okay, Rhett and Boone trade information with Cade in fragments, like brothers who learned to communicate with each other before they learned anything else.
Rhett leads us along a route that avoids obvious paths, Cade stays close enough that I feel him as much as I see him, and Boone follows behind, as quiet as anything that hunts.
As soon as we’re safe inside their cabin and I set down my gear, my hands start to shake.
Boone pulls out a chair for me at the table, then brings over a mug of coffee and a glass of water. “Drink the water first.”
“I know how hydration works.”