Chapter 21
Chapter twenty-one
Taking care not to make noise, or move too quickly, Hallie slid back from her watching position until she was out of sight of the house.
She found the shelter of another tree and slowly got to her feet, wincing as various muscles protested.
The beam of the floodlights didn’t reach this far into the forest, and her dark clothing blended with the shadows under the trees.
Standing up had made her light-headed. She was running on too little sleep and too little food.
Her hand went to the pocket which held one last protein bar.
She hesitated and then drew it out. If she could get into Jonah’s base, she was sure she’d find more food there.
The men he had working for him had to eat.
Only when she was satisfied that she wasn’t going to fall over her own feet did she move, slowly and carefully.
She didn’t want to go all the way down the hill, not yet anyway, but she did want to go far enough down that she would be out of sight and earshot of any of the patrols while she decided what to do next.
With her body heavy and sore and tired, she wasn’t going to make it anywhere fast or far under her own power.
She needed to find a less dangerous spot to pause and work out if there was anything else she could do here, or if she should move farther away from the house and armed men to wait for Girard.
The protein bar helped clear her head, enough for her to realise that trying to get onto the space around the house and buildings was foolish, even to get more information.
She had quite a lot to tell Girard when she next saw him.
Jonah had access to a boat somewhere and at least twenty armed men, as well as apparently having Findo Trask as a house guest.
Lined up in her mind it didn’t feel like enough.
She hadn’t got close enough to tell anything about the types of weapons the men carried, or what might be stored in the garage along with the ATVs.
Perhaps she could try heading to the outbuildings to have another look at the motion sensors and see if there was a way around them.
She might be able to evade the sensors if she moved slowly enough, or stayed close to the ground.
Briefly she found herself wishing for a few of the warrimel to appear.
A crowd of them running across the open space around the buildings would keep Jonah’s men occupied and distracted long enough for her to steal an ATV and make a getaway - out of reach of Jonah and Findo.
Thinking about distractions, she considered the building where the ATVs were housed.
She thought she’d seen the men come out of there and go back into the house.
There might be something in there she could set fire to.
That would also keep the thugs occupied while she looked around, got herself some food and an ATV and a better idea about what Jonah was up to.
A small, dark smile lifted her mouth. She would never have even considered destroying property in low city, or at either New Hope or Reunion.
But she’d formed a very strong dislike of Jonah and his band of thugs.
Causing trouble for them would not trouble her.
With her head full of plans and schemes, Hallie managed to ignore the heaviness and stiffness in her body until she was behind the outbuildings.
Crouched in the thick of one of the evergreen shrubs, the prickles on its leaves scraping her skin, she assessed the route up the remainder of the hill.
She was going to run out of cover long before she was in the shadow of the outbuildings.
And as soon as she left the trees and shrubs, the motion sensors would catch her.
She didn’t know enough about electronics to have any idea how to disable the devices.
But she might be able to break them. If she could find something to throw.
The ground underfoot was mostly open soil, but there were a few stones here and there.
With her new plan in mind, Hallie searched the ground around her, coming up with a few stones, a couple of them with surprising weight to them. She stuffed them into her pockets and was about to shift position to search elsewhere when the zauber at her hip flared a warning.
She went perfectly still, straining her senses. Between one heartbeat and the next she realised she was no longer alone. The zauber’s warning had come too late.
“My, my, Hallie Talbot. I could feel that someone was watching earlier. I didn’t imagine I would be so lucky to find you.”
Biting back a curse, Hallie straightened to her feet and turned to face Findo Trask.
The shadows under the trees blended with his bronze skin, so for a moment he appeared to just be a dark outline with pinpricks of vivid red light in his eyes.
Then he tilted his head and she caught sight of the bright red streaks in his black, tightly curled hair.
“Here to cause me trouble again?” he asked.
“I had no idea you were here. Causing you trouble is just a bonus,” Hallie told him candidly.
She slipped a hand into her pocket, making the move as casual as possible, despite her heart thudding against her ribs.
Findo was dangerous at the best of times.
She’d been the one to catch him before - twice - and the last time he’d been taken into Conclave custody, which she imagined hadn’t been a pleasant experience. He was probably furious with her.
“And where is your sidekick?” he asked. Oh, yes, he was definitely angry. That silky-smooth voice didn’t hide any of the rage.
“I have no idea,” Hallie said with perfect honesty. “I mean, I assume he’s still somewhere on the island, but I don’t know beyond that.”
“He left you out here all on your own? That’s not very gentleman-like of him.”
“I can take care of myself,” Hallie said.
The small, heavy stone was rough against her palm.
She didn’t even think about reaching for the gun at her hip.
Findo was too fast, and he’d be watching the obvious weapon.
But he might not be expecting something as crude as a stone thrown at his head.
She shifted her weight a fraction, as if she was thinking about going for her gun, and saw his immediate reaction.
While his focus was on the weapon, she flung the stone at him.
Her aim was better than she’d hoped. The stone hit him in the face with a satisfying crunching sound and he howled, partly in surprise but also in pain.
Hallie was already moving. From her previous encounters with him, including chasing him through low city, she knew she couldn’t outrun him over a long distance. But she needed to put some space between them. As she ran, she fumbled for the gun and freed it from the holster.
Something thumped into her back and sent her flying, face-first, to the ground.
She managed to keep her grip on the gun, but only just, and cried out when hard, bronze-tinted fingers wrapped around her wrist, squeezing tight.
She managed to twist, get a bit of room, sending her other elbow back, connecting with Findo’s midsection even as she got one of her feet under her.
The strike was hard enough that he grunted and loosened his grip on her wrist. She pushed up and sideways, out from under the veondken’s weight, and scrambled to her knees, aiming the weapon at him, holding it with both hands.
He was barely an arm’s length from her, and at this distance she knew she would not miss.
To her surprise, he grinned, white teeth brilliant in the shadows. “Going to shoot me, Hallie Talbot?”
“Thinking about it,” Hallie told him. Her voice was too high, breathing too fast. Even with the advantage of the gun, she didn’t feel safe. Not in the least. She’d seen what this man was capable of.
He was still grinning. Too confident. Too sure of himself.
Before Hallie had a chance to think about why that might be, a dark shadow appeared from behind a tree next to her, a long, slender object in one hand that swung and connected with her head. The last thing she saw before she lost consciousness was Findo’s grinning face.