Chapter Four
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C assie hit the brakes and threw the transmission into neutral, turning the wheel hard to the left. The Rover’s tires slid over the sandy asphalt as the big vehicle slung around to face the opposite direction.
Her stomach dropped as the vehicle coming at them from the north braked and cut across both lanes, blocking their escape. Behind them, both other vehicles had spun around too and were closing in from the rear.
She tapped her earpiece. “I’m being boxed in by three vehicles,” she said on comms. There was a small turnoff a few hundred yards to the south. If she could make it there, she might be able to cut past the pursuers and get away. Or, if necessary, hopefully lose them in the dunes.
“Where are you?” Tristan demanded, voice taut.
He and Ryder would be able to pinpoint their location using the tracker on the vehicle.
“Access road just north of the dunes,” she said, cranking the wheel and spinning them back around to race south for the turnoff.
Penny cried out but Cassie ignored her, all her focus on what was happening around her. “I need backup now .”
The vehicles to the south suddenly angled across the road and screeched to a stop, blocking the lanes. Both passenger doors opened and two men wearing balaclavas jumped out holding rifles.
Her heart constricted, her focus divided on the threat ahead and her only escape route. The turnoff was still about fifty yards ahead—
She sucked in a breath when rounds pinged off the hood. Jesus . “We’re taking rifle fire.” What the hell was happening?
“Got your position. We’re coming to you. Can you get away?” Tristan sounded like he was running.
She instinctively ducked as a round hit the windshield and jerked the wheel. The shoulder was too narrow to drive on. Their only chance was getting to that turnoff. “Negative.”
Another round hit the passenger side of the windshield. The vehicle behind her was right on her ass.
She hit the brakes hard. “Two shooters ahead and another pursuer blocking us from behind.” As she said it, the vehicle behind them stopped and another man wearing a balaclava jumped out with a weapon.
They were in deep shit.
Using the vehicle as a weapon to ram them was too risky. Getting any closer might prove deadly. “Make that three shooters.”
“We’re in the vehicle. Ryder’s calling it in now,” Tristan said, voice urgent. “Hang tight.”
Cassie’s heart hammered out of control as more rounds punched into the Rover. She was out of options. Moving in either direction would put them closer to the shooters.
“Get on the floor and lie flat,” she ordered Penny as she drew her weapon. The pistol had a short range, was laughable protection against three men armed with rifles, but it was all she had. “Don’t move.”
She flinched as more rounds punched into the windshield, forming white spiderwebs around the impact sites in the bullet-resistant glass. Penny’s scream of terror raked over her already taut nerve endings.
Every second felt like an hour. Cassie calculated the damage as the seconds ticked past with agonizing slowness.
The specialized glass and armor plating wouldn’t protect them indefinitely against rifle rounds.
Ryder and Tristan had to get here fast, hopefully with help.
“Just stay down.” Her voice sounded calm, but inside she was anything but.
More shots slammed into the rear window. Within seconds she had zero visibility through it. The plating and glass couldn’t take much more. Another minute, and bullets would shred the interior.
Fuck this. She couldn’t just leave them sitting here waiting to die.
She slammed the transmission back into drive, cranked the wheel and hit the accelerator, ready to run the gauntlet and ram through the single vehicle blocking the way north.
“Brace yourself,” she warned and aimed straight for the lone shooter, steeling her body for the impending impact with the back of the SUV.
A barrage of rounds punched into the hood and windshield, obliterating her field of vision.
Swearing under her breath, unable to see a goddamned thing, she jerked the vehicle to a halt, shoving back the cold wave of fear crashing over her.
This was it. They were blind and trapped.
Their only chance was for her to make a stand, try to disable the shooter ahead to even the odds and give them a prayer at escape.
“We’re three miles away,” Tristan said through her earpiece.
“No time,” she answered, holding her weapon with trembling hands. “We’re trapped, and the glass is about to fail. I have to engage.”
“No, don’t—”
Cassie had no choice. “Stay still,” she told Penny, who was crying on the floor in the back.
She flung her door open, used it as a shield as she stepped out and crouched behind it. Three quick rounds punched into it, turning her blood to ice. The instant they stopped she raised her weapon around the edge and returned fire with three rapid shots of her own.
The vehicle rocked suddenly. She whipped her head around just in time to see Penny throw the rear passenger door open. “No!” Cassie shouted. “Stay inside!”
Penny scrambled out anyway and started running for the shoulder.
Cassie quickly laid down what covering fire she could, swearing under her breath.
“What’s happening?” Tristan demanded.
She couldn’t reply, her pulse slamming in her ears, all her focus on trying to hit the shooter in front of her.
He angled the barrel of his weapon and fired. She heard a sharp cry over the sound of the shot. Glanced over in time to see Penny crumple to the ground.
Oh God, no.
“Penny’s down. Get an ambulance out here,” she ordered, struggling to keep her voice even. She fired three more shots at the attacker even though he was right at the end of her range, and hopped back into the vehicle.
She slid across the console into the passenger seat, using the vehicle as cover while she opened the far door.
Penny hadn’t moved.
More rounds hit the rear and front of the vehicle, but the rate of fire was slowing now. She popped out the passenger side during the lull, fired three more shots over the doorframe at the shooter in front of her.
Without warning, the shooting stopped.
Before she could process what was happening, all three shooters disappeared into the vehicles, and they raced away in opposite directions.
Breathing elevated, Cassie stepped out from behind the door and fired at the back of the vehicle in front of her. The SUV’s rear window exploded. The vehicle swerved, but she couldn’t tell if she’d hit anyone inside. It kept driving, putting it well out of range in a split second.
Then up ahead in the distance, she saw why the shooters had fled. Oncoming traffic was heading toward them in the southbound lane.
Battling through the whiplash of fear, she holstered her weapon and ran to Penny. “Shooters retreating,” she said over comms.
“Copy. We’re almost there.”
Too little, too late.
Penny was sprawled on her stomach with her head turned away from Cassie, her body half on the asphalt and half on the narrow, sandy shoulder. Rivulets of blood streamed away from her torso.
“Penny, I’ve got you.” Cassie rolled her onto her side. Bit back a string of curses when she saw the bullet wounds in the middle of Penny’s chest. Goddammit! If she’d just stayed in the vehicle, she would still be okay. “Single round, center mass,” she reported to Tristan.
Penny didn’t respond, brown eyes open but vacant, her breathing shallow and wet as blood bubbled out of the wounds. Her lung was shattered.
“Ambulance is on the way,” Tristan said in the earpiece.
It wasn’t going to get here in time.
Pressing her lips together, Cassie quickly turned Penny onto her back, ripped off her suit jacket, and used it to apply pressure to the wound. Other than trying to staunch the blood loss and lend support, there wasn’t much else she could do.
“Penny, look at me. Help is on the way. Stay with me.” Shit, her voice was shaking as much as her hands, her whole body vibrating under the rapidly draining tide of adrenaline.
Penny’s face was already ashen, her lips turning blue. Bright red blood frothed out of her nose and mouth.
Cassie put two fingers to Penny’s carotid pulse. Nothing.
“No pulse. Starting CPR.” She stacked her hands over Penny’s sternum and began hard, rapid compressions.
Penny was dying. She knew there was no way to stop it, and that an ambulance would never get here in time to save her. But Cassie couldn’t stop. Was determined to do every single thing in her power to try and stave off the inevitable. Refused to give up now.
Penny had been her responsibility. This was her fault.
“Come on, come on,” she chanted, arms and back already burning from the pace of the compressions. Her hands were slick with blood, the smell of it thick in the air.
She glanced up as the two vehicles she’d seen coming from the north pulled over to the side of the road. The drivers rolled down their windows, staring at her and Penny in horror. “I’ve called an ambulance,” one of them said.
“I’ve got a first aid kit,” the other called out, scrambling out to grab it from her trunk.
The woman ran it over, bent down to open it beside Cassie, and then backed off, hand to her mouth. Cassie didn’t respond, teeth clenched as she focused completely on the compressions. Sweat beaded on her face, dripped down her sides. Where the hell were Tristan and Ryder?
Her arms and back were screaming when she finally heard a familiar engine racing toward her. She hitched in a breath and looked up, swallowed a sob when the CPS vehicle came into view at last.
It screeched to a stop close to hers and the front doors flew open. Ryder and Tristan both jumped out, running to them.
But the sight of Tristan racing toward her made her eyes blur with tears.