Chapter Nine
Lexa heard the strange whirring sound a split-second before something dropped onto the ground just ahead of Aiden and her.
“A grenade,” Aiden spat out, already pulling her away it.
Good thing, too, because it exploded, the blast thundering through the air and knocking them backward. If Aiden hadn’t had hold of her, she would have almost certainly fallen hard on her ass. As it was, they staggered, thankfully regaining their footing.
And they ran.
Not a second too soon either. Because another grenade landed in the yard right next to the house. Obviously, someone was using a launcher, and Lexa couldn’t tell if it had come from the direction of where they’d seen Chloe. It was possible the woman had moved.
Or someone else was trying to blow them to bits.
Aiden and she reached the side of the front porch, and they ducked down behind some thick shrubs. Definitely not bulletproof, but it was better than being out in the open.
Lexa glanced around, trying to figure out their options. Such that they were. They were a good twenty feet from the cruiser, and if they tried to get to it so they could escape, they’d be out in the open for way too many steps. Easy targets. But they could be equally easy to get at here, too, if the launcher sent another grenade their way.
She glanced up at the porch. It was elevated about three feet off the ground. Great. That was thirty-six inches or so of levering themselves up while, again, they’d fall in that easy target zone. Still, she knew that was their best shot, and Aiden obviously agreed with her.
“We need to get inside the house,” Aiden muttered, using his phone to access his security system and no doubt open the door. “Text Owen and let him know what’s going on.”
God. She hadn’t even thought of that, but if Owen and Shaw—and yes, even Hudson—arrived now, they could be driving straight into a blast. The cruiser might not withstand a direct hit from a grenade, and Hudson’s vehicle certainly wouldn’t either.
Lexa hated that her hands were trembling when she typed out the text, but she managed to send the warning to Owen when there was another sound. Not an explosion this time.
But gunfire.
And lots of it.
Just like at the manor, the bullets started popping off. Dozens of them. All at once, seemingly coming at them from every direction. It took Lexa a moment to realize that there was no seemingly to it.
The bullets were indeed coming from all four sides at them.
Chloe or someone else must have set multiple fires to cook-off the ammo, and they hadn’t used a couple of boxes this time. No. There were hundreds of shots going off at once.
“How the hell did someone get this close to my place to set up this shit?” Aiden snarled. And judging from his tone, he’d be finding out the answer to that as soon as he could.
Lexa was betting the culprit had stayed just far enough away from Aiden’s security system to arrange for this attack, and then…what? Had Chloe or her lookalike shown herself to lure them here?
Maybe.
But there could be something else entirely going on. Now though, wasn’t the time to think about that before Aiden shifted, ready to move.
“Go fast,” he told her. “I’ll be right behind you.”
She didn’t respond. Lexa simply got moving. And she went damn fast. She caught onto the side of the porch, levering herself up and scrambling to get out of Aiden’s way so he could do the same.
The bullets just kept coming, and hell in a handbasket, it was loud. So loud that it seemed to rattle her bones. The noise was certainly rattling her nerves, along with giving her the motherlode of a really shitty flashback.
Not now. Not now. Not now .
The mantra worked, some, but so did her sheer will just to get to the front door. After all, because he was behind her, he wouldn’t be getting to safety until she was inside.
It felt like an eternity for her to scuttle across that porch, and the gunfire wasn’t making it easy. A bullet smacked into the wall just above her head. Another hit the porch inches from her. But what wasn’t happening was another explosion, and she held her breath that they’d get in before there was another one.
The moment she reached the door, Lexa threw it open and dived in. Aiden was only a heartbeat behind her, and he kicked the door shut. “Geralt,” he called out. “Secure the house. Full measures.”
“Done,” the automated voice replied.
Immediately, locks began to snick and what appeared to be metal shutters lowered over the windows. Outside, a siren went off. A pulsing wail with a threat and urgency to it. It drowned some of the shots and was probably designed to get an attacker running.
“Geralt,” she repeated, mouthing the words since he might not be able to hear her speak. “You named your security app after The Witcher .”
He nodded. Considering the nightmare that was going on around them, it surprised her that she was amused by that. It seemed to surprise Aiden, too, that she had recognized the character’s name.
“Stay low,” he instructed, “just in case there’s another grenade blast.”
She certainly hadn’t forgotten about that possibility, but she followed him, crawling away from the door and into a large open-plan living, dining, and kitchen area. He led her to a stone fireplace which was likely the safest place if there was indeed another explosion.
“Geralt, put feed from all security cams on monitor one,” Aiden called out.
The landscape painting on the wall opposite them dissolved into a split-screen view of eight different cameras. Lexa tried to pick through them all, frantically looking for whoever was doing this. But she couldn’t see a person. Only those blasted bullets ripping through whatever they hit. The trees, the shrubs. Even chunks of the limestone on the exterior of the house.
“Geralt, zoom in on cam six,” Aiden ordered.
It was the area by the trees where they’d first spotted Chloe. But Lexa couldn’t see her there now. However, she could see the small fire that was no doubt fueling some of this gunfire.
Her phone rang, somehow managing to cut through the godawful noise, and she saw Owen’s name on the screen. She showed the screen to Aiden who immediately issued a command.
“Geralt, lower volume on sirens.”
The sirens throttled down just enough for her to have this much needed conversation. “We’re at the end of the road to Aiden’s,” Owen said the moment he was on the line. “Status.”
Lexa bit back the first word that came to mind. Shitstorm . But that’s what this was. Still, Owen would need specifics.
“Someone fired two grenades at Aiden and me,” she spelled out. “And bullets, probably cooked-off, are flying every damn where.” As she said that, some struck against the metal shutters. “We lost sight of Chloe, but she ran into the woods where there’s one of the cook-off fires.”
“Are you two hurt?” Owen asked.
Lexa looked at Aiden. And cursed. Because there was blood oozing out from beneath his arm bandage. He’d likely popped a stitch or two. Cursing some more, she reached in her pocket for a tissue. Of course, she didn’t have one so she used her sleeve to swipe away the blood.
“We’re not injured,” Aiden replied.
Lexa huffed, and continued clearing away the blood, but she didn’t dispute what Aiden had just said. She would have done the same thing had Aiden’s and her situations been reversed.
“My advice is for you to stay put until the bullets have cooked-off and I’ve tried to locate whoever launched those grenades,” Aiden added to Owen. “I’m viewing camera feed now.”
“Good,” Owen said after a couple of moments of hesitation. Was he doubting that whole we’re not injured stuff? Probably. “Keep me posted. Hudson’s here, and I need to stop him,” he added, ending the call.
Lexa hoped Owen could manage to do that. And she had no doubts that her boss would also check to see if Hudson had been the grenade launcher. After all, they only had Hudson’s word for it that he’d been in town when he’d seen Aiden and her speeding out in the cruiser. Chloe’s brother could have been here lying in wait the entire time.
“Geralt, continue zooming in on cam six,” Aiden instructed.
The app wasted no time doing that, and the resolution of the feed was good, considering how far from the house this was. But the zoom showed more of the fire. More of those bullets being fired.
And maybe something else.
Lexa wanted to get up and go closer to the screen, and judging from the way Aiden leaned forward, he wanted to do the same. But his attention was focused where hers was.
Just beyond the fire.
In the shadows created by the thick canopy of trees, there was…something.
“Maybe a fallen limb or some shrubs,” Aiden muttered.
Yes, that could be it. But it could also be a person. Someone crouched down. Someone watching the place.
Outside, the bullets finally began to slow, and it occurred to her that the person in the shadows could be waiting for the shots to die down before firing another grenade at them. Lexa wasn’t sure she wanted to know if the house would withstand a direct hit like that.
“Geralt, launch the drone,” Aiden said. “Send it to area six, just behind the fire. Engage the lights on the object in area of the three o’clock feed.”
Lexa was sure she goggled at him. “What does that mean?” she had to ask.
“Watch,” he said, keeping his own attention pinned to the monitor.
Moments later, she saw the drone, and she guessed it’d been launched from somewhere on the roof. It went straight to area where they’d seen that possible figure. And, yeah, lights lasered out of the drone, quick pulses that zinged through the air, landing in the area just beyond the fire.
“The lights aren’t lethal,” Aiden said. “Not death rays or anything like that. But they can distract and alarm someone into moving.”
They watched. But the object didn’t move.
“Geralt, engage the camera on the drone,” Aiden instructed. “I want a close look of the target.”
The drone adjusted. So did the monitor, and the drone feed soon appeared there. It wasn’t as clear as the camera footage had been, but there was still enough resolution. The drone moved slower now, scanning over the object.
Which wasn’t an object at all.
Lexa saw the body. And then a face.
Hell.
It was Chloe.