Chapter 11 #2
“You can ask reasonable questions in a reasonable world,” he said. “Ours isn’t. I bet those motherfuckers are armored. I bet they’re counting on me being all fucked up, and you being a clueless bimbo who won’t run and hide. Easy pickings.”
I just stared at him, not taking the bait.
He made an impatient sound. “You stay put right there, and watch the road,” he said. “As soon as they pass that bent-over tree next to the big bare rock tower, with the monolith bit up on top? Give me a signal. Can you do that for me?”
I nodded. Shane moved, swiftly and soundlessly on his bare feet over the rocky mountainside. He got into the van, his eyes fixed on me, waiting for my signal.
I peered through the branches, my heart in my mouth, watching those vehicles, their occupants hidden behind the dark tinted glass as they crawled up the steep hill, getting closer and closer. They passed the bent-over tree. I gave Shane a thumbs-up.
He jumped out, ran around to the front of the van, and pushed it hard downhill, stumbling down to his hands and knees as it took off, rolling backward faster and faster.
It exploded out of the canopy of branches with a loud crunching and snapping sound.
The SUVs braked. The doors of the vehicles flew open as the van hurtled down the bumpy road toward them, but they didn’t react fast enough, and crash, the van plowed into the front SUV, crumpling it and crushing the men trying to get out.
The huge HE ice sculpture inside flew out of the back, soaring as if from a catapult, tumbling, turning…
Crunch, it landed on the second SUV, caving in the driver’s side.
Holy shit. I stared down at the carnage, mouth agape. I felt a hand on my shoulder, and almost yelped. I turned to find Shane with his finger on my lips, his eyes intense. He was shaking his head. He held up four fingers. Pointed down.
Four of those guys, still on the loose out there.
He gestured at a grove of sapling fir trees that was the closest cover we could see, his eyes fierce. Then he melted into the trees, to do God knows what. The guy was half naked, barefoot, alone, and he was already kicking their asses. Wow.
I crept through the pine boughs, getting cobwebs, pine needles and pitch in my mouth, trying to see what Shane was doing down there, but he was a ghost. At one point, I saw some small trees shaking violently, and then an angry shout.
Not Shane’s voice. Shortly after, I heard gunfire… then three shots of return fire.
Shit. Now what? I couldn’t run away now. Shots had been fired. What if Shane was lying down there, shot? Bleeding out?
There were two levels to my thinking. One was just thinking Reggie, Reggie, Reggie. I could not face these people and say, ‘so sorry, but I couldn’t keep him alive long enough to make the trade for my sister.’ That would go over like a lead balloon.
Chances were, these people weren’t monsters. Shane wasn’t. Only sociopathic freaks like Halliwell would hurt a little girl for revenge, or for fun. But still.
The other part of me was just screaming Shane’s name. Come out, damn it. Show me you’re okay. Please. I’m dying up here.
I sneaked down the hill, keeping myself low, mostly crawling on my belly or sliding on my ass, depending on the incline.
I slithered down low, between the biggest rocks or tufts I could find for cover.
Finally, I heard sounds of combat, feet hitting flesh, grunts, pants, thuds.
I was close to the vehicles now. The closest one, the one wrapped around the ice sculpture van, was a blood drenched, gory mess, and I looked away quickly.
No one had escaped that impact. I kept going, finding big chunks of broken ice scattered here and there.
An almost complete H, missing half of one of its legs.
I crab-walked around a big rock, and found myself alongside a sprawled man in forest camo with a cheap kitchen knife sticking out of his eye.
His remaining brown eye looked blank and surprised.
I hurried away, and crawled alongside the second vehicle. I spotted the Glock 19 lying on the grass, and was just starting to go for it when a man flew past my face and hit the ground, with a sharp, huffing grunt.
I felt a hot liquid against my face. Blood spatter. The guy was blinking at me, as blood sprayed out from his neck. His throat had been slashed.
I peered around the car. Shane was fighting with another guy, ducking back, evading a booted foot that whooshed past his nose, dancing to evade a knee to the balls, but with every move the guy drove him back, toward the steep, rocky slope behind him.
Shane danced back to avoid a face kick, but leaned too far, sliding and scrambling down the hill as he tried to find purchase.
The guy dove for the Glock, and scooped it up with a bark of laughter. “I’ll shoot you in the face with your own fucking gun, you piece of shit!” he howled.
His gun arm rose, and I darted out from behind the SUV and swung hard with the rolling pin. It hit the back of the man’s head. Crack.
He made a surprised sound, wobbled… and fell forward.
I stood there, swaying on my feet. The wind whipped my tangled, blood-spattered hair into my mouth. I tasted salty blood. Couldn’t even remember whose.
“Sh-sh-shane? Are you there? Are you shot? Are you okay?” My voice sounded small and insignificant. Like the wind was whipping it away from my mouth.
Shane’s face appeared as he clambered up over the rocks below, scratched and bloodied, but alive. He stopped when he saw me, and analyzed the scene in one sharp glance. He nodded in approval. “I’m good,” he said. “Thanks to you.”
“Me? Hah! You just took out nine commandos, barefoot, with one handgun!”
“Eight. And they were hesitating to shoot me. That’s the only reason I’m still on my feet. Their orders must have been to take us alive. Me having a gun surprised the living shit out of them. That last guy probably just lost his temper. But you were the game-changer, Red. You saved my ass.”
“You are so full of shit,” I quavered. “You crazy bastard. My name is Cass.”
“Let’s argue about that later.” He crouched beside the guy I had bashed with the rolling pin.
None of these guys were in my hell-sibling group, and I was very grateful for that.
The hell-siblings may have been hostile and petty and contorted, but I had felt sorry for every last one of them.
I did not want to see them meet an ugly death.
“This one’s still alive,” Shane said. “And two of the others are still breathing. They won’t be chasing us, but it looks like Halliwell knows exactly where we are. Which means we should get the hell out of here right now.”
“Fine by me,” I said, and then I noticed the blood on the rocks where his feet had stepped. “My God, Shane! Your feet! They’re all torn up! We have to—”
“Later. Let’s get the Jeep keys and your phone, and scram.”
He set the pace himself, messed up feet and all. We hurried up the hill, past the wrecked vehicles. I saw a body twitching. Still alive, but he wasn’t getting any first aid from me. “Can’t you get a pair of boots from one of them?” I asked. “Or another gun?”
“I’m tempted,” he said. “But I’m too worried about GPS traces, and he already tracked us once. Probably the van. Halliwell is a devious bastard. It’s his defining characteristic. Better not to give him any openings.”
“I wish I hadn’t,” I admitted. “But he creates his own openings. Like when he made my little sister sick on purpose to manipulate me.”
“Well, she’s safe now,” Shane said.
I didn’t reply. Partly because I couldn’t breathe, partly because I knew that she wasn’t safe at all.
I didn’t know how Halliwell had made Reggie sick, or know how to fix it.
Maybe the Masters team had snatched her before Halliwell could make an example of her, but if she got sick again now, I was right back to square one.
I would have my sister, but no cure. Which amounted to a handful of dust and ashes.
Later for that. I ran inside for the go bag.
My alt identity was fried now that Halliwell had found this place.
So much for the very expensive Layla Stearns and all her credit and gear and well-establish background.
But the phone, the protein bars, the clean underwear and the cash, those might come in handy.
I yanked the tarp off the Jeep, and we got in.
It smelled damp and stale in there, and I was pretty sure I heard the skittering of tiny frightened feet.
Some rodent or other had nested in there.
I just hoped to God that they hadn’t chewed through any cables or belts, or gobbled up brake fluid, or whatever hungry forest rodents liked to gnaw.
I got the thing in gear, and the engine gave me a reassuring roar. I tossed my bag onto his lap. “Phone’s in there. You do communications.”
“You have a route planned out?”
“Yes. There’s a sort of a road up to the top of the bluff, and then a track that leads all the way across the plateau,” I said. “We’ll just get up to the top and drive right across Burnt Prairie until we hit the road for Dalton Mills. It’s rough, but doable.”
“Prairie? Sounds flat.”
I tried to retrieve the images from the satellite photos that were in my head. “Yeah, more or less,” I said. “It gets flatter a few miles northeast.”
He made a phone call to his brother, and I concentrated on keeping the Jeep moving.
It wallowed and jounced in the long grass, banging and scraping over rocks.
I couldn’t concentrate on what he was saying, but his tone was brusque and practical as he recounted what happened in a few terse words, and shared where we were heading.