Chapter 20
Sera
Fifty-three miles. Maude fed me the route through the SUV’s speakers. I drove too fast on the empty Montana highway with the inhaler and gun on the passenger seat and his biometrics still feeding through Maude’s system. Heart rate was lower now but still elevated. Respiration irregular.
He was alive. That was the only number I cared about.
“His GPS position has been stationary for eleven minutes,” Maude said.
That wasn’t good. I pressed the accelerator harder.
The highway crested a rise, and the site opened up below me.
A gravel turnoff near a cluster of outbuildings, the kind of nowhere structures that dotted the rural corridors between small Montana towns.
A metal-sided equipment shed. A smaller structure that might have been a pump house.
Gravel lot, no fencing, no signage. The kind of place that existed to be forgotten about, which was probably why Kindt’s people had chosen it.
I pulled over at the top of the rise and looked down. Maybe a quarter mile of slope between me and the lot. From up here I could see the whole scene laid out like a diagram.
Travis’s vehicle was pulled off the road at a bad angle, driver’s door hanging open.
Travis was on the far side of it. On his feet, but barely.
One arm braced against the hood, the other pressed against his left side.
He was holding his position but he wasn’t moving, and even from this distance I could tell the reason—if he took his weight off that hood he was going down.
Shit. Shitshitshitshit.
Two men were on the ground near the front of the vehicle, neither moving. But two more were still active. One was circling wide to Travis’s left, trying to get an angle around the vehicle. The other was using the equipment shed for cover, working his way closer from the right.
Travis couldn’t cover both directions. Not braced against that hood with one hand pressed to his side. He was watching the one on the left, which meant the one on the right was going to get there first.
I grabbed my inhaler and took a puff and I made myself think.
I couldn’t outshoot anyone. I couldn’t outfight anyone. Driving straight down there with a gun I’d never fired was going to get both me and Travis killed.
But I could do something else.
Nobody down there was expecting a lost woman on a back road, pulling into a gravel lot to ask for directions.
Loud, frantic, impossible to ignore. That would freeze everyone for a few seconds while they tried to figure out what they were looking at.
And if I came in from the near side of the equipment shed, I’d cut off the man using it for cover and put myself between him and Travis.
A few seconds of confusion. That was the only advantage I was ever going to have. I prayed it would be enough.
I swung the SUV off the shoulder, back onto the road, and floored it down the hill.
I cut off the man coming from the shed, pulling across the access point at an angle the way I’d planned from the hilltop. He pulled up short, confused. I hoped the other bad guy did the same.
I tucked the gun into the back of my waistband the way I’d seen Travis do, got out, and started yelling.
“Oh, thank God, there’s actually people out here.
” I made my voice loud, scattered, the frantic pitch of a woman who’d been lost on back roads for hours.
“I haven’t seen a single sign since Elmo.
Does this road connect to 93 or do I have to turn around?
My GPS died twenty miles ago, and I swear this highway is trying to kill me. ”
The man from the shed stared at me. He was trying to process what he was seeing—a woman in workout clothes climbing out of a civilian SUV, waving her arms and complaining about her GPS in the middle of whatever the hell was happening in this gravel lot.
“Ma’am, you need to leave.” He started toward me. Not running. Walking. The tone of a man dealing with an inconvenience, not a threat. “This is private property.”
“Private property? There’s no sign. There’s no signs anywhere on this road. Maybe this entire state. I’ve been driving for forty minutes and—”
He was close now. Close enough to grab my arm and steer me back to the vehicle, which was clearly what he intended.
I stepped into him and drove the heel of my palm into his nose.
My form was terrible. My feet were wrong, my weight was wrong, I didn’t rotate my hips the way Travis had shown me. But I committed. Full force, no hesitation.
Power comes from your legs and hips.
The man’s head snapped back. He staggered, grabbed his face, and his focus left me for two or three seconds.
I hit him again. This time with my fist because I’d forgotten everything about palm strikes and open hands and proper technique. Just my fist, into the side of his head. Pain exploded through my knuckles, and he went down.
He hit the gravel and I didn’t wait to see if he stayed there. I ran to Travis.
“Sera.” His voice was rough, strained. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same question.”
“We need to go. Right now.”
He pushed off his vehicle and was making his way toward my SUV with the careful, measured steps of a man holding himself together through sheer stubbornness.
Each step deliberate. Each breath costing him something.
The second man was on the ground near the tree line.
Travis had handled him before I’d even gotten out of the SUV.
I put his arm around my shoulder and took his weight on my right side, and we covered the last ten feet to the SUV together.
He was heavier than I expected. Hotter, too, his body radiating heat through his jacket in a way that felt wrong, feverish, an engine running too hard.
His left side was wet. I looked down and my hand came away red.
Shit.
“Travis. You’ve been shot.”
“Grazed. It looks worse than it is. Give me the keys.”
“You can barely walk, and you’re bleeding.”
“I can drive.”
“Get in the passenger side, Travis.”
“Sera—”
“Get in or I will leave you here.” I was relatively certain I meant it.
He got in.
I handed him the gun, then started the engine and pulled out. Gravel sprayed behind us and then we were on the highway heading south.
“Maude,” Travis said before we’d gone a quarter mile. His voice was operational. “Initiate vehicle wipe for my vehicle. Kill the GPS, comms, everything. I want it dark in sixty seconds.”
“Vehicle wipe initiated. All systems will be scrubbed in forty-five seconds. Travis, your biometric sensors are still transmitting.”
“Kill those too. After you confirm the wipe.” He had his hand pressed against his left side and his eyes on the mirrors, checking the road behind us. “Did anyone leave the site?”
“No vehicles have departed. However, the mission was conducted in daylight on an unvetted route with multiple tangos who are still alive. Your face was uncovered. Sera’s vehicle was visible at the site. I’m unable to determine what identification may have occurred.”
“Plates?”
“Sera’s plates were exposed for approximately four minutes. I have no way to confirm whether they were recorded.”
Travis swore under his breath. His eyes were still on the mirrors. “Make sure the plates lead to somewhere in Florida.”
The adrenaline was draining out of me in real time, leaving my arms weak and my knuckles throbbing where I’d hit a man in the head with a fist I’d barely been taught to throw.
My lungs chose that moment to weigh in. I reached for the inhaler in the cupholder without looking, brought it to my mouth, and took two puffs while keeping my eyes on the road and one hand on the wheel.
“Vehicle wipe complete,” Maude said. “All systems offline.”
“How badly are you hurt?” I asked.
“It’s a graze. Bullet caught the skin along my side. It needs to be cleaned and closed but nothing vital got hit.”
“You’re sure?” Was he a damned doctor now?
“I’ve had worse.” He shifted in the seat, and something crossed his face that contradicted every word he’d just said. “You shouldn’t have come.”
“You shouldn’t have left for a half-cocked mission.”
He continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “You’re not trained for this wet work. You have two weeks of self-defense and—”
“And if you hadn’t snuck out in the middle of the night like a coward, that wouldn’t be relevant.
My model would have flagged the security profile in three minutes.
” I kept my eyes on the road. “Three minutes, Travis. You would have known it was a bad target. You wouldn’t be sitting here with blood pouring out of you. ”
He was quiet.
“You left while I was asleep. You went out without telling me, without putting me on comms, without running the route. So yes, I came after you. And if you want to yell at me for it, you can do that after we figure out what the hell we need to do.”
“We can’t go straight back to the compound until we know if we’re clean. I have a safehouse in Missoula.” He gave me an address that Maude linked into the GPS.
I drove. Travis had his hand pressed against his side and his head tipped back against the seat. His eyes were closed. Not sleeping… managing. Sorting through what he could afford to ignore and trying to keep the balance on the right side of conscious.
“Travis’s blood pressure is dropping,” Maude said through the speakers. “Heart rate is elevated and his core temperature is rising. He needs medical attention.”
“No.” It was more of a grunt than a word.
“I’m reporting your vitals, not requesting your opinion.”
I looked over at him. His face was gray. The hand on his side had gone still, not pressing anymore, just resting there like he’d forgotten what it was supposed to be doing.
“How much further to Missoula?” I asked.
“Twenty-two minutes at current speed,” Maude said.
“Travis. Stay with me.”
The highway unwound in front of us, two lanes cutting through grassland and pine stands, and I drove ten over the limit and watched Travis fight a war with his own body in the passenger seat.
He’d surface for a few minutes—eyes open, scanning the mirrors, checking the road behind us—then drift back down into that gray space where his breathing went shallow and his hand relaxed against his side.
Every time he surfaced it took him longer.
“Ten minutes to Missoula,” Maude said. “Travis, your blood pressure has dropped again.”
He didn’t respond.
“Travis.”
Nothing.
“Travis!” I yelled, reaching over and grabbing his forearm. His skin was hot and damp and wrong. “Wake up.”
His eyes opened. Slower this time.
“Ten minutes,” I said. “Hang on. Try to stay awake.”
He nodded. Swallowed. Pulled himself up straighter in the seat with a grimace.
“Maude,” he said. His voice was rough, scraped thin. “Run the vehicles behind us. Everything within a mile.”
“Four vehicles currently within range. A white sedan, Montana plates, registered to a Missoula address. A blue minivan, Montana plates, registered to a Kalispell address. A livestock trailer, no current registration match. And a silver pickup truck, Montana plates.” A pause.
“The silver pickup has been maintaining consistent distance for the past four minutes. It decelerated when Sera decelerated for the speed zone two miles back and accelerated when she resumed highway speed.”
The car went quiet.
“Could be coincidence,” I said. “How would they have found us?”
“I’ve stayed alive this long by not believing in coincidences.
One of Kindt’s men must have called in a description of this vehicle.
” Travis was awake now, obviously overriding everything his body was telling him.
His eyes locked in on the mirror. “When we hit city traffic, I need you to do exactly what I say.”
“Okay.”
“No hesitation. No questions.”
“Okay.”
The buildings started to grow around us as we entered Missoula, adding actual traffic. I merged onto the main road and let the other vehicles absorb us. Travis’s eyes never left the mirror.
“He’s still there,” Travis said. “Three cars back. Turn left at the next light.”
I turned. The silver truck turned behind us.
“Second right.”
I took it. The truck didn’t follow. I let out half a breath.
It appeared again a block later, coming from a parallel street.
“He knows what he’s doing,” Travis said. Quiet. Assessing. “Three more blocks. There’s an alley behind a brick building on the corner. Pull in fast. Don’t signal.”
I drove three blocks. I didn’t signal. I cut into the alley hard enough that the tires barked on the pavement and pulled behind the building and stopped.
We sat in the idling SUV and watched the street through the gap between buildings. The silver truck passed without slowing. Kept going. Disappeared.
Travis watched the street for another full minute. Then whatever was holding him upright let go all at once. He sagged back against the seat, and his breathing went ragged and shallow.
I needed to get him inside. “Maude. Route me to the safehouse address. Back streets only. Let me know if there’s any vehicles I should worry about.”
Maude fed me the route. Six turns through residential blocks, quiet streets lined with older houses and parked cars. I drove the speed limit and checked the mirrors every ten seconds, and nobody followed us.
The address was a narrow two-story townhouse set back from the street, half-hidden behind overgrown hedges. The kind of place that didn't invite attention. I pulled into the driveway and killed the engine.
Travis had his eyes closed again. His hand on his side wasn't pressing anymore. It was just there.
"We're here," I said.
He opened his eyes, but they were glossy. Unfocused.
"Key's in a lockbox by the side door." He gave me the code. "Garage opener is inside, on the wall."
I got out, found the lockbox, punched in the code, and unlocked the side door. The garage opener was where he said it would be. I hit it, went back out, pulled the SUV into the garage, and closed the door behind us.
Then I got his door open and got my shoulder under his arm and we made it inside together.
Barely.
His weight was almost entirely on me by the time we crossed the threshold, and when I lowered him onto the couch just inside the living room, his face was the color of ash, and his shirt was soaked through from ribs to hip. Hives were climbing his neck, spreading down his forearms.
He saw my worried gaze. “Don’t worry, I’m fin—” He lost consciousness in the middle of the sentence.
So help me, if he died, I was going to kill him.