27. Eden #2
Beau’s jaw clenches and, for a second, I think he’s going to yell back at me. But after a moment, he steps back and picks up the pan. He dumps the contents in the bushes. Still not looking at me, he stalks to the small brook and starts washing the pan. His back is like a wall.
I take a deep breath, willing myself to calm down. In a brief moment of clarity, I wonder if this is how he felt when he fired on me yesterday. The thought of what could have happened...
“ Beau —”
“ What happened to breakfast?” Dom asks from behind me, and I jump about a foot in the air.
He eyes me. “ Remind me not to put you on watch duty.”
I lift my chin. “ We had to get rid of breakfast.”
Dom frowns, but Beau stalks back. “ Leave it, Dom . Let’s get moving.”
The large man looks between us, then shrugs cautiously. “ Fine . Let’s go.”
* * *
I’m on a time out, and I hate it with every fiber of my being.
As soon as we started the approach to their camp, Dom and Beau nestled me under a large boulder well out of the way and told me to stay put until they came back for me.
At least Dom had left me with sweet words of comfort: “ If we’re not back in an hour, we’re not coming back.
If that happens, head to Bristlebrook .”
I could punch him.
Anxiety churns my stomach. It’s only been ten minutes or so, but the minutes drip by like treacle. For once the scents of damp earth and fresh air do nothing to pacify me. I’ve been straining to hear something, anything, as though listening harder will actually bring the sounds closer.
I get to my feet, needing to move. They didn’t seem too worried, and I vividly remember how easily they handled the hunters last time. They know what they’re doing. And if I want them to give me and my skills the benefit of the doubt, the least I can do is offer them the same.
But , God , it’s different .
What if something goes wrong? This isn’t like last time. Last time the hunters were running blindly, confident they were chasing down one unarmed woman. This time, they’re prepared. They’re expecting trouble. They’ll have someone on watch. It will be so much harder for them to be caught unawares.
I worry my lip between my teeth as I think about that. Why would they take out the cameras? So we lose visuals, sure, but why ? So they can get more men through the woods unseen? Didn’t Dom say that the rest of the men were elsewhere? Without the cameras here, how can we be sure there aren’t more?
And if the hunters were taking out the cameras just to hide their own tracks, then why wouldn’t they have just avoided them, since they clearly knew their location? They had to know that the dead cameras would be noticed.
It ... doesn’t make sense.
There’s no reason to tip us off like that.
Which means...
Panic ricochets through me just as the first crack of gunfire shatters the silence.
It means this is a trap.
Without stopping to think, I bolt toward the sound. It’s followed by a series of rapid blasts. I’m not sure what I can do, if there’s anything I can do, but I can’t sit by and listen and do nothing when they’re walking into a nightmare.
Branches whip at my cheeks and arms, and I force down memories of my last flight through these woods. I’m not the hunted this time. I grip my knife.
Never again.
Why why why didn’t I think this through last night?
Or this morning? I’m the worst kind of idiot, fretting about Beau being mad at me and worrying about punishments when I should have been considering what lay ahead.
The very real, actual danger they would be facing.
Stupid . Dom is right— I’m not ready to face this kind of threat.
I slow as the sounds start getting louder. The gunshots are deafening, and I can hear shouting now. I think I catch Beau’s voice amid the racket, but I can’t be sure. Pressing a hand to my chest, I take a deep breath.
Think , Eden . I can’t go rushing in there.
I need to see what’s happening. Looking around, I try to find inspiration.
My eyes dance over the brush and green twice before settling on the tall, heavily branched trees.
It makes me think of Lucky , whistling from the treetops as he fired down on the hunters.
Tucking my knife into my belt, I hurry around until I’m as close as I can get to the clearing without revealing myself.
Carefully , quietly, I climb a large, overhanging tree.
It takes more effort than I’d like—my upper body strength isn’t what it should be—but I manage it.
My ears ring and my pulse thrums a staccato beat in line with the gunfire.
I’m desperate to hear Beau or Dom , but I can’t tell voices apart in all the yelling.
Keeping low on a thick branch, I edge forward until my head just peeks from the leaves and I can see down in the clearing. When I do. ..
I press a hand to my mouth.
Carnage .
There are more than four men here. Three bodies are sprawled and splattered in the clearing, one over by the tree line. I try to avoid looking at the gory chunks torn from their sides, their heads, and just take in features, clothing.
Not Beau .
Not Dom .
My relief is short-lived though. Heart in my throat, I watch as men move behind the tree line, leaning out to fire shots and then curving back behind protective trunks. Gunfire flies in every direction, and it’s hard to make anyone out in detail.
I notice, though, that one crack of noise sounds louder than the others.
Closer . Turning my head slowly, I can just make out a man dressed all in dark brown lying flat along another branch, just a few trees over from mine.
His branch protrudes far out over the clearing and he’s much farther forward than me.
He fires down into the trees, a killer in the canopy.
My bladder starts to quiver, and I press my forehead to the branch beneath me, breathing shallowly. He hasn’t seen me. I’m okay. Everything is fine .
“ Fuck ! Beau , get that goddamn sniper!”
My head lifts at Dom’s rough order, eyes scanning the clearing. I can’t see him. I can’t see either of them.
“ Kind of busy right now,” Beau shouts back with a grunt, as though the air has left his lungs.
Relief makes me dizzy. Alive . They’re both alive.
Then what Dom said registers. The sniper has to be this man in the tree. The way he’s lying on the branch, he must be almost impossible to see from below. But from up here...
Fear locks my muscles for a moment. It’s crazy. I can’t do this. I can’t do anything about this. I’m a librarian, not some G.I . Jane . Sweat beads at my temples, under my arms.
I can’t do nothing.
With more effort than I’d like to admit, I unclench my grip on my branch and ease back as slowly as I can.
I do not want to draw attention to myself.
When I’m sure I’m deep enough into the leaves that I won’t be seen, I stand and, holding nearby branches as I go, make my way toward the adjoining tree.
The benefit of these woods is that the trees have grown densely, so it’s not too hard to work my way from tree to tree until I think I reach the one the sniper is on.
As I clamber quietly onto one of its nearby limbs, a bullet collides with the trunk behind me, smashing a deep gouge in the wood and sending splinters flying.
My hand wraps around my throat to catch myself before my scream escapes. I have to swallow it back three times before I’m confident it will settle.
I really hope Dom or Beau doesn’t accidentally kill me while I’m trying to help them.
Frozen , I wait on the branch by the trunk, waiting to see if the bullet disturbed the shooter. When nothing shifts in front of me, I shakily get down on my hands and knees.
After a moment of hesitation, I pull my pocketknife from my belt. It will make climbing more difficult, but being armed makes me feel better.
Marginally .
The limb is thick and wide and it protrudes far over the clearing, so it takes a few moments of shuffling through the cloud of leaves before I catch sight of the sniper.
When the boots come into view, I breathe a sigh of relief.
Despite the thick branch, I was half-sure he’d have felt me moving along it and that I’d clear the leaves only to find myself facing the barrel of a gun.
I pause again about a foot from him, realizing I have no idea what to do next. Stab him? How quickly can he turn around and point that thing at me? I nervously realize we’re about fifteen feet in the air.
I have to do something .
While I hesitate, the sniper tenses and fires off three more shots. Stomach bottoming out, I don’t think. I throw myself forward and push his legs to the side, hard. He yells, twisting and trying to keep his hips on the branch, and his flailing pushes him more off balance.
But he keeps hold of the firearm.
The gun spooks me, and I shuffle up quickly and shove at his hips, wanting him to let go.
His lower half falls off the branch.
The man’s eyes widen in fear, and he drops the weapon to clutch at the branch as he begins to slide off, only just catching himself from a complete fall.
The gun drops to the ground, splitting apart, and a sob escapes me, but I quickly turn my attention to the dangling man.
This close, I can see his eyes are brown, and his face is gaunt and dirty.
He looks like someone who used to frequent my library.
He’s young—younger than me, definitely. He could be anyone.
“ Help me,” he gasps, scrambling at the tree limb for leverage. “ Help .”
He was shooting at Beau , at Dom , I remind myself, trembling. He wants to kill them .
My throat closes over. God , he’s still a person .
I edge closer, not sure if I’m going to help pull him up or stab his fingers to make him fall. I don’t recognize myself right now. The sounds of the firefight fade into the background.
“ Please ,” he says, brown eyes soft and begging.
I reach for him with both hands—one to help, one to kill.
More quickly than I can register, he grasps my wrist. “ Bitch ,” he snarls. “ Sam’ll have to miss out this time.”
And he yanks me, hard. Unbalanced on my knees, I go flying, but at the last minute I twist and try to use the knife in my other hand to catch on something, anything, to stop my fall.
It does catch, puncturing deep into something thick and tough, and the jolt changes the angle of my fall.
Momentum spins me and brings me in close to the tree again, and I hit the man’s back with my front.
The knife jerks down, sawing through whatever it’s caught on.
Something warm and wet sprays over my face, blinding me.
The man screams and releases my wrist, and he arches, throwing me back.
My stomach drops out from under me as I realize I’m falling.
I throw my arms out again in pure panic, blind, not sure which way is up.
Something hits my right arm in a burst of shocking pain, then my shoulder, then I manage to catch onto something solid and rough, which slows me for just a moment before the momentum tears me away and raw scratches rip down my arms.
I hit the ground, and I remember to fall to the side and crumple as I land on something at once soft and hard. I read about that, the falling, that’s what you’re meant to do. Parachuters fall that way. It’s how not to die. I’m pretty sure that’s what I read. Or maybe that was what not to do.
Everything stops.
Am I dead?
I don’t feel dead.
I’m thinking about parachuters so that has to be a positive sign.
In fact, after a moment of lying in shock, I feel very much alive and very much like I hurt everywhere .
Very much like I can’t pull enough air into my aching lungs.
I can’t open my eyes—something wet and sticky is coating my face.
Sounds have gone quiet around me, and I wonder if that’s real this time or if I’ve been deafened again. But there’s no ringing in my ears.
It’s just quiet.
I want to lie here and feel sorry for myself. To catalog each and every injury and assess how bad it might be before moving, but that would be stupid. Because someone has to have survived, and if it isn’t my guys...
Shakily , I wipe at the blinding liquid over my eyes— I don’t know where my glasses have gone—and then stare at my fingers. Thick , garish red coats them. Even a little blurred, I can see that much. Breathing through my nose, I force myself to wipe the rest away and then pull myself up.
The man is under me.
Scrambling back, I can’t help the screech that leaves me then. My knife sticks out of his back, buried to the hilt, and his neck is bent at an unusual angle. My mind jars on the image. I only just stop the inane urge to shake him awake.
Injuries not conducive to life. Isn’t that what they say?
Nausea rises, and I only just turn to the side in time to empty my stomach noisily. Bile , hot and acidic, scorches my mouth and burns my nose. But even when I squeeze my eyes shut, his body is imprinted in my mind.
When I’m finally done, I take deep, gulping breaths, and my gaze darts around the clearing, searching for any movement. Someone has to have heard that. The scream, if not the vomiting afterwards. I need a weapon, and I need to leave. Now .
I look around for anything else. I spot the gun that he dropped at the base of the tree but, reluctantly, I decide against it. It looks broken, and even if it wasn’t, I have no idea how to use a gun. Even if I did, I doubt my vision is good enough to hit anything reliably without my glasses.
Crawling forward, I eye the knife, trying not to look at what’s beneath it. I also try not to smell the urine and feces he secreted when his bowels released. Grasping the hilt, I grimace at the sticky feel to it. When I tug, it doesn’t come easily, and my wince deepens.
“ Come on, come on,” I beg under my breath.
Bracing myself, I yank it hard, and I have only a brief moment of victory when it comes free, as a hand clamps over my mouth, and I’m wrenched away from behind.