Chapter 8 Sawyer
EIGHT
Sawyer
The shots come from multiple angles—at least three positions, maybe more.
Splinters rain down as bullets perforate the walls. The windows shatter in sequence, glass exploding inward. Savannah is underneath me, her heart racing against my chest, but she's not panicking. Her hands are already reaching for the laptop, making sure it's protected.
"They found us."
"How?"
"Doesn't matter." I pull her toward the trapdoor that leads below. "We're leaving."
More gunfire, from multiple positions. They've surrounded us. I count muzzle flashes—at least eight shooters, probably more. Professional spacing, overlapping fields of fire. These aren't FBI imposters. These are mercenaries.
The first bullet punches through the wall six inches from Savannah's head, showering us with splinters. Then the night explodes.
Automatic weapons fire tears into the tower from multiple positions—muzzle flashes winking like deadly fireflies in the tree line below. Most rounds go wide, distance and elevation working in our favor, but wood shrieks and glass shatters as lucky shots find their mark.
"Move!" I grab her bag with one hand, mine with the other, shoving both into her arms as I push her toward the back door. "Rear deck—now!"
She doesn't hesitate, trusting me even as bullets whine overhead like angry hornets. The tower shudders with each impact, decades-old timber groaning. They're walking their fire up the structure, trying to find our range.
We burst onto the narrow balcony, and Savannah stops so suddenly that I nearly collide with her.
Forty feet below, the forest canopy spreads like a black ocean, treetops swaying in the wind. And stretching from the tower's support beam into that darkness—my emergency egress. A steel cable, finger-thick, angling down into the void, disappearing toward the ridge across the valley.
"That's not—" Her voice cracks. "Sawyer, that's not a rappel line."
"It's a zipline." I'm already pulling the trolley from its hidden mount and checking that the wheels spin freely. "Quarter mile to the landing point."
A burst of gunfire stitches across the railing, sparks flying as bullets strike metal. Savannah drops instinctively, but I keep working—muscle memory from a hundred extractions taking over.
"The angle's wrong for them," I tell her, clipping her harness to the trolley. "They're shooting uphill from eight hundred meters. Half their rounds are hitting trees."
As if to prove my point, bullets crack through the air above us—that distinctive snap of rounds passing close but not close enough. The shooters are good, but physics is on our side.
For now.
"I can't." She's gripping the railing, knuckles white, whole body trembling. Not from the gunfire—from the drop. "It's too high, I can't—"
Another burst rips chunks from the wooden deck. They're adjusting fire, learning the range. We have thirty seconds before they dial it in.
I step behind her, close enough to feel her racing heartbeat through her back. "You climbed a cliff in pitch darkness," I murmur, securing my harness to hers—tandem configuration, no chance of separation. "You can ride a cable."
"That was different. You were there—"
"I'm here now." I wrap my arms around her from behind, my hands covering hers on the grips. She's shaking so hard I can feel it in my bones. "We go together."
A window explodes somewhere behind us. Glass rains down like deadly snow.
"They're finding the range," I say against her ear, keeping my voice steady even as my mind runs calculations—trajectory, distance, time. "Twenty seconds before they bracket us."
She turns her head slightly, and tears stream down her face. Not from fear of the bullets—from fear of the fall.
"I need you to trust me," I tell her, tightening my arms around her ribs. "One more time."
"I'm scared." Barely a whisper.
"I know. Be scared later. Right now, just hold on."
More impacts—closer now. Wood splinters near her hip. The shooters have found their elevation.
No more time.
I plant my feet, feeling her tense against me. "On three. One—"
Automatic fire rakes the platform.
"Two—"
The railing explodes in a shower of wood and metal.
I don't say three.
I launch us into space.
For a heartbeat, we're suspended—weightless, exposed, perfect targets silhouetted against the stars. Bullets snap through the air around us, one so close I feel its heat kiss my cheek. Savannah's scream tears from her throat, primal and raw.
Then gravity catches us.
The trolley engages with a metallic shriek, and suddenly, we're flying. The cable sings as we accelerate, twenty, thirty, forty miles per hour in seconds. Wind tears at our clothes, our hair. We're skimming through the canopy.
Savannah's hands are locked on the grips, mine covering them, holding her steady as we rocket through the darkness. I can feel her trying not to scream again, her whole body rigid with terror.
"Breathe," I shout over the wind. "I've got you. Just breathe."
We plunge deeper, the cable's angle carrying us down through the forest. Tree trunks flash past in the moonlight—any one of them could be death if we clip it. But I set this line myself, tested it dozens of times. The path is clear.
Behind us, muzzle flashes strobe through the trees—but we're already out of effective range, physics and speed making us impossible targets. The shooting continues, frustrated and futile, as we disappear into the night.
The cable’s slow descent carries us over a creek bed, moonlight on water blurring beneath our feet. Savannah makes a sound—half sob, half laugh—as she realizes we're actually going to make it.
"Landing coming up," I tell her, feeling the familiar markers flash past. "When I say, lift your legs."
The terminal tree looms out of the darkness—a massive pine on the opposite ridge, the cable's anchor point fifteen feet up the trunk. The landing platform is narrow, built for one, but I've made it work before.
"Now!"
We lift our legs as the platform rushes up. I absorb the impact through bent knees, using our momentum to swing us around the tree trunk, bleeding off speed. The trolley squeals to a stop against the buffer, and we're suddenly still.
Savannah collapses against me, legs giving out, only my arms keeping her standing. She's gasping, crying, laughing—all at once.
"You're insane," she manages between breaths.
"But alive."
Distant gunfire echoes across the valley—they're shooting at shadows now, or maybe just venting frustration. I unclip us quickly, testing my footing on the narrow platform before helping her down to solid ground.
"Oh God." She drops to her knees in the pine needles, hands pressed to the earth like she's making sure it's real. "Oh God, we just—we flew—"
"Can you run?"
She looks up at me, hair wild, eyes wider. "Better than I can fly."
I almost smile at that. Almost. But then I catch it—the sound of engines starting far below. They're not giving up.
"They'll take the logging road," I calculate quickly. "Try to cut us off at the highway. We go cross-country, stay in the trees."
I pull her to her feet, and she sways slightly before finding her balance. Her hand finds mine, grips tight.
"No more ziplines?"
"Fresh out."
"Thank God."
We plunge into the forest, leaving the cable swaying in the wind behind us. The hunters wanted a kill.
They got a vanishing act instead.
The forest is our advantage. I grew up in mountains like these, learned to track deer with my grandfather before I could properly hold a rifle. But Savannah is a city girl, and she's struggling with the uneven ground.
"This way." I pull her into a drainage ravine, natural cover that breaks the line of sight.
When I rigged the zipline, I needed a fast out and a secure exit. I’ve mapped this area of the forest and know it well.
Those men will have to trace the zipline to its destination, challenging in the dark, and across two ridges.
But they’ll find it eventually. A good tracker will pick up our trail, but I’ve got that covered, too.
I pull Savannah down a game trail. Her hand finds mine, squeezes. Blood trickles from a cut on her forehead—flying glass or wood, probably.
"You're hurt." I reach for her face, but she catches my wrist.
"Later. We need to move."
She's right, but the blood makes something primitive in me snarl.
They hurt her.
They destroyed my sanctuary and hurt her, and part of me wants to double back, move silently through the trees, and hunt them one by one until the forest runs red.
But keeping her alive matters more than vengeance.
“This way.”
I guide her down the slope into a narrow drainage ravine, the walls rising on either side like a natural shield. The moon barely reaches the bottom; shadows swallow us whole.
The ground here is mostly packed dirt and stone—hard, cold, blessedly trackless.
Perfect.
I pull her behind a cluster of granite outcroppings, then crouch, scanning the slope we descended.
“Stay close,” I murmur, already moving. “We need to erase everything we can.”
I grab a fallen pine bough—long, bristled with needles—and drag it backward over the faint impressions our boots left in the softer soil.
One clean sweep, then another. The tracks blur, vanish, become just another rough scuff in the uneven ground.
I pivot, studying the rock shelf above us. Light-colored chips from our descent catch the faint moonlight. I nudge each one into the ravine with the side of my boot, sending them skittering down the stone chute where thousands of others already lie.
Nothing distinct.
Nothing directional.
Nothing they can follow.
Savannah watches, wide-eyed, chest still heaving from the zipline. “You’ve done this before,” she whispers.
“Too many times.” I crouch near her and brush dirt over the last patch of disturbed soil with my gloved hand, flattening it until the surface looks untouched. “Hunters always look for the story the ground tells. So we give it silence.”