Chapter 8
8
At the warning in her voice, the hair at the back of his neck lifted. “Down!”
He urged her to crouch with him behind a tree, then shined the flashlight in the direction she’d seen movement. He didn’t see anything. Turning off his light, he leaned in close to whisper. “Turn off your flashlight. What did you see?”
She turned her light off, throwing them into complete darkness.
“Someone,” she said. “I could have just panicked. Maybe someone else is lost. We should just call out.”
“Keep still and quiet. You didn’t call out because you instinctively sensed danger.”
Or she was being paranoid, but after what had already happened, he would err on the side of caution. If someone was actually out in the storm intending to harm her, then Hawk and Remi weren’t going to make it back to the lodge without fighting off another attack.
“Let’s go back to the cabin,” he said. “I need to think.” At least they’d be protected from this new threat.
“What? No, we can’t stay there. I don’t want to hike all the way back. Let’s just keep going to the lodge.”
He ran his hand down his wet face. He would already be barreling through the forest but for the terrain and an unseen enemy. Maybe it was that lunatic who had attacked her on the road.
He palmed his Colt handgun, the sensation of being trapped unsettling him. They were in a forest, but a cliff’s edge was at their back. Trees and the darkness closed in around them even as the threat of erosion pushed them toward the unseen threat.
“The risk at the cabin is less than the risk of hiking through the woods with someone out there waiting to pounce.” Once they turned on their flashlights, they would be easy targets. Of course, the potential attacker could be wearing night vision goggles and watching them even now.
Remi leaned in close. “Hawk, if it’s the attacker from earlier today, then I agree with you. The cabin is probably safer for now. But we can’t know that.”
“Wait here.” He leaned closer to make sure she heard. “I was law enforcement before, remember, so let me do this.”
Shining the beam of light would give him away. With no moon or lightning to guide the way, the night was pitch black. He stepped from the tree and found another one, then crouched. He could see candlelight or flashlights inside the other cabins, and that gave off faint light. His eyes adjusted and he searched the darkness, but he really needed to illuminate the deeper shadows, and he turned on his light.
“Watch out!” Remi shouted.
He ducked, then turned to engage an attacker, dropping the flashlight. The beam cast eerie shadows. Was this the same man who’d attacked Remi before? The attacker punched Hawk in the gut, then the mouth. He tasted blood but didn’t miss a beat as he responded with thrusts and parries.
He could pull out his gun and stop this, but he didn’t want it to turn deadly. The assailant brandished a knife and threw it. Hawk shifted away.
Thunk.
The knife pierced the bark and stuck next to Hawk’s head. Too close. His stomach lurched.
Why was he holding back? Hawk was so done with this and reached for his gun, but the man rammed him into the tree trunk.
Grunt.
Pain ignited as bark bit into him. Hawk shoved back and slid to the side, out of the assailant’s grasp, then turned the tables on the guy, forcing his back to the tree now.
Then he pressed his arm against the masked attacker’s throat. “Who. Are. You? What do you want?”
He tried to rip the mask away, but the man jabbed another knife at Hawk’s gut, drawing fire and blood. Hawk backed away, releasing him. Pulling his gun out, he aimed, but the man disappeared in the darkness. Hawk took off after him, racing through the underbrush and between the trees, but he lost him in the night. He’d gone south, in the direction of the lodge. Great. The attacker stood between them and escape.
Breathing hard, Hawk slowly lowered his gun. He opened his coat and lifted his T-shirt and hoodie to find a short, shallow graze. Fortunately, the knife hadn’t made it through all the layers, and he had only been nicked. He pressed his hand against his side and felt the sting. It could have been so much worse.
He gave up his pursuit and turned, intending to go back for Remi, but she’d followed him and stood in a ring of light, watching, holding the duffel he’d dropped.
“You’re hurt,” she said.
“It’s nothing.”
She shivered, her lips blue. He didn’t think he fared any better. The wind picked up again, and this storm he’d come here to watch in fascination, to enjoy, was bringing him down.
“This guy stands between us and the lodge.” Hawk couldn’t count on making it without risking more danger to her. “I’m not sure I want to go to the lodge and draw him there.”
Remi spoke, but he couldn’t hear her over the crashing waves.
“What?” he asked.
She leaned in, shouting in his ear. “I know where we can go. It’s not the cabin. And it’s close. Come on. I can lead you a short distance without the light, then we’ll have to risk it. But unless the jerk has scoped out the details already, he won’t be able to find it.”
“Lead the way.” He took his duffel from her.
She nodded.
He agreed with her in that he really didn’t want to draw trouble to anyone here, but at the moment, he wanted to get her some place warm and dry and safe. They could try to call the sheriff’s department, though he doubted help would arrive soon enough. She rushed between the trees, heading west toward the ocean. They were so far north in the woods that he could no longer see light from the cabins.
He hoped she knew where she was going because he was lost. But this was her place. If anyone knew, it was Remi. He remained vigilant in case the attacker came back.
Hawk wished he’d brought his gear. Night vision goggles would make all the difference. He could get Remi back to the lodge safely and then hunt down her attacker.
As they got closer to the cliff and the ocean, the sounds of breakers crashing were jarring. “You’re sure this place is close,” he shouted.
“Yes. Almost there.”
Ah. He got it. Why hadn’t he thought of this before? “Please tell me you’re not talking about those old war bunkers.”
She kept going and he followed. Sea spray lashed them both, they were that close. But she caught a protective rail as he stepped onto concrete.
“And you have a way inside?” he asked.
“I do. Come on.” She headed into a tunnel and kept going until a metal door stopped her. Hawk figured that an old military bunker would be locked to keep intruders out, but she pushed the metal door open, and the rusty hinges squeaked loudly, echoing against the concrete floor. Once inside, the raucous sound of the storm grew louder, bouncing off the walls.
“Wait.” He touched her arm. “Get behind me.” He held the Colt ready. No walking into the dark, supposedly abandoned World War II bunkers without clearing them first.
They could be ambushed if someone else had taken up space here during the storm. If that jerk had found his way here first or even made this his home base of operation. Hawk really just wanted to get his hands on this guy and find out what was going on. He’d almost had him before. He could kick himself.
Not tonight.
But tomorrow. Tomorrow he could kick himself.
She entered with him and stuck close behind with her own gun out and ready.
I don’t like this. It wasn’t the first time he’d found himself in an untenable predicament.
Remi shut the door and put a rock against it. Okay. She knew her way around this old bunker, then.
He shined his flashlight around their temporary shelter. “So, they just let people come inside, roam around on their own?”
“Some of the old bunkers are accessible to explorers. But this one had been locked up until someone busted it open, and sure, I looked around inside. And now here we are.”
A scuffling noise drew Remi around, and she shined her flashlight into the inky blackness, revealing more concrete. “What was that?”
“A forest creature, maybe. A rat. Hopefully not a bear.”
“It’s like a labyrinth down there, and you keep going until you’re deep underground. It was a bomb shelter. But we’re not going deeper than this.” She put her gun away.
Hawk wasn’t exactly keen on the idea of not clearing the entire place, but neither did he want to stir up trouble. They wouldn’t stay long. Just catch their breath and get warm, if possible, while they figured things out and made a plan.
She shrugged out of her drenched coat. He dropped his duffel bag, unzipped it, and tugged a blanket out, then spread it on the floor.
“You carry a blanket in your duffel?”
“Not usually, no. But I didn’t know that I wouldn’t end up sleeping in my truck or some hollowed-out tree, given the way this day has gone, so I snagged it from the bed. It’s always smart to be prepared. And now here we are, like you said, and in this cold bunker, which is a step up from a hollowed-out tree.” For which he was woefully unprepared, but he wouldn’t say that out loud.
“I thought it looked familiar,” she said.
“So, charge me for it. In the meantime, if we sit close enough, we can wrap the edges around us.”
She scrunched her nose.
“You don’t like the idea of getting close to me? You didn’t really think this through, did you?” He couldn’t help but grin and maybe feel a little bit hurt.
“My only thought was to get out of the storm for a few minutes. We’re here now. Let’s make the most of it before we go outside to find our way back to the lodge.”
Hawk blew out a breath. He didn’t want to traverse through a pitch-black forest during a monster storm with a maniac out to get them. The man had attacked Hawk this time because he wanted to eliminate the man standing between him and Remi. And he almost had.
“As soon as there’s a break in the storm,” Hawk said, “let’s get out of here. We need to keep a quick pace. Do you know the shortest and safest path back to the lodge from here?”
Remi sat on the blanket and leaned against the wall. “Nothing short about it, but I know the way.”
“We should probably turn at least one flashlight off to save the batteries,” he said. “I’m not going to sit here in the dark, though.”
He slid onto the floor next to her and leaned his head against the frigid, hard concrete. She was cold and wet. He was cold and wet. He scooted closer and tugged what was left of the blanket over them. Yep. This was a predicament.
He was seriously unprepared for sitting out a storm in a cold, dank military bunker with a woman who had trouble brewing around her. “Now would be a good time for you to tell me what’s really going on.”