Chapter 31 #2
We all ended up converging on the grave as one unit, which meant they hadn’t had trouble taking out their men either. All three were dead.
“Anyone manage to get any information out of them first?” I asked.
“No,” Riptide replied. “Fuckers decided to die. Pussies. Couldn’t have shot them more than seven or eight times.”
“Same,” I said with a sigh. That was going to make it more difficult to figure out why they were out here and why they’d killed the woman. Glancing over, I frowned when I realized the girl was no longer by her mother’s side. “Seek?”
Silence met my call and a chill raced through my veins. The storm announced its presence with a giant clap of thunder. The lightning was twisting sideways in the air from cloud to cloud.
“Seek?” I went over to where we’d left her, only to find the spot empty. She wasn’t here and neither were the girl or the dogs. “Goddamn it!” I searched around, but she wasn’t here.
“Get the woman out and dump those assholes in the grave,” Riptide ordered the others before coming over to me. “Where would she have gone?”
“Back to the trucks?” Priest asked.
“She wouldn’t have left on her own,” I responded. “She knows better than that. There’d be no reason for her to avoid comin’ out here alone to then take off.”
They gave each other grim looks as they came to the same conclusion that I had. “The girl,” Riptide said.
I nodded. “The only reason she’d go anywhere was if the girl took off.”
“Shit,” Priest muttered. “How are we going to find them?”
My throat constricted as I thought about all the things that could happen to Seek out here.
More men could have shown up. Some animal could get to them.
That fucking monsoon was my biggest worry, though.
Fat drops of rain landed on my head. It was only going to take minutes before a torrential downpour started.
I could see off to the north that it was already raining, which meant that water was going to flow downhill into whichever large wash it could find.
“Joe,” I called out. He came over. “You know this area don’t you?”
“Sure do,” he said, spitting chewing tobacco out of his mouth. “My dad, brother, and I hunt out here all the time. Federal land.”
“Any large washes we need to be worried about?”
“Yup. There’s a wash up north about a quarter mile. It runs north-south until it splits off to the east for about a half mile, then runs south again. It’s big enough to drive a semi through.”
“That explains why we didn’t cross it,” Riptide said, pulling out his GPS.
He was studying the map feature which showed washes and roads in this area.
“We parked right where it turns south again, but it’s on the east side of the road.
We stopped before we got to the area that splits that road we were on.
Probably why the SUV was abandoned there.
No one wanted to try to drive through it.
” Riptide was all about his gadgets. “If we go back the way we came, we won’t have to worry about it. ”
“Yeah, but if the girl ran north… A big wash would feel like a great place to hide. And Seek would have followed her.”
Worry flashed over all their faces. Looking over my shoulder, I saw the men had finished filling in the hole over the men we’d killed. We’d have to leave Sherry Holden’s body here. Riptide would mark the area and we’d come back later and figure out what to do with her.
“We’ll have to spilt up,” I hollered to the others as I walked up. The wind and thunder was making it hard to hear anything unless someone was directly next to you. “We have to find them-”
Barking threaded through the air. It was getting tossed around on the wind, making it hard to tell which direction it was coming from. “Auron! Jecht!” I bellowed. “Here boys!” I wasn’t sure which dog it was, but I hoped Seek was right behind them.
Auron burst through the trees, tongue lolling, sides heaving. He’d run quite a distance from the looks of him. My heart sank as I realized Seek wasn’t with him.
“Let’s go,” I ordered the others. I knelt down next to Auron and scrubbed my hands through his fur. “I know you only listen to Seek, but just this once do me a favor.” His eyes were steady on my face and I’d swear he knew what I was saying. “Bring me to her. Go search!”
He hesitated a moment before letting out an ear-splitting bark.
Turning, he barreled through the trees with all of us hot on his heels.
He wasn’t waiting on us, he didn’t stop to check that we were following.
He just ran, all out. And so did I. My legs burned with the effort.
I hadn’t run this hard in years, possibly even when I was in the Corps. I didn’t hold anything back.
We were going to have to stick close in this storm or we’d end up losing him. He’d come back to find us. I couldn’t bring myself to think of what that meant for Seek. He wouldn’t have left her unless she needed help.
Fear threatened to lock my limbs up, a dark blur was creeping in around the edges of my vision while my lungs struggled to keep up with the canine.
I was damned if I would let myself pass out, though.
I’d tear my damn lungs out and leave them if they couldn’t keep up the pace.
I shoved all thoughts from my mind so I could focus on the only thing that mattered.
Keeping my legs moving and finding Seek.