“I think there’s a possibility.”
“In that case, walking three miles and getting to shelter isn’t going to do us much good.”
“Maybe not.”
“So we could wait here. Ambush whoever is following. There’s plenty of low vegetation. If we stay in the shadows—”
“No.”
“What do you mean, no?” “Exactly what I said.”
“I didn’t even finish outlining my plan.”
“You don’t have any breath or energy left to outline a plan, let alone ambush a posse.”
“You never said a posse was following us.”
“And I’m not saying it now. I’m just suggesting that you conserve your energy. You may need it before the night is over.”
He was right.
Of course he was.
But for the first time in almost a week, she wasn’t alone, and she was scared out of her mind that if she stopped talking, she’d be jerked back into reality and find herself lying on the desert floor. Alone again.
“I still think—”
“Shhhhhh.” He slid his palm up her arm, his fingers curving around her biceps, the warning in his touch, in the subtle tensing of his muscles, doing more than words to keep her silent. She waited, ears straining as she listened for some sign that they weren’t alone.
Thunder rumbled in the distance, and moisture hung in the air, carrying the musty scent of desert rain and wet earth. Nothing moved. No scurrying animals. No hum of life. Nothing but dead quiet, and a stillness that filled Skylar with dread.
A soft click broke the silence, and she didn’t need to wonder what it was. She’d heard the sound hundreds of times during her days working as a New York City police officer.
She was on the ground before she could think, her body pressed against prickly plants and gravelly dirt, Jonas right beside her. Shoulder to shoulder, arm to arm.
She turned her head, met his eyes.
“Stay down,” he whispered, the sound barely moving the air.
“That was a gun safety,” she responded, trying to keep the words as quiet as his had been. Fear made them ring out louder than she’d planned, and he pressed a finger to her lips, shook his head as he shifted, pulled something from beneath his jacket.
A Glock. 9 mm. Nice handgun. Exactly what she liked to carry.
They weren’t completely helpless, then.
He wasn’t, at least.
She felt a split second of relief, and then Jonas was gone, the darkness swallowing him so quickly, Skylar barely had time to realize he was moving before he’d disappeared, and she was alone again.
Alone, cowering on the desert floor, just waiting to be picked off by an assassin’s bullet.
No way. There was absolutely no way she was going to die without a fight. She needed a better position, more cover. She eased forward, her stomach scraping along the ground, cactus needles and desert pebbles digging into her skin. A minute passed as she struggled to move stealthily, her fatigue-clumsy efforts loud in the silence, her thundering heart masking any other sounds. Alone with her fear, wondering if Jonas had been nothing more than a hallucination.
Alone like she’d been one too many times in her life.
Alone, and it was okay, because she would fight, and she would win and she would get out of the desert alive.
She would.
A soft shuffle came from her left, and she stilled as a shadow crept toward her. Short. Paunchy. Not Jonas. That’s all she saw. All she needed to see. She launched herself up and toward him, her movements jerky and slower than she’d intended. She realized her mistake too late to correct it, realized her own weakness as she barreled into the man’s chest, bounced backward, landed hard. Breath heaving, she barely managed to dive to the left as the man aimed a pistol in her direction, pulled the trigger. The bullet slammed into the ground a foot from where she’d been, and she was up again.
Fight or die.
It was as simple as that.
Or, maybe, it was as simple as fight and die.
She didn’t know.
Couldn’t know, but she’d fight, anyway. It’s what she’d done her entire life. No reason to give in now. Jonas was either real or he wasn’t. He was somewhere nearby or not. God would intervene and save Skylar or He wouldn’t.
One way or another, she’d fight.
She threw herself at the man’s legs, knocking him off balance. A bullet whizzed past her shoulder. Then they were on the ground, tumbling into scrub and thorns, Skylar’s overtaxed muscles trembling as she grappled for control of the pistol.
TWO
Shooting a moving target used to be easy.
Not anymore.
Now guns were the enemy; Jonas’s memories of the damage they could do were as ripe and real as the nebulous mass that rolled on the ground ten feet away. Skylar and the man who’d been stalking them through the darkness. Jonas needed to aim his pistol, fire and hit one without hitting the other. A few years ago, he wouldn’t have hesitated. Then he’d achieved sniper status with his band of Shadow Wolf brothers, his aim truer and more accurate than anyone on the team.
That was a lifetime ago, before his loss and his regrets.
He hadn’t been to a target range in four years, hadn’t fired a gun in just a little less than that.
Yet he was standing in the desert, holding his pistol as if he could still do what he’d done during his years as a border patrol agent.
Stop thinking about it, and do something.
Now!
He aimed, fired to the left of the struggling pair, the shot reverberating through the desert. One momentary explosion of sound, one small flash of light and then silence, the two heaving figures frozen in place. Skylar to the right. Her assailant to the left. An easy shot this time.
“Don’t move, buddy. If you do, I guarantee it will be the last move you ever make. Where’s his gun, Grady?”
“He dropped it while we were fighting.” She panted, crawling through spiky desert foliage, coming up with the gun in her hand. “Got it.”
“Good. Come over here. Let’s give our friend a little space.”
“I’d rather give him something else,” she muttered, but she did as Jonas asked.
