Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 73947 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 370(@200wpm)___ 296(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73947 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 370(@200wpm)___ 296(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
We compromise, if that’s what you’d call three former Rangers turning my fieldwork into a military operation.
I don’t go out alone. I don’t leave the marked survey boundary. I check in every ten minutes, whether I have anything to say or not. Those are just a few of my instructions.
Boone is with me today, close enough to reach me quickly but far enough away to preserve the illusion that I’m simply doing my job. He’s somewhere uphill through the trees, and I feel his presence, even though I can’t see or hear him.
Cade is higher still, above the cut between two ridges, where he can see what Boone and I can’t.
Rhett is staged at what he insists on calling an extraction point, something we haven’t needed during my daytime work, but it makes him feel better.
All of this should make me feel safer, and it does, but it also reminds me there’s something out here worth fearing.
Which is why I’m not sure what to think when the back of my neck prickles beneath the loose strands of hair escaping my braid. My usual intuition has been overworked.
I pause and listen, and the mountain answers with ordinary sounds. Wind blows through the pines, squirrels chatter, and a jay cries. Farther off, spring runoff rushes over stones.
I stay still long enough for my breathing to settle, then I continue on my path, passing by a granite outcrop that blocks most of the draw from view. The gray stone is decorated with lichen and makes a wall between me and anything approaching from that angle.
As I clear it, the woods go silent. No birds, no chatter. Just as every nerve in my body lights, Cade’s voice snaps through my earpiece.
“Wren, move. West flank.”
As I turn, a man clears the outcrop. He’s only twenty yards away at most. Close enough for me to see the wraparound sunglasses on his face and the dark stubble along his jaw. He’s not startled by my presence. He’s moving like he’s here for me.
A second man appears behind him, partially hidden by the rock and brush, wearing a cap pulled low.
Cade says something else in my ear, but my blood is rushing too loud for me to hear it.
I yank the bear spray from my belt as the lead man lunges.
“Don’t,” he barks.
I flip the safety and fire a burning orange cloud straight into his face. The spray blooms between us, and enough of it hits him that he screams and stumbles sideways, choking.
I turn and run, and I barely make it five strides before a shot cracks from the eastern ridge. My first reaction is panic, but as I run faster, my brain tells me it might be Cade firing.
A second shot follows, then a third, the sound slamming through the valley, flat and violent.
One of the men behind me curses as stone chips burst off granite with a sharp, angry snap.
“Rally point,” Cade says in my ear. “Run, Wren.”
I keep running as branches snag my sleeves, and I slide on loose rocks. The slope is uneven, and every step threatens to turn an ankle or send me sprawling, but I keep my eyes on the ground and keep moving, because falling now would be the worst thing that could happen.
The thin mountain air is sharp in my lungs, and I taste metal.
Another shot cracks, then another.
The trail narrows between two clusters of pine, and I hit it hard, using the trees as markers. This route was planned in detail that seemed excessive at the time, but no longer does.
My earpiece hisses. “Straight ahead. Keep running,” Boone says. “I’m coming to you.”
I don’t have enough breath to answer.
The slope drops, then rises, and my thighs burn like fire, but I go faster. I clear a stand of young aspens, and Boone comes out of the trees ahead of me. He moves fast, rifle up, body angled past me toward the direction I came from.
Relief punches through me so hard, it almost brings me to my knees, but I keep running.
I cross the last twenty feet at something between a run and a controlled fall, and Boone catches me before I stumble, his hand locking around me with enough strength to bruise, but enough care not to hurt. He pulls me behind him, putting his body between mine and the outcrop without looking away from the trees.
“Are you hit?” he demands.
“No.”
“You sure?”
“Positive.”
His eyes still scan me, fast and clinical, maybe purely out of habit. His face is stripped of every ounce of charm that usually makes people underestimate him.
A shot cracks from above, and I flinch.
“It’s Cade.” Boone’s hand tightens on my arm. “Let’s go.”
Without waiting for me to agree, he pivots, keeping himself on my exposed side as we move.
“Lead is down but moving.” Cade’s voice in my ear is flat and almost calm. “Second target broke west. I have him pinned.”