Out Run the Night

by Leah Ashton

  It wasn’t a passionate kiss, but it was perfect: all longing, and hope and urgency.

  Then, it was over. And they started walking.

  Damon kept their path close to any cover he could find – the larger clumps of mulga trees, rather than the more direct path across the spinifex plains. Then, as the dusk turned into darkness, he abandoned that strategy to keep them on track for the edges of Tiger Snake Station, and for the safety of Laverton.

  They were some distance from the station driveway now, thanks to his detour to the lake, and he had no plans to head back towards it. It was difficult to judge the exact location of the searching dirt bikes in the vast desert, but he was reasonably confident they were still closer to the driveway. So, his new plan was to head directly for the road from where they were – the fastest way off Tiger Snake Station – and then hope like hell that the road wasn’t lined with waiting Notechi all the way to Laverton.

  Unfortunately, he suspected it would be. It’s what he would’ve done.

  But the Notechi would have vehicles – either SUVs or their Harleys – so all he’d have to do was get them to the road, get a vehicle, and that was it. They’d be safe.

  But that wouldn’t be easy.

  “They’ll be waiting for us, won’t they?” Beth whispered into the night, reading his thoughts.

  “Yes,” he said. There was no point softening their reality. “But they’d rather re-capture us on the station. Public highways hold the risk of the public witnessing what they’re doing.”

  “But aren’t we in the middle of nowhere?” she asked. “The highway will be deserted.”

  “Probably,” Damon conceded. “But I’m trying to stay positive.”

  “Damon,” Beth said. “What do you think the odds are that we’ll escape?”

  She was walking just behind him, close enough that if he stopped, she’d probably walk right into him. It was tempting to do just that, just for the excuse to touch her, but he didn’t. They needed to keep moving, they needed to give themselves the best possible chances of survival.

  “I reckon we’re at sixty–forty,” he said.

  Beth laughed, surprising him. “I thought we were at fifty–fifty. I like your positivity.”

  He knew she’d never underestimated how dangerous their situation still was, but to hear her say it out loud – to hear how she knew she might still die – made fury burn inside him.

  At himself, of course, for leading her into that ambush. But also, at the Notechi, because how dare they hurt this woman. This remarkable, magnificent woman.

  “You don’t know all my E-SWAT training,” he said. “And neither do the Notechi. I reckon that gives us another ten percent.”

  “You have a very particular set of skills?” she asked, and Damon had to bite back a burst of laughter.

  “You’re quoting Liam Neeson?” he said.

  “Seemed appropriate. It does feel a bit like we’re living the plot from a movie.”

  He grinned but then became serious. “Yes,” he said firmly, “I do have a very particular set of skills.”

  And he would use every one of them to protect Bethwyn Banfield.

  As the night wore on, Beth became more and more tense. And more and more frightened.

  Last night, the risk had been small. Even when they’d taken cover from the searching motorbike, she’d never really felt as if they were at risk they’d be discovered. And even if they had been, she had absolute faith in Damon to protect them. He’d have no issue with a single motorbike and bikie.

  But tonight was different. Tonight, there were several dirt bikes roaring through the desert, there was a plane searching overhead, and there were Notechi lying in wait at their destination.

  They were surrounded, and it was terrifying.

  It was one thing to blithely talk about their odds of surviving, it was another to properly comprehend that tonight they could be walking to their deaths.

  And every step took them closer.

  They walked in silence now, not even talking when they paused for a drink of water.

  There was a steeliness about Damon now, and a harshness to his expression.

  He was getting ready for what was coming next – for what awaited them.

  He handed her the second Glock when they next stopped for water. He showed her how to turn the safety off and on and then suggested she shove it in the waistband of her shorts. There it sat, hard and angular against the small of her back – yet another stark reminder of the seriousness of their situation.

  It was about four in the morning when Damon pulled her behind a scrubby mulga bush.

  “It’s probably less than half a kilometre to the highway,” he said. “We’re easily more than a couple of kilometres from the driveway but on the side furthest from town. I don’t know how many Notechi Knife was able to get down here or how far down the highway he’ll station them. But they’ll be there.”

  Beth nodded.

  “We won’t be able to walk to town along the highway. One option is to get onto the land of the station across the highway and hike through it to the town, but it’s risky. We’ll still eventually have to emerge close to town, and I’m certain that’s where the Notechi will be most prevalent, because they know that’s where we’re heading.”

  “So, what will we do?”

  Damon met her gaze in the moonlight. “I’m going to steal one of the Notechi’s SUVs, or motorbikes. I probably need to nullify a couple of bikies to steal the vehicle, and I can’t have them hearing me approach, so I need you to hide until I get back.”

  “Here?” she asked, surprised – and also hating the idea of being apart from him, even as she understood the additional risk of having her with him. He was talking about using his Elite SWAT training, and as vital as she knew she’d been to their initial escape, this sounded a lot more complex than pretending to faint.

  “No, not here,” he said. “Much closer to the highway, so you can see me when I come back with the vehicle. But I don’t want us to be talking once we get close to the highway, so I’m telling you all this now.” He paused. “You okay with that?”

  She smiled. “Yes,” she said. “Let’s finish rescuing ourselves.”

  Briefly, his serious, focused expression broke into a grin.

  Then it was gone. “Ready to do this?” he asked.

  She nodded again. As ready to walk into a nest of Notechis as she’d ever be.

  Damon left her not even ten metres from the edge of the bitumen highway. It was still dark, and of course, out here there were no street lights. It wasn’t much of a highway, only one lane heading in each direction, but still, it was potentially their path to freedom. Beth realised she was glad to be here, even as she’d hiked here with such foreboding.

  That was because she realised, now was their chance.

  A chance that hadn’t existed while they were on Notechi land.

  But also, it was the sense of making it this far. She and Damon had done it. They’d hiked thirty kilometres with limited water or supplies and remained uncaptured.

  Now all they had to do was survive this last challenge.

  Beth was huddled close to a low mulga tree, more a shrub that a tree, and had angled her body so she could see the road, and hopefully soon – Damon’s arrival with their escape vehicle.

  He’d kissed her before he’d left, a quick, hard kiss because there was absolutely no time to linger, and Beth hoped with all she had that it was not their last kiss. Because she so wanted to kiss him again, and she wanted to kiss him again, and more, in a bed. Or anywhere really – a car, a kitchen table, the floor – didn’t matter. As long as they were safe.

  Where that fitted in with his undercover career, or the fact they had no future together … they were details she’d work out when they were safe. Because she couldn’t lie to herself – she needed Damon again. She needed what they’d done yesterday. She needed the way he’d made her feel: strong, and sexy, and wanted … desperately wanted … by him.
And she’d so desperately wanted him. It had been intoxicating. Addictive …

  Something hard was shoved against her temple, and Beth gasped as she instinctively scrambled away.

  “Don’t move,” a voice said. A familiar voice.

  Gaff.

  She looked up from where she crouched on the red dirt. He wore the same clothes as yesterday, and every line in his face exposed by the moonlight revealed exhaustion, anger – and desperation.

  Yes, Beth realised. Knife would be furious, and Gaff had been in charge. If Knife had had a man executed for almost feeling her up, she didn’t think Gaff had any chance of living at all.

  Except, she supposed, if he recaptured them.

  But she could not allow that to happen.

  “Where’s your boyfriend?” Gaff demanded.

  “I don’t know,” she said honestly.

  Gaff glanced up and down the highway, but it remained deserted. A breeze suddenly ruffled the leaves of the mulga shrub Beth still crouched beside and the tail of her untucked top fluttered against her skin.

  Her gun.

  Gaff didn’t know she had it, for it remained hidden in the back of her shorts, concealed by her long blouse.

  “You’re worthless, you know,” Gaff said conversationally as he looked down at her, holding the gun pointed at her skull. “Knife doesn’t want you for himself any more, he wants you dead. You and your boyfriend have caused him a lot of trouble.”

  Beth kept her breathing slow and steady and tried to remain calm as fear settled heavily in her stomach.

  She tried to look beyond Gaff, into the darkness of the desert. She could see little, but there didn’t appear to be anyone else here, only Gaff.

  “You’ve caused me a lot of trouble,” Gaff said, his words now laced with venom. He leant down, and when she shrunk away, his eyes gleamed as he relished her fear.

  But she’d moved not entirely involuntarily, although sheer terror had certainly had a part to play. But as she’d slid away, she’d moved her right hand behind herself, resting on the ground, tantalisingly close to the Glock.

  “So, much trouble,” Gaff continued, his gaze sliding down her body. “You know, I like my women willing. I would’ve left you to the others if you hadn’t run away. I wouldn’t have touched you.”

  He said it like he expected her to be grateful he’d sit back and allow other men to rape her.

  She remained silent, her gaze still on the gun pointed at her.

  “Even now I’ve got you, and I’ll get fucking Frawley too when he comes back for you, I’m probably still dead. And I was so close. I had plans, lady. Big plans, without Knife, without the Notechi. I don’t need this fucking motorcycle club. I’m bigger than this, I’m bigger than Knife.”

  “Then why don’t you go?” she said. “Why’d you come back?”

  “Because the Notechi always find you. If I run, I’m dead. If I stay, maybe I’m not.” He lowered the gun, then with his other hand, popped open the button of his jeans. “Don’t you think you can talk me into leaving you here, lady. I’m going to shoot you, don’t you worry. I’m just going to have a play with you first.”

  He slid down his fly, and Beth shook her head. “No,” she shouted, scooting and twisting away.

  He raised the gun again. “Don’t fucking move. Your boyfriend’s gone to find a car or something, right? Well, it’s a fucking long walk to the closest car, he isn’t going to hear you.”

  He dropped to his knees and grabbed her by the front waistband of her shorts, yanking her towards him as he leant over her.

  She struggled, and Gaff laughed as he tried to unzip her shorts with one hand as she wriggled and twisted. The whole time her gaze remained fixated on his gun, but he didn’t lower it, keeping his gun hand clear as he fumbled at her clothing.

  But as she struggled, she got her hand under her shirt, and a moment later, her fingers gripped around the handle of the Glock. Urgently she tried to take off the safety, praying like hell she didn’t shoot herself in the process, just as Gaff finally managed to unzip her shorts and his disgusting fingers grabbed at the lace of her knickers. But as he did so, he lowered his gun hand, distracted by his task.

  Knowing this may be the only opening she had, she moved quickly and withdrew her gun, not allowing herself to think too much about what she was going to do. Almost the moment it emerged from behind her hips and before Gaff could possibly comprehend what she was doing – she fired.

  Gaff screamed and staggered backwards before falling to the ground.

  Beth jumped to her feet and kicked his gun hand with all her might, and the weapon skittered in spinning circles into the darkness. Then she turned, stood above Gaff and the bloody hole she’d put just below his collarbone, and pointed the gun at his head.

  “Don’t move,” she said.

  Damon tied the unconscious Notechi’s wrists together with the man’s own belt – and lamented the fact he couldn’t have done the world a favour and just killed the useless man, rather than simply suffocating him to the point of unconsciousness. But alas, as a police officer, it wasn’t that straightforward, and besides – the paperwork would be a bitch.

  He’d found the man maybe a kilometre up the highway. He’d been stationed alone – and with no vehicle in sight, unfortunately. Although the man hadn’t noticed him in the darkness, Damon didn’t even consider skirting around him and continuing on his way – he couldn’t be leaving an armed bikie this close to Beth. And the man still hadn’t noticed him as he’d approached, not until Damon’s hands were around his throat, and by then, it was far too late.

  It was as he dragged the man back from the edge of the highway that Damon heard the gunshot.

  A gunshot that came, without question, from where he’d left Beth.

  Terror gripped him, and he ran as fast as he could down the side of the highway, not bothering to try to hide in the scrub, uncaring about anything except Beth.

  His boots were loud on the gravel verge, and stones flung up behind him with every step he ran. His heart beat just as loudly, in fact he was sure it would pound out of his chest as he ran, and ran, and ran – all the time knowing it would take long minutes to reach Beth, and that he may already be too late.

  Why had he left her there?

  All his logical planning – and he’d had hours to plan as he’d trekked across the desert – had told him she was safer staying still. He knew how to stalk bad guys, and Beth didn’t, and he was more vulnerable if he had to worry about protecting her as well as nullifying the Notechi.

  Plus, he’d been certain they were far further north of Laverton than Knife would ever suspect, and it was highly unlikely that he’d have enough Notechi mobilised to cover such a huge swathe of highway.

  But he’d been wrong.

  He’d been fucking wrong, and Beth could be dead because of his mistake.

  He slowed as he approached where he’d left Beth – belatedly realising that if she was alive, he was of absolutely no use to her dead. He couldn’t just run straight up to where he’d left her. He needed to fucking calm down, and be smart about this. He needed to—

  “Damon!”

  It was Beth, her shout loud and clear in the still night air.

  “Beth?” He said, hardly believing it could be her. “Are you okay?”

  Her voice came from just down the road, from where he left her, but he still couldn’t see her.

  “I’m fine,” she said. “I actually am. We should’ve come up with some sort of code so you knew I wasn’t being coerced to say that, right?”

  He laughed. “That’s good enough.”

  Because he knew she was smart enough to have told him, just then, if this was a trap. She would’ve found a way, because she was Bethwyn Banfield, and she was fucking magnificent.

  He broke into a sprint again, covering the remaining distance in seconds – to find Beth standing straight and tall above a bleeding body, her cheeks shiny with tears – her gun pointed steadily at the body’s head
.

  He stepped closer. It was Gaff. Blood spread in a puddle beneath the unconscious man.

  “He was going to rape me,” she said softly.

  Damon kicked Gaff, right in his side near the bullet wound. The man screamed, and came to – just for a second – then collapsed back into unconsciousness.

  “Did he hurt you?” Damon said viciously. “Because if he hurt you, I’m going to finish what you started.”

  Beth raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t think the police are big on vigilante justice.”

  “I don’t care,” Damon said, and meant it.

  “He didn’t get a chance,” Beth said. “I’m fine, I promise. I shot him before he could do anything.”

  He looked her over, and she looked – perfect. Strong, and brave, and determined.

  He stepped over Gaff’s body to reach for her, and tug her tight against him. She immediately melted into him, curling her spare hand up behind his neck and pulling him down for a kiss.

  They kissed with all the fear and relief of the past few minutes, and Damon could taste the salt of Beth’s tears on his tongue. He broke their kiss to look at her, the early dawn light making it easier for him to study her face.

  “You are incredible,” he said.

  “I was terrified,” she said.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, kissing her again. “I’m so sorry.”

  Now she pulled back. “What for? I agreed with the plan, you know. I knew my skills didn’t stretch to hijacking SUVs.”

  He kissed her again, and again, and again, and they were both smiling.

  “We need to go,” he said. “The gunshot wouldn’t have just drawn me.”

  The sound of an approaching car proved his point, and he grabbed their backpack from beside the mulga where Beth had left it, and they both ran for cover further from the road, bunkering down behind a spinifex bush only moments before a car pulled onto the side of the highway.

  Out of the car came two Notechis, both with guns drawn. They moved slowly, their gazes swinging left to right as they surveyed the trees and scrub. They seemed completely unaware how vulnerable they were – literally sitting ducks for Damon. He gripped the gun in his hand, his finger soft on the trigger.