Hunted

by Velvet Vaughn

  He paused when they reached the top of the steps to carefully peer into the storage area. It was clear. He did the same before stepping into the alley. The cloud of black still covered the sky and he prayed there were no gasses in there yet besides the carbon from the fires. When they stumbled upon another alley that crossed theirs, he guided them down it, sticking close to the buildings. So far, they hadn’t seen any other people.

  When they came to a break between buildings that would provide cover, he led Harlow inside. He needed his hands free. He sat Duke on the ground and let him sniff the scrub bush and hike his leg. Sliding off the backpack, he pulled out the baby sling he’d grabbed from the store and once Duke was finished with his business, he picked him up and placed him so that his arms and legs were free, and then he tied the ends around his neck. He looked at Harlow to ask for her help, but she was staring at him with a hand over her heart, tears in her eyes.

  “What?”

  “That’s so sweet.”

  “Not sweet. Necessary. Tie this behind my back.”

  She took the ends and secured it in place. “We can take turns carrying him like this.” She walked in front of him and smiled wistfully. “He’s so happy.” She scrubbed the dog’s ears. Sawyer rolled his eyes.

  “Before we get going again, I need to call Grant and Wyatt and tell them to stay the hell away from the city.” He extracted the sat phone and dialed Grant’s line.

  “Where are you?” he asked in lieu of a greeting when his coworker picked up.

  “About a hundred klicks from La Grande, stuck in a traffic jam on what can only be described as a bike path. People are trying to get out of the city. It’s like we’re a salmon swimming upstream against the flow.”

  “Turn around and head back.”

  “Why? Where are you?”

  “We’re still in the heart of La Grande. We haven’t been able to get out yet, but the soldiers are now donning gas masks and we overheard them talking about gassing the city. Sarin.”

  “Damn,” Grant drawled. “One of the deadliest gasses.”

  “Listen, I don’t know how reliable the source, but it’s possible the gas is stored in a tank truck parked at Municipal Airport. We need to alert the authorities. They can stop it before it’s released tonight…wait, I’m not sure who the authorities are now.”

  “We’re close to Municipal,” Grant said. “We’ll head there now and figure out who to contact.”

  “Be careful,” Sawyer warned. “Find some masks if you can. Keep me posted.”

  “Where are they?” Harlow asked once he stowed the phone.

  “They were coming back, but they’re detouring to the airport to try to stop the release of the gas.”

  “I hope they can. There’s no reason to kill so many innocent people.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Sawyer ripped strips from a t-shirt and fashioned masks for them to cover their noses and mouths. He even made one for Duke. The dog didn’t so much as whimper as Harlow fastened it to his muzzle. Duke had gone from listless and lethargic to awake and well, not frisky, but he was definitely more alert with a belly full of puppy chow.

  “Stay close,” Sawyer ordered as he entered the alley. Harlow almost told him not to worry…she planned on being a barnacle to his ship. A thorn to his paw. A burr to his sock. The super to his glue. In other words, she wasn’t letting him go.

  The first thing she’d noticed when they stepped outside this morning was the lack of noise. It was eerily quiet. None of the sounds associated with a city were present. No rush-hour traffic or car horns or squealing tires, no chatter from people hurrying to work, no signs of civilization at all. The warning sirens had stopped blaring and the gunfire was blessedly silent. It was ominous, like emerging outside after Armageddon.

  Between the smoke and ash that blanketed the city and the unaccustomed contacts, her eyes felt gritty and sore. The stench even through the mask was almost unbearable. But the worst part of the experience was seeing the carnage that littered the streets. She couldn’t stop the horrified gasp. Dead bodies were lying everywhere, most riddled with bullet holes. Men. Women. Her stomach heaved when she spotted a smaller body. This was a nightmare.

  As if reading her mind, Sawyer leaned close. “Keep your head down and try not to look.”

  “It’s just so inhumane,” she choked through her tears. That these people who were just trying to make a living were reduced to collateral damage in a drug war was unconscionable. It looked like they gunned down anyone who moved, not caring if they were male or female, young or old. So many lives lost, families destroyed. The numbers could explode if Dominar managed to release the Sarin gas. And for what purpose? Drugs?

  Sawyer’s grip on her hand was the only thing keeping her from freaking out. He led them down the sidewalk, keeping close to the buildings. There were no other people milling about. She wondered about the man they’d left in the basement. Had he woken yet? And where was the rest of his crew? Had they had found him yet? She averted her eyes as they passed a cluster of bodies on the ground, but a flash of red had her gasping for breath. She jerked her hand from Sawyer’s and slammed it over her mouth.

  “No, no, no,” she chanted as she stumbled closer as if in a trance. In a country dominated by dark hair, the ginger tresses that caught her attention stood out like a beacon. The hair was the same shade and length of Carmen’s, right down to the unruly curls. The woman’s face was turned away, so she had to step over two other bodies to get a better look.

  Air rushed from her lungs when she realized it wasn’t her friend lying in a pool of congealed blood, her body riddled with bullet holes. She said a silent prayer for this woman and reached for Sawyer’s hand.

  “You okay?” he asked, his eyes full of concern.

  She nodded. “I saw the hair and I thought…I need to try to call Carmen again.”

  He glanced around the area. “We’ll have to wait until we’re someplace safe. We’re too exposed here.”

  “Okay.” Though she hated to delay contacting her friend, she trusted Sawyer. Her thoughts drifted back to Martha and Harold, the older couple from England who had been visiting Coslos to celebrate their fortieth wedding anniversary. So many years together was quite a feat and something to cherish. Yet, she’d been short with them, borderline rude. Now they might be buried beneath a pile of rubble thousands of miles from home. Would their bodies ever be found? Would their daughter ever know what happened to her mother and father? And what would it have hurt to have listened to Martha as she described happy times in Paris with her daughter? Self-loathing washed over her. She was failing everyone. She’d failed Carmen by abandoning her to who knew what fate. She’d failed Zoe by placing all the secrecy of her trip on her. She’d failed the English couple by brushing aside their pleasantries. And she’d failed Sawyer by exposing him to a war-torn country that might soon be blanketed by a biological weapon. Sarin gas. She shuddered.

  They made their way back to the walk so they could remain close to the buildings. The lack of any other people—living people she amended depressingly—was disconcerting. “Do you think the troops have left the city?”

  “No,” Sawyer said, crushing her hopes. “They’re still here. Most are probably sleeping off benders, like the group in the basement. But they are still around.”

  She was caught off-guard and almost cried out when he suddenly shoved her into an ingress of a building and then crowded her against the door and urged her to the ground. She wanted to ask him what was going on. She couldn’t see a thing. His big body blocked her view. Duke’s eyes were round, and she rubbed his head and crooned softly to comfort him.

  After what seemed like hours, the ground quaked, followed by the heavy grinding rumble that signaled a tank rolling slowly past their hiding space. He was right. The troops hadn’t left the city.

  “Just a few more minutes,” he whispered in her ear. “We’ll wait until it’s out of sight.”

  She nodded as she continued to rub Du
ke’s head and stare at Sawyer’s serious face. When she’d first met him during the ordeal with Zoe’s kidnapping, he’d been clean-cut, casually-dressed and staggeringly handsome. No matter the situation, he’d seemed unflappable. He still did, but now, with his blond hair sticking up at odd angles, his face sporting a couple of days of light-colored whiskers that she wanted to run her fingers over, a black t-shirt that clung to his bulging, hard muscles and stained cargo pants, he was still the most beautiful man she’d ever met. She would happily sit here all day if he was with her.

  “All clear.”

  Sawyer helped her to her feet and then grasped her hand. As they darted across the road, she caught a glimpse of the tank several blocks away. She tried to ignore the river of red that flowed in the gutters like rain water but her stomach cramped painfully. She couldn’t pretend it was anything other than it was…lives lost.

  Windows were shot out of most of the buildings they passed…the ones that were still standing. Sawyer guided her down another alley and they had to dodge large chunks of boulders and wreckage as they navigated through the small passageway.

  She’d been watching her feet when Sawyer suddenly jerked to a stop, causing her to stumble. He caught her before she could fall. “Thank y—” The words died on her lips at the severe look on his face. She slowly turned to follow his gaze. That’s when she noticed the man blocking their path and the shotgun aimed directly at them.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Give me your money and your supplies,” the man holding the gun demanded in Spanish.

  He was almost painfully thin and his ragged clothes were soiled and tattered. A scraggly gray beard covered his face. His hair was unwashed and unkempt. He wasn’t one of the Dominar soldiers. He looked like he lived on the streets.

  He also looked twitchy and his finger so close to the trigger was a problem.

  Sawyer shoved Harlow behind him and held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. If the man accidently squeezed the trigger, he didn’t want her in the line of fire. “Okay, friend, I’ll do what you want, but you have to lower the gun,” he replied in Spanish.

  A low rumble sounded and at first, Sawyer couldn’t figure out where it was coming from. Then he realized it was Duke growling. It was a low, menacing sound. Other than the whimpers that alerted them to his presence, it was the first noise the dog had made since they’d rescued him. Sawyer felt like a proud papa when a kid said his first words. He stroked the dog’s head to calm him. But damn, he was in the line of fire, too. He carefully lifted him from the sling.

  The vagrant gestured with the gun. “That dog ain’t going to eat me, is he?”

  “Not if you lower the gun.” He handed Duke to Harlow as the man slowly dropped his hand. As soon as the barrel was pointed to the ground, Sawyer stepped forward and quickly disarmed him.

  The beggar’s shoulders slumped in defeat. Sawyer checked the weapon. The gun was old and in bad shape…and unloaded. Even if it had been stocked with bullets, he didn’t think it would fire. He handed it back to him. He might need it if he came across soldiers. It wouldn’t stop them, but it might slow them down.

  “Are you hungry, sir?” Harlow asked gently as she came up beside him. The man had just held a gun on her and she was worried about his diet?

  The man nodded.

  “Bend down a little,” Harlow instructed Sawyer. Then she rooted around inside his backpack and came up with a stash of energy bars and two boxes of crackers. He wanted to be mad at her, but he was about to ask the man the same thing.

  “You need to get out of the city right now,” Sawyer told him as he greedily accepted the bounty from Harlow.

  “Don’t have anywhere else to go,” he muttered as he ripped the wrapper off one of the bars.

  “Doesn’t matter. The people who overthrew the government are planning on releasing deadly poison in the air. It will kill anyone within the city.”

  “Lived here all my life,” the man garbled around a mouthful. “Take my chances,” he added as he shuffled away.

  “Sawyer, we have to stop him. He can come with us.”

  He grabbed her hand. “Stop, Harlow. He doesn’t want to come. We can’t force him. We warned him and told him what to expect. That’s all we can do.”

  She sighed as she watched until the man disappeared around a corner. Still holding her hand, he urged her onward. They needed to make tracks.

  He’d wanted to wait until night, or at least dusk, before they ventured out, but the threat of a chemical attack dramatically pushed up his timeline. As it was, their trip was slow-going as they stuck to the shadows as much as possible and had to maneuver around the carnage from the bombings and gunfire.

  Smoke hung thick and heavy, giving the city an apocalyptic feel. Added with the human remains littering the streets, he truly felt like they’d stepped into a post-war world.

  They approached a small road off the alley and he paused to make sure it was safe to cross. Seeing nothing except detritus, he guided Harlow across.

  “Ayuadame.”

  Help me. He barely heard the softly uttered words as they passed. They needed to keep going to get out of town, but he couldn’t ignore the plea.

  “Harlow, wait right here.”

  He eased back and saw feet protruding from behind a boulder. He palmed his gun and ventured closer. A man was lying on the ground with his head propped against the wall of a building. He couldn’t be older than twenty or twenty-one and he was riddled with bullet holes.

  Sawyer tugged down the mask that covered his face and crouched down. He clasped the man’s outreached hand. “Hey.”

  “You will help me?”

  “Yes,” Sawyer lied. There was nothing he could do for him now except stay with him as he took his last breath. He heard a soft gasp and then Harlow crouched down beside him. He shouldn’t be surprised she hadn’t listened to him.

  She brushed the tawny brown hair from the man’s forehead. “We have to help him. Stop the bleeding.”

  He didn’t want to tell her that the bleeding had all but stopped, along with the man’s heart.

  “Tell my mother I love her,” the man whispered. After one last shuddering breath, his eyes drifted closed and his head lulled to the side. Sawyer felt a sickness in his stomach and he barely kept the energy bar he’d consumed earlier down. So much havoc. Death. And for what? So a few sick individuals could get high?

  He helped her to her feet and pulled her into his arms, careful not to crush Duke. “Honey, there was nothing we could’ve done for him, except hold his hand. I don’t know how he hung on so long.”

  “I hate this.” Her voice was watery, and he knew she was battling tears. “He was so young.”

  “I know.”

  He hated that she had to witness this devastation. If it were up to him, she’d be kept away from all the evils of the world. She was too beautiful, too special to be touched by the horror that men could inflict on each other. It wasn’t realistic or rational, but he couldn’t help how he felt. He wanted to protect her. Always.

  They continued down the alley, the smell of fire and death hanging heavy in the air. With the haze that covered the city, it was hard to tell which way they were going, but his internal compass told him they were getting close to the main artery through La Grande. They’d need to cross it to continue to their destination. It was where they were the most likely to encounter any troops patrolling the streets. And once they crossed over, there would be no more alleys to traverse. They’d be more out in the open on the street, but there was no other way to get to where they needed to be.

  One hand held Harlow’s, the other his weapon as they approached the thoroughfare. It wasn’t until they were almost to the road that he spotted the man standing with his back to them, a rifle slung across his back. One shoulder was propped against a building and he was smoking a cigarette. All it would take would be one glance over his shoulder and they were as good as dead.

  Sawyer held a finger to his lips and slipp
ed Duke from the harness. She accepted the dog and when he held a palm up in a stop gesture, meaning he wanted her to stay put, she nodded in agreement. Whether she’d actually follow through was another story.

  With measured steps, he ghosted up behind the man, stashed his gun in the waistband of his cargo pants and then leapt forward. One hand covered the man’s mouth so he couldn’t shout out and alert his friends, the other bracketed his neck, cutting off his air. Sawyer didn’t want to have to kill the man, but he needed to incapacitate him. The best way to do that was to render him unconscious.

  The man grabbed uselessly at Sawyer’s arm, trying to pry it loose enough to breathe, but Sawyer was relentless. The man’s grip eased and his knees buckled. Sawyer helped him to the ground and motioned Harlow forward. She was beside him in an instant. Grabbing her hand, he checked both directions and then dashed across the street.

  He was just about to breathe a sigh of relief that they’d made it when they came face-to-face with a gun-wielding man.

  This one wasn’t a harmless vagrant, but a well-armed soldier.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “We need to get to Municipal Airport,” Grant told Wyatt as he dodged another car headed directly at them. The highway was barely wide enough for one car, let alone two. And with the crush of traffic trying to flee La Grande, he hadn’t been exaggerating when he told Sawyer it was like trying to swim upstream against the current.

  “Why Municipal?” Wyatt expertly avoided another collision when a rusted blue truck rounded the bend, taking up more than his share of the road.

  “Dominar has a stash of Sarin gas.”

  Wyatt’s gaze snapped to him. “Sarin?”

  “Watch the road!”

  Wyatt jerked the wheel just before they slammed into a tree. That was close.

  “Sawyer overheard soldiers talking about gassing the city. I don’t know how he found out, but it’s stored in a tanker at the airport.”