Hiking for Danger

by Capri Montgomery

  “Fine,” Stacey barked as she shoved her friend Nikita forward.

  “Hold up,” Cody snapped because he should be the one in front, but Nikita didn’t listen to him over her friend’s insistence that she move forward.

  “I said hold up!”

  Nikita took one more step forward and a spring snapped, a wall of spikes popped up and sliced right into her. Everybody screamed, including Sahara.

  “Jesus!” Parker growled. “How the hell did they get that there?”

  “I’m guessing they planned this. They had all night to set this mess up and we wouldn’t have even known about it. And if they have been tracking our movements for longer than that they could have planned this whole thing.”

  “This was the quickest path down,” Parker mumbled.

  This was their only path down from this angle, other than the steepest segment over the ridge that he knew Sahara wouldn’t be able to make no matter how much support she had. He brushed his hand through his hair. “Okay, Parker, you take them and head down Devil’s Drop.”

  “What about you?”

  “I’m going to take Sahara down the long way. We’ll have to go up first. When you get to the bottom you get us help.”

  “I’m not cool leaving you, Cody.”

  “I know, but you have to get them down and we can’t risk going that way. She won’t make it down Devil’s Drop.”

  “I can help her,” Shell said and his father protested.

  “Thanks,” Cody nodded. “But you won’t be able to help her. You’re going to barely be able to hold yourself up. Take them down Parker, and send us help.”

  “Cody, just leave me,” she said.

  “No,” he bit out the words. He didn’t know how many times he could tell her he was not leaving her. “Now stop wasting energy on arguing with me,” he set his sights on her, locking eyes with her and seeing her defiance. “You’re going to need that energy for the journey ahead of us.” Her shoulders relaxed and she nodded her understanding. He wasn’t leaving anybody behind and she finally seemed to understand that.

  As they started their ascent Sahara couldn’t help but think about the others. She seriously hoped they made it down safely, not just because they were their beacon of hope, but because Cody and Parker made it sound as if the way they were going wouldn’t be much easier than the way he was taking her. If it wasn’t for her ankle they could have stuck together. If it weren’t for Stacey then her ankle wouldn’t be in the condition it was in. Still, despite her anger she could only feel sorry for the young woman. To see her friend die like that had torn her apart. The last thing Sahara remembered seeing was Donald Baker pulling her up to her feet and encouraging her to walk. She was sobbing hysterically, maybe part of it was watching her friend die, but the other part was probably because she knew part of what happened was her fault. If she hadn’t pushed Nikki onward then she wouldn’t have sprung that trap. On the other end of that had they kept going somebody was bound to spring it. Cody knew about avoiding traps, but that was usually any misplaced hunter’s traps. Since the section he was a ranger for didn’t allow trapping he would spring the traps and remove them, at least that’s what he had told her while they were talking about his job as a ranger.

  “What are you contemplating?”

  His deep, sexy voice lulled her out of her analytical musings. “The situation,” she hadn’t felt a need to lie about it. Clearly they were both thinking about things. Cody was probably trying to figure out how he was going to stay alive while he tried to help her support her weight. She was slowing him down. “You should have left me and gone with them,” she would feel guilty if he died because of her.

  “Wasn’t going to happen then and it’s not going to happen now.”

  The anger in his voice told her he was not in the mood for more of this conversation. “I know,” she sighed. “It’s just…I don’t want you to die because of me.”

  “We’re not going to die. And if, by some off chance, the bastards do kill me it won’t be your fault. Now stop doing that, stop blaming yourself for something you have no control over.”

  She nodded. His words were accurate but that didn’t mean they made her feel any better. She liked this guy—a lot actually. He was sexy and brazen and smart, but beyond that he was a man—a real man like the kind she thought died out a long time ago. He was chivalrous without being controlling. He had enough finesses with brawn to make him effective in the situations they had encountered. He had restraint, which she thought was admirable. She hadn’t missed the rage in his eyes when Stacey had caused her injury. She didn’t think that was because she was hurt; she figured it was because he wanted order, discipline and adults, not children masquerading in an adult body. Despite that rage he still held back. She had no misgivings that the words he uttered were severely curtailed.

  “Do you think they’re still behind us,” she held on to his waist as he had instructed her to do. He could get so much farther and faster without her hanging on to him.

  “Yeah, I’m sure at least one of them is behind us. I just don’t know how many are out there.”

  She nodded. “Maybe you should leave me over—” She held up her hand to cut off his protest. “Over there,” she pointed, “or someplace safe so that you can circle back and see.”

  “Sahara,” he admonished.

  “Look, Cody, right now we’re being hunted. Why don’t we start chasing them?”

  He laughed sarcastically. “And what am I supposed to do if I find one of them? I don’t have a gun. While I can street box I don’t think my fists will stop a bullet. We need to…”

  “Change the game,” she said and she knew that he knew she was right. “Stop being the hunted. It’s like ants really—”

  He laughed softly. “We’re ants or they are?”

  She rolled her eyes and shook her head. “In ant colonies the females are the ones that do all the work and protect the nest from enemies—except the queen of course because she has the job of reproducing.”

  “And the others don’t?”

  “No, only the queen produces eggs.”

  “I never paid attention to that part of science classes,” he admitted. “That’s one busy queen.”

  She laughed. “Sometimes there is more than one queen per nest and sometimes there aren’t. My point is,” she stressed. “I can’t protect us because of my ankle so I’ll have to take the place of the queen ant in this scenario.”

  “I am not having a sex change,” he joked. How could he joke at a time like this?

  She sighed. “Cody,” she glared up at him, but he kept his focus ahead of them.

  “So how do you know the males from the females?”

  Would he let her finish her comparison already? “The males are usually smaller than the females…”

  “That’s not us,” he winked at her.

  “And they, along with the queen are the only ones that have wings. Now stop interrupting me. I had a point I was trying to make.”

  “Make it faster,” he teased. “No, tell me more about these ants. I find it fascinating.”

  “Liar,” she rolled her eyes again.

  “Are they all the same?”

  “Seriously,” she huffed. “Fine, there are over eleven thousand species worldwide. Now point is this…”

  “So do you study ants?”

  “I study bugs,” she snapped. “You know the male ants die as soon as they mate…in your case I might strangle you sooner.”

  He laughed. He actually laughed. She was so glad he could find the situation funny even though she was freaking out. “Stop doing that Cody. I’m just trying to say that when a nest is threatened, just like wasp and bees and some of the other insects they don’t hide. They send out an army to protect what’s theirs.”

  “We don’t have an army. While one call to Gavin could get me some help in here I know it’s not going to happen because one, we don’t have reception at this level, and two, it would take too long for him to ge
t here in relation to the threat.”

  “So we’ll have to be our own army. We can’t keep running. One of them is bound to catch up with us eventually.”

  “So are there ants like in the movies where they eat people? Is that possible?”

  “Those are Army ants and yes, enough of them can take down a large animal. Now enough with the gosh darn ants already!”

  “You brought them up.”

  “Well I’m sorry I did,” she mumbled.

  “Look,” he said seriously. “I know you’re right. I know we can’t stay on the run, but there is nowhere safe out here for me to put you. In case you haven’t noticed the scene around you there is no coverage. Even if I found a cave I could guarantee you it’s home to a bear so that leaves the open spaces and he, whomever he is, can come at you from any direction and kill you before I can get back to you.”

  “They don’t want me dead.”

  “Just because they wanted you put someplace safe does not mean they aren’t planning to kill you.”

  “They’re not,” she told him.

  “Yeah, are you psychic now too?”

  “No, observant. They’re hunters. They want the chase, the sport, the challenge. An injured woman is not a good hunt. They would wait until I healed before they hunted me, which means even if they got me you would have time to get me back.”

  He growled low. “No. We will not use you as bait.”

  She wasn’t saying use her as bait. She was saying he needed to go on the hunt and stop being the hunted.

  “We’re not insects, Sahara. It’s time you realize humans have more intelligence than an insect.”

  She snorted. “No they don’t. From what I have learned over the years, insects will protect their home and their queen. Humans, on the other hand, seem too eager to destroy everything.”

  “Not all humans.”

  She nodded. “Most,” she said softly. “I can’t even watch the news, Cody. It’s like every time I turn it on somebody has been murdered. No matter where you go you just can’t get away from crazy—not even out here. This place is so beautiful and peaceful and look at what happens. The beasts in this forest isn’t the four legged kind, it’s the two legged kind—humans, who will kill anything just to make themselves feel larger and more important than they’ll ever be.”

  “Sahara, there are a lot of crazy people out there, but that’s not everybody—it’s just the ones the news decides to talk about. Come out of your lab and study the better half of humanity for a change.”

  “If you find it, show it to me.”

  “Hey!”

  She smiled. “You and Parker are not included in that philosophical debate—neither is Shell. You know what I like about insects, especially bees and ants, is that they’re social insects. They live together as a family and work together for the good of the colony. Humans could take a page out of that book and learn from it. You, Parker and Shell were the only ones not willing to bury a hatchet in my back to save your lives.”

  “You seemed willing to do that on your own to me.”

  “To save yours,” she said without thinking. “I mean…”

  “You wanted to save me? You were going to leave yourself alone out here without any support just to save a man you barely know.”

  When he said it like that it did sound crazy. In fact, when she thought about it that’s exactly what some of the ants would do—sacrifice themselves to save the colony. Perhaps humans and ants were more alike than she readily admitted. Maybe her next research project should bring in a psychologist and they could study the correlation of ant and human ways of being.

  “Woman,” he tightened his hold on her, “you have a much bigger heart than I thought. I could fall in love with you.” He didn’t seem to be trying to hide his words or cover over them as if he had made a mistake. No, he meant to say them. He wanted her to know his affection for her thus far and that he thought it could grow into something more. Ironically, she wanted it to develop into something more.

  “I could fall in love with you too,” she said softly. She really could fall in love with him.

  “So, about these ants,” he said casually. “What exactly does the male ant do other than dying after mating?”

  She laughed. “It really depends on the species but for the most part eat, mate and die. The female breeders have the better luck as they, depending on the species, sometimes get to mate with more than one. Sometimes ten!”

  “Well if we mate you will not be mating with ten others,” he told her.

  “And you won’t be dying afterward either,” she mumbled.

  “That I won’t,” he winked. “So why ants?”

  “For my analogy?”

  “No, I get your analogy I just won’t be caving to your demand for me to leave you somewhere. Why did you decide to study ants?”

  “Actually my focus was their relative—the wasp. And of course I studied bees. But at some point you have to pick a focus if you plan to reach expert status so I picked the wasp. Along the way I did extensive ant research as well since they’re relatives and all. But when I was growing up I studied a lot of bugs. I just found them fascinating. But one must have focus right?”

  He shrugged. “I guess it depends on what your end goal is. If you want to be an expert at something then focus is needed, although I think you can do more than one thing at a time. But if you just want to learn all that you can then I suppose at some point it would be okay to change direction.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I said I think it would be okay to change direction.”

  She had wanted to do that. She had been thinking of doing it. But for what she did, for the grants she received it didn’t leave room to study every insect known to man. She was grounded to duty, anchored to responsible adulthood. When she entered the world of college they demanded she focus and so she focused. She wouldn’t say that was bad. Her career was strong. She had published multiple papers and gotten several grants, but she missed that girl—the one who could look at any insect and be captivated for days.

  “What are you thinking about now? Did I upset you or something? Because you’ve gone quiet again.”

  She smiled. “No. You just said something I have wanted to do for a few years now—change direction.”

  “You want to leave entomology?”

  “No. I just wanted to study something else—another insect.”

  “Oh yeah, which one?”

  “Well I have always been a bit fascinated with the Acrididae family, particularly the Nomadracis septemfasciata.”

  “Should I even ask what that is?”

  She laughed. There was something strange about how relaxed she had become talking to him while something was hunting them, but then she gathered that’s why he was trying to keep her talking. He probably noticed her blood pressure was through the roof from stress and worry and she was two shakes away from stressing herself into a stroke. “The red locust,” she said. “Locusts are part of the Acrididae family. All locust are grasshoppers but not all grasshoppers are locust—now isn’t that cool?” She giggled. She had always been fascinated with that topic. “I might study the Nomadracis septemfasciata or the Chortoicetes Terminifera—the Australian Plague Locust. They both interest me. Of course I only really dreamed of making the change. I don’t think I have the courage to walk away from what I do now.”

  “Sure you do,” he told her. “Life is too short not to do what you love. Your interests are elsewhere so why not spread your wings and fly, grasshopper?” He looked at her and winked.

  She laughed. “If I have wings I can use to fly then I’m for sure a locust, Ranger.” She gave him her best attempt at a sultry voice when she called him Ranger. “Well actually some grasshoppers can fly, but some have wings and can’t use them to fly whereas a locust…” She looked at the way he had been watching her while they walked. “What?”

  “That settles it—you’re too fascinated with locust to not be studying them. You sh
ould definitely consider a change of direction when you get home.”

  He was right, and perhaps that scared her because in so little time he had assessed her passion and summed up her fear of not going for what interested her as being crazy. “Just do it,” was his mantra and she needed to adopt it for herself too.

  “So, Locust Lady—”

  “Don’t even go there,” she glared at him and all he did was smirk.

  “I saw this movie once where they ate people. Can they do that?”

  She laughed hard. “You watch way too much science fiction…but you know I saw that movie too. It was good.” She looked up at him. “You already know half this stuff don’t you?”

  “I know a little, but not a lot. You’re educating me…but yeah, I know they don’t eat people.”

  “Well, you never know. One day what they eat might be scares and they’ll have to change direction.”

  “Oh God no. Changing direction is not always a good thing.”

  She smiled at the worried expression on his face. He was holding up with gun toting men hunting them, but a little thing like flesh eating locust scared him? Now that was priceless. “Did you see the movie with the worms?”

  “Honey, I lived on science fiction novels and movies as a kid. Other than studying everything I could on nature, hiking, surviving the wilderness, science fiction definitely kept me entertained. The one with the ants got to me though. I can’t even see an ant without wanting to kill it.”

  She wasn’t sure which movie he was referencing since there were so many. “You know the scary part is that that really could happen. There are ants that when in a swarm can and will take down large animals. When we survive this you should come to dinner with me and I’ll tell you more.” She had just, in a very strange way, asked him out. Why was she still nervous around this man? Clearly he liked her—at least a little anyway.

  “Dinner—yes. Talk of man eating ants—no. Sorry honey but that’s a real mood killer for me.”

  She snickered. “Well we wouldn’t want to kill your mood now would we?” She heard the sound before she felt a sting in her shoulder. “Cody?” She felt her body going numb and her eyes closing. She felt herself falling and the last thing she remembered was hitting the ground and seeing Cody run away from her. He left her.