by Vivi Paige
“Heath, what’s bothering you so much?”
“Wade’s really mad,” he mumbled into his hands, shielding his face from view. “Wade’s so mad. I’m sorry, Ella. He’s just so mad.”
“Calm down,” I said. “Whatever bad thing you’re dreading, it hasn’t happened yet. You can still stop it.”
“I can’t,” he said, moving his hands away from his face and staring right at me with dark green eyes. “I can’t betray my brothers. I’m so sorry… Hey, what the hell happened to the cricket? Did you squish it?”
“No, I think the rat ate it,” I said.
“Rat?” Heath paled by several shades, moving his legs in close under the chair and staring around. “I don’t see a rat. Where’s a rat?”
As if on cue, the little docile creature crawled into my lap. It looked up at me, wriggling its nose. I noticed a tattoo on its foot, a barcode. And escaped lab rat? Could explain why it was so relaxed around humans.
“This rat,” I said. “You know, they’re actually not the vicious creatures people think they are.”
“Don’t touch it!” he hissed. “Diseases! Rabies! Little black soulless eyes! I hate rats.”
My eyes narrowed and I gathered my legs under me, lifting the rat carefully in both palms.
“What are you doing?” Heath asked, straining back in his seat as I approached him with the rat.
“This rat? He’s so cute. I think I’ll name him Gus.” I held him out toward Heath, and his eyes rolled back into his head. Heath slumped over in his seat, passed out cold.
“I’m real sorry I had to do that, Heath.” I only half-meant my apology. “Here’s your coat back. Okay?”
I felt like a total heel as I stripped his boots off. They were too big, but I layered on a few socks I found in his pack to make up for it. No way could I hike around the woods in heels.
The dress was sexy and upscale, but it was also impractical. I wound up tucking the skirt up between my legs and tying it off into an almost-genie pants configuration. Well, genie shorts.
I looked at the holstered pistol at Heath’s side but decided not to take it. I didn’t want to risk waking him.
I did steal a backpack, stuffing it with jerky and bottles of water, a flashlight, and for some reason a hammer. I was beginning to panic, worried the others might return at any moment.
When I went to zip the pack shut, I discovered a stowaway.
“All right, Gus,” I said. “What’s Cinderella without a friendly rat or two?”
I ventured outside into the dark woods. In the distance, above the treetops, I could see a glow of lights that was probably the woodland retreat. But it looked a good distance away, with several foothills between me and it.
I was a city kid, so my woods craft wasn’t exactly Bear Grylls level. But I knew moss generally grew on the north side of tree trunks from some movie, and anyway I would be safer in the woods than with mercenaries who seemed dubious about letting me survive my kidnapping, even the nice one.
Gus began chirruping madly, and dove deeper into the pack. I paused, eyes intent on the dark, and then I heard a snuffling groan.
A bear. Damn. The snapping of twigs and branches seemed to indicate it was approaching me. I broke into a run, choosing a narrow game trail that wound its way up the side of a foothill.
Legs made strong by working eighteen hours in a row propelled me up the incline while the bear chose a more direct path by breaking through the underbrush. My heart hammered in my chest. It seemed too surreal that I would escape from the mercenaries only to be eaten by a bear. My last thought was that no one would ever find my body, right before I spied a potential salvation.
On the top of the ridge was a narrow stream, more of a trickle, that ran out between a thin fissure in the cliff face. I believed I could wedge myself in between the fissure while the bear might not be able to follow. It was difficult to judge, but I could hear the thing growing closer behind me.
I raced up the last twelve feet and shot toward the fissure. Shoving my way inside, I splashed through the shallow water into musty dankness. The sunlight faded to a mere slender blade, which was snuffed out entirely when the shadow of the shaggy bear blocked the entrance.
It lashed in with a paw, but I was a good ten feet away. The bear shoved its head and forequarters into the fissure, and I screamed. This seemed to startle it and it loped a few feet away, staring back at me.
A pair of fuzzy, impossibly cute cubs hobbled up next to the big bear. I felt my blood run cold. A hungry brown bear would sometimes give up on a meal if it was too challenging, but not one that had cubs to feed.
I saw that in a movie too. I shivered in the fissure and wondered how anyone would ever find me before the bear dug me out.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The last of the party guests had departed, and the catering staff were finishing the cleanup. Navajo Joe stood in the kitchen, all six feet ten inches of him, munching on leftover duck. The glass he drank vodka from was smeared with the grease from his fingers.
“Are you sure it’s a good idea to, you know, down a vodka martini right before a fire fight?” I asked a bit petulantly.
Joe arched his eyebrow at me and grinned. “Actually, boy, it’s downright essential.” Joe called everyone but Lucian ‘boy’ or ‘girl.’ It was his thing, and I’d learned not to take offense at it. Make no mistake, if I told Joe to go and kill someone, that’s just what he’d do. But he’d be condescending and mean the entire time he did it. “Besides, I taught you everything you know about fighting.”
“Not everything. Will showed me how to handle big firearms.”
“Shit. Who needs a gun that can spit out a hundred bullets a second when you can do the job with just two? One to do the job, one to make sure.” He put his finger to his head and made a pop-pop sound with his lips. I laughed, and he turned a baleful eye my way. “What’s so funny?”
“I’m just thinking of the day my dad sent me to train with you,” I answered.
“Oh yeah? That’s one way to put it. The way I remember it, me and Lucy were getting drunk and you came up crying because you stubbed your toe. Lucy looked at me and said, ‘Go make him a man. He’s twelve.’”
“Yeah, and you sure as fuck tried,” I said bitterly. I knew I needed his help getting Ella back, so I dialed back my accusatory tone a notch or two. “I remember kissing the mud like a hundred times that day. You kept yelling at me to stop being a pussy and to get up and be a man.”
“Yeah, I did,” he said. “I didn’t kid glove you, Deryk, because I couldn’t. Look at your life. Look at what you’re about to do. Normal people don’t have to gear up with military contraband to go out and rescue their girlfriends from mercenaries. Your life is dangerous. You couldn’t afford to be weak. So yeah, I slapped you down, again and again, until your lips were bloody, and you didn’t know which way was up. But you know what, Deryk? You kept getting back up. Remember that?”
I thought back to that day, the rain pounding down on both of us, turning Joe’s t-shirt translucent and plastering my hair to my scalp. Despite the torrential downpour, I had been covered with mud.
“Come on, you whiny little shit,” Joe had shouted. “Take me off my feet.”
I had come at him again, grabbing him around the waist and trying to bowl him over with brute strength. Joe laughed, hardly having to splay his feet to prevent being unbalanced.
“The same thing for the hundredth time? Sure, why not?” He’d used his toes to hook behind my ankle and break my balance, sending me tumbling back into the mud again. “Come on, kid. You know that’s not the way.”
Joe wasn’t the most fashion-forward of people. At that point, he still had a faded pair of denim bell bottoms with more holes than Swiss cheese. I looked at those muddy bell bottoms, wiped the mud and blood off my face, and crawled through the muck to grab under the hem.
“The fuck are you doing?” Joe had said with a sputtering laugh. “Is that doggy style kung fu? You look like an a
ss. Get up before I kick the last of your baby teeth out your mouth.”
I’d grabbed the hems tightly and stood up with a lunge, hollering at the top of my lungs. Joe’s eyes went wide as he tumbled over backward into the mud.
He laughed, slapping the mud and sending up puddles.
“You did it, boy,” he’d said. “See? It ain’t about how many times you get knocked the fuck down. It’s how many times you get the fuck back up.”
“Hey, boy,” Joe said, snapping his fingers and bringing me back to the kitchen and out of memory. “Wake up. Did you hear what I said?”
“No,” I shook my head. “Sorry.”
“I said, did your daddy mention how many there would be opposing us?”
“Our current intel puts their number at seven. All of them multi-tour veterans and more than willing to break international law if it means getting the job done.”
“You sound like you admire them,” Joe murmured.
“Not at all. I don’t admire a goddamn thing about the people who stole my Ella,” I snapped. “They’re already dead to me.”
The sound of the front door opening heralded Will’s arrival. He came into the kitchen through the living area, carrying two heavy black duffel bags. He dropped them solidly onto the floor and then turned back for the still-open front door.
Will paused, looking over his muscled shoulder. “You guys gonna help unload this shit or just watch?”
We moved to help, moving pack after pack out of the bed of his black El Camino into the house.
I plied him with queries as we went. “Is everyone else in the family okay?”
“Yeah, looks like you’re the lucky one, Deryk. No one else has been targeted.”
“Yes, but why?”
“I think the answer likely lies with the person who hired them,” Will said.
“Someone who wants money.” Joe poured himself another shot. “Simple as that.”
I thought back to the phone call Ella had received, and my lips twitched into a snarl. Her stepmother, Agatha. It couldn’t be… but then again, it absolutely could.
“We’ll worry about who hired the Coachmen later.” I shook my head. “Right now, finding and rescuing Ella is the priority.”
Will unzipped a duffel bag and withdrew a black Kevlar vest. He threw it at me, and I struggled to catch the heavy weight.
“Put it on,” he ordered. “No arguments. Lucian’s orders.”
I slipped the vest on and then noticed that Will had brought one for himself and Joe as well. Joe struggled into the ill-fitting garment, grumbling the whole time.
“Try shoveling less duck into your gullet next time,” I joked.
He sneered at me, and then we proceeded to arm ourselves from Will’s potent armory. I selected a semi-automatic pistol, a tactical shotgun, and a semi-automatic hunting rifle. Will tossed me a survival knife in a sheath.
“Here, just in case it gets up close and personal.” I strapped the sheath to my thigh, and arched an eyebrow as Will took out a clunky-looking pair of goggles. “Night vision.” Then he handed one to me and one to Joe.
“Jesus Christ, boy,” Joe said, “where did you get all this stuff?”
“Around,” Will shrugged. “Don’t use it until we get out in the woods. You don’t want to be in bright illumination when it powers up.”
Will took the lead with Joe and me coming behind. We crept through the dense woods for roughly an hour, moving with stealth along a faded game trail.
Joe paused for a moment, his nose wrinkling.
“Bear spoor. A lot of it. There’s a couple of them here vying for territory, or maybe a mother and cubs.”
“Is it going to be a problem?” I asked the old Native American.
“Maybe. Keep your eyes and ears peeled.”
Will came back to see what the holdup was. He shrugged when we mentioned the bears. “If we see one, we’ll see how it likes AK-47 puppy chow. Let’s move.”
We continued on, up and down rises in the land. The night insects created a cacophony that drowned out the occasional snap of a twig or scuffle of boot on rock.
At length, Will told Joe and me to remain where we were in the shadow of a gnarled oak tree. He went off to scout ahead and returned shortly after.
“Okay,” he said, drawing in the dirt, which our goggles allowed us to see in monochrome. “Here’s the mill.”
Will drew a box in the dirt. “There’s good cover on three sides. I say we triangulate our fire by taking up positions here, here, and here.”
He indicated the spots by drawing circles in the dust.
“I’ll take out their generator first, which will give us the advantage since we have the goggles. With any luck, they’ll move out to engage.”
“What if they hole up where they’re at?” I asked.
“It would be a terrible strategy. They’ve pulled a George Washington and put themselves in a Fort Necessity situation. We have plenty of cover, and they have none. My hope is we’ll drive them out in fear for their lives.”
“Will, Ella might be in there.” I was nervous for my girl and how she’d come out of this.
“That’s why I’m going to take out the generator first. We should be able to make her out among the mercenaries. Just pick your shots carefully, move every so often so they can’t pin down your position, and I’ll rig up a Three Stooges.”
“Three Stooges?” I asked.
Joe grinned. “He means he will load three separate guns at different positions and rush between them, creating the illusion our numbers are greater than they are.”
“Just don’t shoot her. All right?” I felt nauseated at the idea of her being hurt.
“Man, you got it bad for her. Don’t you?” Will teased.
“Look who’s talking, Mr. Fall in Love with the Woman You Kidnapped. Isn’t that supposed to be Abductor Class 101? Not falling in love with your ‘targets’?”
Will shot me a withering look, but Joe laughed too hard for him to be able to say anything.
“Shut up, or you’ll alert the enemy,” Will snarled. “All right. Deryk, you’re here, Joe, you’re here, and I’ll take the middle.”
We moved into position like wraiths in the night. I gripped the hunting rifle, fearing what would happen if one of the massive shells were to demolish Ella’s slight form.
I didn’t even worry about bears, though I noticed signs of one’s passing. It looked like it had crashed up a hill recently. I hoped it had found something to eat and would leave us unmolested.
When we were in place, Will took out the generator with a single well-placed sniper round. There was a sharp bang, and the lights inside the mill went dark.
I waited. A man came to the door wielding a rifle. He was the only person I saw, no Ella, no other mercs.
My finger curled around the trigger, but instead of vengeance I wanted answers. I changed my crosshairs from his head to his shoulder. He’d probably need reconstructive surgery, but he’d be in shape to answer my questions.
I squeezed the trigger, but Will fired first. His shot cracked and the man’s head jerked to the side before he fell backward. My own bullet ripped into the doorframe, and I shuddered to think about its continued trajectory finding Ella’s soft body.
We waited for a long time, but no one else came out of the mill. Will crept his way down to the mill on his belly, wriggling like a snake from cover to cover. He peered in all the windows and then through the open door. He came back out and waved us to come over.
I stood up and moved carefully through the brush, knowing others might be about. Our gunfire had surely attracted attention. We came up into the mill and found the man surprisingly alive and not badly hurt. Will’s shot had dislodged a chunk of heavy wooden doorframe and knocked the man silly.
“Where’s the girl?” I sputtered, sitting on his chest and slapping him back to consciousness. “Where is she? Answer me.”
“I don’t know,” he said, blinking in confusion. “I didn’t see her
leave.”
“Lying sack of shit,” I said, drawing my hand back to strike him again. But Will grabbed my forearm.
“She’s not here. Joe thinks she made tracks up the eastern ridge. Let’s go while we can still catch up to her.”
“What about him?” I asked.
A shot rang out, and we all ducked for cover. The mercs were back.
“Go find your girl,” Will said, knocking the man out again with the butt of his rifle. “Joe and I will keep them distracted and then get our asses out of here.”
I nodded and crouch-walked toward the rear exit. “Thanks, Will. Don’t be a hero.”
“I won’t. Go find your woman,” he ordered.
I headed outside, running away from a hail of gunfire, determined to do just that.
Chapter Twenty-Four
I screamed as the bear shouldered more of its bulk inside the narrow fissure. All that remained of it beyond the enclosing rock walls were its hindquarters. So close, so close to being able to get me.
Gus sat up on my shoulder, wriggling his little nose and squeaking. He didn’t seem nearly as concerned as he should be.
“If you’re the same rat that trained those ninja turtles, now would be a nice time to use the turtle signal and bring them here.” I laughed, nearly hysterical. I grabbed a clump of dirt and threw it at the bear’s face. It impacted near the black glistening nose, and it retreated for a moment before coming back.
“Mauled to death by a bear. Never saw this one coming.” Then I paused, straining my ears. Was that gunfire?
The bear didn’t seem to notice or care, intent on digging me out to feed her cubs. But then I heard something else, which did make the bear take notice.
“Ella,” Deryk shouted, from what sounded like quite nearby. “Ella.”
“Deryk, I’m here,” I shouted back. The bear dragged itself out of the fissure and loped out of my sight. I screamed a warning to Deryk right before I heard the loud retort of a big gun. The sound was followed by a metallic clacking and then another booming shot. The bear’s growls grew shriller, and then a final shot silenced it forever.