Leila shook her head. They didn’t sound like a cohesive unit. Conquer and divide. The sniffer would find her first. If he liked women, he might very well not tell the others he had found her. He might decide to take her for his own. She went over a bear’s anatomy in her mind. The placement of her shot was important. Once she fired, she would have to move quickly. The others would hear the shot. She’d have to kill the sniffer with her first shot, even if it took him a little while to die.
“What are you implying?” Alex bristled. “I’ve been married and had a kid.”
“That you abandoned,” Cooper said. “Get the hell onto the trail and find the bitch. She’s injured, so you should be able to handle it if you run across her.”
Alex let out a roar, a fairly good mimic of a lion, proving he did have that DNA in him. There was a long silence, giving Leila the opportunity to check the whereabouts of Devin, the sniffer. He was much closer than she’d anticipated. Alex was heading into the forest, clearly attempting to follow Devin’s tracks, but he was moving slow.
“I’m going to put a bullet in that moron’s head someday,” Cooper groused. “He’s just about useless. I don’t know why I got stuck with him.”
“Whitney was pissed at you.”
Leila noted immediately that the voice was calm, matter-of-fact. That man didn’t seem to be someone who would rile easily. She found it interesting that Cooper was in charge, not the one who seemed the more logical choice.
“Yeah, he was, Kyle.” Cooper immediately quieted talking to his friend. It was easy to hear that camaraderie in his tone. “Probably had good reason too.” Now there was a shared amusement. “I capped his favorite ass-kisser.”
“He’s probably hoping you’ll do the same to Alex so he doesn’t have to,” Kyle said. “You want to do it, we’ll all be looking the other way.”
“We’ll need his gun to take out her guards. Whitney said she had at least five of Chariot’s soldiers bringing her back to their compound. He wants them all dead.”
Kyle laughed. “He’s such a bloodthirsty asshole. He does like his petty revenges. He was mad that he got the flawed sister. That’s what he called her. I’m betting Bridget was just like every other kid he fucked up. He doesn’t ever want to take responsibility for what happens to them when he screws with them over and over. When he gets her sister, no matter how great she starts out, he’ll turn her into a psychotic bitch no one can stand.”
“Bridget is nearly catatonic. Can you imagine wanting to be paired with that?” Cooper asked.
“Alex would want her. He wouldn’t have to fight too hard to get some.” Kyle laughed again. “Maybe instead of capping him, we should persuade Whitney to pair him with Bridget, not Bridget with him.”
“You’re a mean son of a gun, Kyle,” Cooper said, joining in the laughter.
Leila wished she had both men in her sights, but she had to turn her attention to Devin. She could see the man casting aroundon the ground and lifting his nose to scent the air. He was a big man, and rather than stand upright, he employed a strange crawl using feet and hands. His knees didn’t touch the ground as he shuffled quickly over the forest floor. He stopped abruptly, remaining in that position as he looked around him.
“I know you’re here.” The voice was deep and had a rumble to it. “No one is going to harm you. Come out, and we’ll see to your wounds.”
Alex would be arriving in the next five to seven minutes. She didn’t have time to engage with Devin. She took careful aim, going for a double lung shot rather than the heart. He wouldn’t survive if she took out both lungs. She squeezed the trigger. The bullet flew true. She wasn’t a woman who missed her target, and certainly not when he presented it to her rather close.
The sound of the gunshot would alert his team and they would come running. She couldn’t remain caged in the roots of the tree. She hated giving it up when Diego had provided everything she might need for a prolonged stay, but she’d already slung her weapons around her neck and shoved the ammo into the small bag he’d left. Rolling out from the roots as soon as she fired the weapon, without even checking to see if Devin went down, she was on the move.
She could hear the labored breathing, the air escaping from the downed soldier’s lungs. She leapt for the branch of a tree and nearly fell. The movement jarred her insides to the point of excruciating pain. Diego was not going to be happy with her.
Taking a deep breath, she pulled herself into the crotch of the tree and waited there until the crashing pain settled. She was surprised at how weak she was. Ordinarily, she wouldn’t have exerted much energy pulling herself into a tree. She could leap high, although she had seen Diego jump at least ten feet into the air, and his forward leap was double that. He had done so effortlessly, andwhen he landed, he was silent, already running forward without breaking stride. She couldn’t even come close to that.
Leila knew she didn’t have a lot of time before every soldier—and Diego—would come after her. She climbed higher, where the foliage was much denser. The tree was sturdy, each branch strong, but she remained against the trunk. She used the thick bark as a backrest when she settled against it, arranging her weapons so she could use them in any direction. One of her greatest strengths was her ability to stay absolutely still if need be. She needed that skill now. She froze in place and, much like the great horned owl, blended into the trunk.
The sniffer was still making strange noises as if the air in his lungs was rushing out of a hole, but he had ceased rolling around on the ground. He was dying, each breath a strain. She found it heartbreaking and wished there had been a better way to ensure a kill. He had come after her like a bear would, so she had chosen the method she would use to slay a bear if it were attacking her.
She remained still as the tracker, Alex, parted the brush and peered around warily. He remained under cover for a few minutes, studying the scene. Finally, he crept slowly toward Devin, looking at the ground, studying every mark in the dirt and examining the nearby plants for signs of bruising.
“Dev.” Alex kept his voice low and his finger over the trigger of his semiautomatic. “Dev, talk to me. What the hell happened? Who did this?”
Devin was on his side, his body shuddering, eyes wide open in a stare of fixed horror. His mouth gaped open as he tried to find air, but it was too late. He was already dead, his heart just hadn’t realized it yet. It beat slowly and irregularly.
“Damn it, Dev.” Alex got close enough to look for wounds.
The body shuddered again, and the death rattle was loud. Alexjumped back, swearing, turning in a full circle, pointing his weapon at everything.
The wind shifted minutely, sending the branches of the surrounding trees swaying. Leaves and needles fell to the forest floor. Bullfrogs set up a chorus of protests, and lizards skittered in the thick vegetation. Alex yelled and squeezed down on the trigger, a look of terror on his face as he spun around and around, shooting at the leaping shadows.
Bullets hit the tree where Leila remained motionless. He was aiming far too low to hit her, but movement might draw his eye. Several ugly thunks told her Alex had managed to hit the dead body of his friend with his wild shooting. As he fired his weapon, he yelled at the top of his lungs. There was nothing subtle about his fear. If he had gotten any paler, he would have been a ghost.
Leila followed his movements with her eyes only. The tree shivered several times as bullets hit the trunk. From somewhere above her, she heard the call of a hawk. She was certain the sound was real and not Diego, although he was so good at imitating the raptors, she wasn’t sure why she thought he still wasn’t close.
