“You have to believe me. I don’t—”
“Two, one... A name, now.”
“I can’t! I don’t know who—”
The phone beeped. She pulled it from her ear.Call ended, the screen read.
The blond guy—my friend Fitz—stepped forward. “Ooh, that didn’t sound like it went so well, Samira. Never mind, my dear. I’m about to liberate you from your many worries. Safe travels, now.”
He raised the gun.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
SAMIRAPULLEDHERhands from behind her back. She fumbled with the flare in her sweaty grip and yanked the toggle at the tail end, bracing. It cracked and whooshed off, the recoil slamming her spine into the trunk. Fitz stumbled sideways. It arced past him, whacked into a tree and spun, fizzing, into bushes. Damn.
He staggered forward, recovering the hold on his gun. A steely expression rolled down his face as he raised it once more. Samira dived to one side, just as something moved on a low ridge behind him—somethingflew. A man, leaping for Fitz with a guttural roar. As Fitz looked up, the guy smashed an elbow between his eyes. Fitz crumpled.
Samira scrambled back. Jamie landed on the earth in front of her, one side of him lit orange by the flare’s pulsing glow. She pressed her hand to her chest. It thumped like a drum. Jamie. She knew it. She knew he wasn’t dead.
“Nice move, Samira. Of course, I was a second from taking him out all by myself, but I’ll let you share the glory.”
“Oh my God, is he dead?”
Jamie nudged Fitz’s arm with his shoe. “Just out cold. I did once take a Hippocratic oath in his country, you know. And here’s me thinking you’d ask howI’mdoing rather than the guy who just tried to kill you.”
“You knocked him out. I thought that just happened in the movies.”
“It’s not as easy to do as in the movies. But like I say, I had extensive training.”
“I thought you were referring to the military.”
“It’s handy to have more than one skill set. What’s really hard is that Spock Vulcan thing.” He pulled a sealed packet from a coat pocket and ripped it open. A syringe. “We spent many a quiet shift at the hospital working on that.” He opened another packet—a vial—loaded it into the syringe and strode back to Fitz.
She looked away as he knelt by the prone man. “Isthatcovered by your oath?”
“The oath’s really only symbolic. This’ll buy us a few hours. The other three have also decided to have a wee nap.”
“You took out three men with your bare hands?”
“Don’t be sexist. One was a woman.” She sensed him standing, and warily looked up. “You see, Samira,” he said, scuffling through the undergrowth and stomping on the remains of the flare, “the thing with a narrow path through a forest—it forces a team into single file. And the thing with walking single file along an unfamiliar steep, narrow path at night, without flashlights, while searching for an enemy—it doesn’t take much for the last man—or woman—to fall behind. Like, say, getting distracted by a snapping twig. And once the guy at the back disappears, the others come after him, and it rapidly goes downhill in aBlair Witchkind of way.”
Wow, he’d sure fired up.Naturaladrenaline, she hoped. “I heard a gunshot.”
“It missed.”
“I knew you couldn’t be dead.”
He strode back, pulling two handguns from his coat and examining them. “Listening to your instinct, are you?”
“It wasn’t instinct. It was hope.” She nodded at the weapons. “Did you take those from the goons? Why didn’t you use one on Fitz?”
“Fitz?”
“We had a little time to get acquainted.”
“When did you get so bloodthirsty? That was plan B. I didn’t want to attract more attention than we already have. They have others out there.” He held out a hand and pulled her up. “You okay?”
“Fine.”
