He hissed through clenched teeth, and his head swam.
Bear slapped a bandage on his hand and wrapped the ends around his fingers, tying it off. “You good to go, or you wanna head back?”
“I’m good.”
“Okay.” He didn’t sound convinced.
Ramon stood slowly, making sure he didn’t accidentally touch the tree decorations again. It was crazy dangerous having something like that hanging from a tree. Whatever kind of people did that, they had no concern for animals or local kids who might get interested and wind up bleeding.
He shook his head as they walked, wondering if it was some odd kind of booby trap. Or a warning to strangers.
The hillside descended sharply, and they continued going down, exposed to the open between trees and the odd building. They passed a broken-down outbuilding, and as they neareda larger structure, he realized it was a farm with shattered windows and no one home.
Another half mile past that, they came to a squat building in the middle of nowhere.
“This is it,” Bear said. “The IP address came from here.” He peered at the screen of his phone, the brightness turned as low as it would go.
“It’s a shed.” Probably an abandoned one, at that.
“Let’s knock and see who’s home.” One of the guys approached the door.
Ramon looked around but didn’t see anyone moving in the dark. He highly doubted there was someone sitting in that shed. His hand stung, and this whole situation seemed odd.
Was this where they would find theDominatusaccountant?
The operative approached the shed, reaching for the handle. A step before he could grab it, he let out a little yelp.
In front of their disbelieving eyes, he fell beneath the ground.
Chapter Sixteen
Ramon army crawled across the grass until he was close enough that he could see over the edge. “What on earth?”
This was a deep hole. The ground was almost frozen solid, and yet somehow, their guy had fallen through a false floor into…
He couldn’t see the bottom. Their teammate wasn’t making any noise, and Ramon couldn’t hear movement.
Bear shouldered up beside him and shone that flashlight of his down the hole.
Ramon sniffed a breath in through his nose. “Dang.”
Kenna was rubbing off on him. Helping him clean up his language. He’d put off accepting the rest of what she was offering, unsure a guy like him could ever accept redemption.Especiallywhen it was a free gift. He didn’t know what to make of it.
What he did know was that falling fifteen feet onto sharp spikes ended a man’s life in a gruesome way.
Bear rolled over onto his back and stared up at the sky full of stars. “We need to get him out of the hole.” He spoke loudly enough the others could hear it, including the crack in his tone.
Ramon didn’t see how they were going to get him out without some serious work. He wanted to get across the hole and into the shed, just in case there really was something to find in there. He pushed up from his supine position and looked around, half wondering if they were about to be picked off by gunfire.
He eased his way around the hole, looking at the edge versus the step in front of the shed. If he breached the door, would it explode in his face?
Only one way to find out.
Ramon saw the others had taken his place on the ground at the edge of the hole. All working as a team to retrieve their man from the place where he died, so they could return him home to his loved ones.
Ramon wanted to be sick.
Another life lost to the fight againstDominatus.
