Yup! Works!
The explosion took out the rear driver’s side tire and was enough to lift the entire backend of the vehicle off the road. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to ignite the gas tank.
Plan B,he thought as the nondescript sedan fishtailed. The bare rim, now bent and glowing with heat, sparked against the asphalt. Despite the blown tire, Orpheus kept the car on the road.
Hunter had shoved one of Dale’s shotguns down the back of his shirt, the barrel secured through his belt. It took concentration and more than a little coordination, but he one-handed the handlebars so he could grab the scatter gun by its stock. Gritting his teeth with the effort of keeping Canteen Green on the road and in line with the sedan, he pulled the weapon up and out of his T-shirt with more ease than he would’ve thought possible when he’d stowed it there.
Whatwasn’teasy was aiming one-handed after positioning the shotgun against his shoulder. The flash from the grenade’s explosion had fucked up his night vision. And even the bright beam of Canteen Green’s headlight wasn’t enough to make the sedan’s remaining rear tire come into focus. Not to mention, the three-wheeled sedan was kicking up an absurd amount of sparks.
Dale’s Remington semi-auto was a 4 + 1, meaning it held four rounds in the magazine plus one loaded in the chamber. And while five shots might sound like plenty to some people, Hunter had put enough rounds downrange to know five was next to nothing.
There was no point-and-squeeze and pray his shot was close. Then, if it wasn’t, adjust next time. He had to make sure each round counted.
The sound of the sedan’s rim scraping across the pavement was loud enough to hear over Canteen Green’s roar and irritating enough to make his back teeth itch. Even still, he automatically fell back on his training.
Three shallow breaths in. One long breath out.
When his lungs were nearly empty and the sedan’s back tire came into momentary view, he pulled the trigger.
Crack!The muzzle blast flashed orange.
Since the duck gun doubled as a tactical weapon, it had one hell of a kick. Hard enough to have him swerving and struggling to keep the motorcycle on the road.
He didn’t see the moment the scatter shot tore into the sedan’s single remaining rear tire. Or the moment that tire shredded and flew off its rim. So he was caught off guard when it bounced across the pavement toward him, headed right for Canteen Green’s front spokes.
Gritting his teeth, he tried to make an adjustment to avoid the flying debris. But it was too late. The shredded rubber slammed into his motorcycle’s front wheel.
Fuck a duck!was all he had time to think as the bike’s front end locked up. It took every ounce of strength he possessed not to go flying over the handlebars. Instead, he was able to throw his weight to the side, kicking away from Canteen Green before the bike could hit the ground and crush his leg beneath it.
The only reason he didn’t lose all the skin on his left side was because the blown tire had already slowed the sedan’s momentum and, subsequently, Canteen Green’s momentum. He’d guess he’d only been going about thirty miles per hour when he abandoned the motorcycle.
Even still, it hurt like a sonofabitch when he slammed into the rough ground, bounced, slammed again, and then skidded a good ten feet before coming to rest in the ditch.
He didn’t have time to take a physical inventory of the damage done to his body before he heard the sound of the sedan careening through the brush on the side of the road. Flipping onto his stomach, he saw the instant the assassin lost control.
The bare back rims dug into the soft shoulder and immediately sent the vehicle onto its side. It rolled once. Twice. The sound of breaking glass and bending metal loud in the silence of the forest. Dirt and broken tree limbs flew everywhere as the sedan tumbled into the trees. Until, finally, it slammed into a huge pine and came to a smoking, creaking, engine-whining stop.
The harsh breath that whooshed out of Hunter as he flopped onto his back sounded obscenely loud in the sudden silence following the crash. For a moment, he lay there, staring up at the stars twinkling through the reaching branches of the trees, his heart thudding, his lungs heaving, his mind blanked by the surreality of it all.
Once he’d caught his breath, he rolled onto his stomach and managed to get his knees under him. With a grunt, he pushed to a stand.
The shotgun.
Where the hell was the shotgun?
His eyes scanned the darkened road behind him. Canteen Green was over her side in the ditch, her headlight still on, her back wheel still spinning, her hot engine clicking as it cooled. But he couldn’t see the Remington.
He thought back on his fall and whether he still had the scatter gun in his hand when he went down. But it was all a little hazy.
Breaking into a trot—ow!He’d definitely twisted his left ankle—he made his way down the narrow country lane, guided by instinct and starlight. Just when he thought hehadto have run past the spot where he’d dropped the weapon, he found it. It’d come to rest next to a shallow pothole.
Bending—ow!His left hip hurt too. It’d taken the brunt of the fall—he grabbed the weapon, checked the bolt action, and slowly stood, feeling every strain of muscle, every creak of bone.
“Drop it.”
The hairs on the back of his neck lifted.
“I saiddrop it, motherfucker.”
