“You’re being very brave.”
“I know I’m being very brave.These are my nice jeans, Tean.”
Tean landed on the far side of the fallen tree.A moment later, swearing, Jem dropped down next to him.
“I scraped my hands,” Jem said, showing him raw palms.
“I’m sorry,” Tean said.“We’ll put something on them when we get back to the car.”
“No, I’m fine.I just want you to know how brave I’m being.Also, I’d like to point out that this shit doesnothappen if you stick to, you know, civilization.”
“Noted.”
The beam of the flashlight picked out a depression in the ground that Tean realized, when he got a better look at it, was actually a short, rocky slope that ended at the mouth of a cave.The opening was only about eighteen inches high, but it was long, running horizontally for maybe ten or twelve feet before the seam in the rock closed again.The flashlight was too weak to penetrate the darkness beyond it, so it was nothing more than a jagged cut in the red stone.
“Nope,” Jem said.
Tean decided this was one of those times it was better not to engage.He squatted to get a better look at the cave.
“So, what?”Jem said.“He tried to hide the body in the cave, and instead, a coyote found it?”
“That seems likely.Theyarescavengers.And they follow water corridors.I want to—”
A high-pitched whine was followed almost immediately by a loud crack.Something sparked against the gully’s wall.
Then Jem tackled him, and they fell toward the cave.
22
Instinct first.
Thewhiz.
The sparks.
Jem’s body already moving.
He crashed into Tean, bearing him down.Their momentum carried them toward the rocky slope.For a dizzying moment, the animal part of Jem’s brain knew they were going to fall.Fall into the dark.Fall forever.
They skidded to a stop three feet short of the cave.
Then his brain came online.
Tean was trying to sit up.
Yanking him back down, Jem managed to say, “Someone’s shooting at us.”
As though in answer, the air cracked again.Loose stone tumbled down the slope.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.
“What’s happening?”Tean said.
“Someone’s shooting at us!”Jem barked again.“Stay down!”
The words finally seemed to reach Tean.He’d kept his glasses somehow, and now he straightened them.He patted Jem’s arm once—acknowledgment as much as comfort.
Jem released his hold on the doc and squirmed so that he was facing up the slope.
