Too late, though.He was already gone.
A truck engine roared down the street.Lights cut through the storm.
Christian looked over the edge.
Brock’s truck skidded into view, tires kicking up water.Doors flew open.Brock went right, behind cover.Ophelia moved left, gun drawn, sweeping.
“It’s clear,” Christian called down.
Ophelia ran around the SUV, crouching as she must’ve checked on everyone.
Christian didn’t wait.“Make sure they’re all right,” he said.“I’m going after him.”He took the wet stairs down the back, jumped the last two rungs, and hit the ground hard.Gravel shifted under his boots.The wind shoved him sideways.
He pulled out his phone.The screen lit, and he thumbed on the flashlight.Maybe his brothers had been correct in forcing him to get the phone.It was coming in handy.His gaze caught on a boot scuff in the wet dirt, and then bark torn from the low shrub beside the walkway.Weight had come through here, moving fast.
He followed it.
No theory.No instinct.Just movement, one sign after another, through the back lots behind the native association and the library.
He angled into the storm, tracking the trail toward the edge of town.
Toward the school.
The trail cut behind a tool shed and through a gap in a rusted chain-link fence.Christian followed, every step careful and measured.The rain made it harder.The storm pushed leaves flat, erased weight, and filled shallow prints until everything blurred.But not all of it.He caught where a boot had dragged through soft earth, clipped the edge of a concrete footing, and left a faint smear on wet metal.
He dropped to a crouch beside a narrow line of crushed grass.The shooter had gone through there fast, off balance, maybe trying to keep from slipping.That told him something.Probably not military.Could’ve been, but didn’t feel like it.No retreat plan.No sign of a lookout.No suppression shots on exit.The guy’s plan had been to just run and disappear.
Christian’s plan would involve pain.A lot of it.
He passed the edge of the old playground with its metal swings rattling hard in the wind, plastic slide shaking with every gust, and cut across the mulch, already half-flooded.The shooter had gone straight through.Christian followed the broken path to the far fence, hopped it, and landed low in a crouch.
The trees opened just enough to show the logging road ahead.A well-used cutout near a tributary of the river with an excellent fishing hole.Everyone knew about it and used it often.Ruts, tire tracks, animal signs—all of it churning in the mud.No clean boot prints anymore.Just chaos in every direction.
Christian stopped at the edge, lifted his head, and breathed.
Not just air.Information.
His brain ran through it like it used to back in Afghanistan.After a raid.After the target had gone to ground.It wasn’t magic.It was training.Repetition.Sweat.Sand.Death.
He scanned the dark.
The shooter could’ve gone anywhere now, and the storm had masked the engine of his vehicle.
Yet, Christian didn’t move.He listened.Watched.Felt.There were things his body caught before his brain did.A pattern in the silence.A direction in the wind.A small, instinctive pull that something was off just east of the split in the road.
He didn’t know who the shooter was, but he was going to find him.
And when he did, he wasn’t going to ask questions first.
But the bigger question burned hotter than the rest.Who had the bastard been aiming at?Out of all the possibilities, only one of them had been inside a fireball yesterday.One of them wasn’t supposed to still be walking.
Did somebody want Amka dead?
Chapter12
Amka refilled Christian’s coffee.Her hand trembled with the pot, and she didn’t try to steady it.The pour came fast, too much, coffee sloshing up the sides of the mug.She set the pot down hard in the center of the table.The glass clacked loud enough to quiet the rain for half a second.
“You need to sit down.”He kicked out the empty chair beside him with his boot.The wooden legs scraped across the floor, uneven and loud.Amka nodded, her brain feeling fuzzy, and lowered herself into the seat.Her coat was soaked through.Her hair stuck to her cheek in strands she didn’t bother to move.
