8
Heart thudding, Nightshade lurched to her feet and yanked both ARs out of the saddle holsters. Ignoring her burning side, she cocked both, slung them over her shoulder and belly crawled to the edge of the cave. She had one extra magazine for each weapon. From her vantage point, she could take out the entire party if she didn’t pass out from blood loss and if they didn’t get off a lucky shot.
No matter. She’d go down fighting. If re-captured, she knew they’d both die a slow and painful death. Better to take a bullet in the head now and get it over with. Not that she planned on doing that.
She dropped her head to the ground and took a deep breath, pushing the pain to the wayside as she focused on the silence surrounding her.
Nothing. Not even a rock tumble.
Carefully, she lifted her head and surveyed the terrain. Large and small boulders dotted the side of the mountain, interspersed with thick brown brush and spurts of dead limbs. Perfect to hide behind.
After a few minutes, she almost started to wonder if she’d imagined what she’d heard. And then she saw it, the smallest movement. A black-clad shoulder at the edge of a rock down to her left.
Biting her lip, she dragged the rifle to her shoulder, sighted in on that one little blip and pulled the trigger. The bullet tattooed the corner of the rock. The man cursed and ducked down, his shoulder disappearing. Nightshade smiled, confident she’d at least nicked the bastard, and started scanning for more men.
At a sound to her right, she turned and fired. Another curse. Satisfaction curled in her belly. She wasn’t team leader of Mayhem for nothing. She’d been training with a rifle since the age of seven years old, could take out a target at over two-thousand meters with the right equipment, and with an AR she was a deadly opponent. Something Amir’s men were about to brutally discover.
“Dammit, Merc. It’s us. Stop shooting,” a deep male voice called out.
Nightshade held silent and kept her eye to the rifle scope.How stupid did they think she was?
After a few more seconds, she saw a hand shoot up over a rock. “I’m coming up. Don’t shoot. We’re here to get you out.”
Nightshade pulled the trigger, absorbing the rifle’s recoil like a lover’s caress.
“Shit! Merc, stop. It’s Hunter, and I fucking order you to holster your weapon!”
Hunter? Nightshade thought back to the Task Force Scorpion files she’d spent hours memorizing. Hunter James, team leader. Ranger James, assistant team leader. Brothers.
Had Merc’s GPS belt buckle actually worked? Only one way to find out.
“Show yourself,” she demanded while staying zeroed in on his voice’s direction, ready to take him out.
There was a long pause, and her vision blurred for a second and then righted.
Shit. Running out of time.
“Caroline?”
“Who sent you?” she countered.
“Your father, Senator Cotter.” Another pause. “Where is Merc?”
“He’s here, with me.” The effort it took to push air up and out of her lungs cost her severely. She lifted a shaky hand to her face. “How do I know you were really sent by my father?”
“Your name is Caroline Cotter. You have a heart shaped birth mark on your right flank and a scar on your left knee from a bike accident when you were ten years old. Your favorite song isVicariousby Tool. Which is awesome, by the way,” Hunter said.
For the first time in days, Nightshade felt a tinge of relief. She’d studied her sister’s file just as closely as TF-S’s and Senator Cotter’s and knew Hunter was legit. “You can come up.”
She put her eye back to the scope, watching as Hunter rose from behind the boulder. When he stood fully, she lowered her weapon.
“I’ve got the whole team with me. They’re coming too.” Hunter stayed where he was, waiting on her to respond.
“Did you bring a field medical kit?” she called out.
“Right along with my medic.”
“Good. Hurry, Merc’s hurt.” She watched as the rest of his team rose like specters from the earth, jerking back in surprise when Hoyt Crow, TF-S’s sniper, appeared not even ten feet away. Nightshade gave a mental shake – no man had ever snuck up that close without her knowledge.
