More than ten minutes must have passed by the time we arrived at another wall. I didn’t know how fast Landon had been running, but it felt fast.This place could be a thousand acres.
We could use it to our advantage. A big space kept us safe from the hunters. Landon circled around, surveying where we’d come from.
“We need a spot to hide, somewhere we can maybe ambush them one at a time.” If they all kept in a group, then we didn’t stand a chance. I rubbed a hand over my face. “But with all those cameras everywhere, I don’t think hiding is a real possibility.” Especially with floodlights lighting the place up like Vegas.
But what other choices did we have? We could run, try to evade, but they’d eventually find us. Our efforts would only gain us more time.
Landon huffed out a breath and turned, trotting parallel to the wall. I wanted to argue his choice to gotowardthe hunters, but there really wasn’t any point. They’d know where we were no matter which way we chose. And that meant…
My heart began to race optimistically for once. I gave Landon’s fur a tug and he slowed down. “There were only five of them.”
He turned his head a bit to indicate he was listening.
“Did they leave someone in the bunker?”
He held still beneath me, then jerked his head up and down. Yeah, that’s what I thought too. Two groups of two, and one left at the bunker to report our whereabouts. “So one guy is alone.”
Another bob of his head up and down.Okay, we need to do this smart.“He can’t know we’ve circled back to him or they’ll all come running at once.” My heart raced. “Go deeper into the shadows. Let’s see if we can spot some cameras.”
As unlikely as our survival seemed, I wasn’t giving up hope, and I’d take any advantage we could get. It would be nice if we could take out some of those floodlights too. We trudged deeper into the brush, the artificial light not really reaching this far. It gave some privacy, but I wasn’t delusional enough to think they didn’t have cameras in the shadows.
After a few minutes of walking, a red light glowed in one of the tall pine trees about twenty feet up.If they’d been smart, they would have concealed those lights.I’d never been more grateful for someone’s oversight as I was in this moment. Red lights stood out in the dark. Or maybe they didn’t usually do this at night.
I leaned over Landon’s shoulder. “Camera up ahead,” I said quietly.
He paused, then lifted up on his hind legs like he wanted me off. I shimmied, landing on the hard ground with a thud. He ran straight at the trunk, like he would try to knock it down, but instead scrambled up it. Bark and pine needles sprayed downward. Once he was high enough to reach the camera, he ripped it free of its mount, then slid down the tree, not in the least bit quiet, breaking branches echoing all around us.
If they didn’t know where we were before, they certainly did now.
I crept forward in time to see him pounce on the camera again and again with his front paws, effectively burying the pieces in the dirt.
“I think that should do it.”
He huffed a breath, then crouched so I could climb on. My shoulder twinged. “One down, a hundred more to go.” When he huffed out another breath, I said, “Let’s get out of this area.”
He took off at a run, me holding on for dear life until we saw another red light in a tree. He did the same thing again, climbing up to knock it down, then pouncing the shit out of it. It would have been cute if we weren’t running for our lives.
We continued onward, not taking any particular path, but circling to the beginning a little bit at a time. For a guy who never went in the military, he knew how to vary his route. I kept my senses open, watching as best I could for signs of the hunters.
We passed a thicket of tall bushes, and I saw something that made me speak up.
“Stop.” A pile of good-sized rocks lay beside a tree. Someone had put those there. Someone running for their lives? I swallowed. If it were a shifter stuck in animal form, they’d have trouble throwing rocks no matter how determined.
I jumped off Landon and shivered as I left his warmth. The temperature dropped by the second and I only wore one layer. Trying to ignore the cold, I picked up the fist-sized rocks, shoving them into the empty pockets of my cargo pants. When those were all stuffed full, I made a cradle with the bottom of my shirt to carry more.
Once loaded up, I climbed onto Landon’s back. He shot off, clearing the area before one of the hunters could find us. The burden in my shirt made it hard to balance. I gripped his fur tight, losing a couple of the rocks as he dodged around a tree.
He slowed. At first I didn’t know why, then I saw all the flies buzzing around one area on the forest floor.
“Dear God,” I breathed.So much blood.If flies were still after it, it wasn’t that old. Nausea burned my throat. I flattened myself against his hump, squeezing as tight as I could. I’d give my life before I’d allow Landon to have the same fate. The oppressiveness of the area bore down on me. I had to get out of here. “Let’s see if we can take out some of those floodlights,” I said in his ear, my stomach churning.
He skirted the blood, heading to one of the brighter portions of the arena. We paused in the shadows, listening. I couldn’t hear anything but the soft puffs of Landon’s breaths and the beating of my own heart.
I slid off, dropping my rocks in a pile to peer up the floodlight thirty feet above. It wasn’t a secret I was no major-league pitcher, but I didn’t think I had a bad arm either. Back in the army, when we had downtime, a couple of the officers would play catch—rain, snow, or shine—and Marley and I would often join them.
Keeping to the shadows, I lined up my aim, and threw the rock as hard as I could. It went wide. I turned to grab another rock, and found Landon trying to palm one with his ample paws. A bear didn’t have the thumbs to grip a rock.
I threw two more before I connected.Crack.The glass casing smashed, shards raining down on the outer wall. But the bulb remained intact and glared down at us. Tension crawled up my shoulder blades. They definitely heard that. But I didn’t want to leave a job half finished. I picked up another rock and threw it as hard as the previous one. It missed.
