Deadly Promises (Tracers #2.5)(86)

“Did anyone see you?”

“Don’t know. The truck was empty but there might have been a security cam.”

“How do you know it was empty?”

“Cargo door was up. No one in the cab.” Gage stopped and looked around. A few more paces and he stopped again. He studied the shadows. He consulted the compass on his watch. He pulled out his penlight and beamed it around uselessly.

“Well, f*ck me.”

Kelsey moved closer. “What now?”

“They stole my truck.”

She halted beside him. “You can’t be serious.”

“I’m completely serious.”

Gage did a three-sixty but it was no use. He knew where he’d parked the damn thing. They’d f*cking boosted his pickup.

He took a few steps toward the boulder and the hair on the back of his neck stood up.

“This has to be a mistake. Maybe—”

“Shh!” He jerked her down beside him as he pulled out his SIG.

“What?”

“Quiet.” He eased close to her, until his mouth was nearly touching her ear. “Two men, about fifty yards east of us. Walking this way.”

Rat-tat-tat-tat!

He hauled Kelsey behind the nearest boulder, then whirled in the direction of the gunfire. A muzzle flashed, maybe eighty yards south.

Two shooters directly south. And two men approaching from the east, probably armed.

Another staccato of bullets, and Kelsey yelped beside him.

“Oh, my God, Gage!” She crouched in a tight little ball against the rock.

He rested his arms on top of the boulder and peered over it. Another muzzle flash, about fifty yards out.

“Why don’t you shoot back?”

“That’ll give away our location,” he said. “Their aim’s all over the place. I don’t think they know where we are.”

Another rat-tat-tat-tat.

Gage cursed. He needed to get her out of here before these *s got them pinned down. If it were just him or him with his teammates, they’d wait these guys out and pick them off, one by one. But he wasn’t willing to put Kelsey in the middle of a firefight.

“Get your—”

“I got it.”

He glanced down and saw that she was, indeed, clutching her weapon. Good girl. He took her arm with his left hand. “There’s a ravine just west of us. On three, we’re going to sprint for it. Try not to make a lot of noise, okay?”

She made a little squeak of agreement.

“One… two…”

Ping! A shot ricocheted off the rock near his head.

“Three!” he said and they made a dash.





Eight

Kelsey stumbled over the rocks, not knowing if her next breath would be her last. Her right hand hurt from gripping her pistol. Her left hand hurt from gripping Gage’s belt. And her ankle was pretty much on fire.

“Where are we going?” she asked and heard the quiver in her voice. They’d hiked a long time without a word. It had seemed like hours, but maybe it had been only minutes. That last burst of machine-gun fire—so close it had made her ears ring—had wiped out even the slightest capacity to think.

Gage halted and gripped her arm.

“What?” she whispered.

“Listen,” he said in a voice she could barely hear.

She listened. She heard nothing. Just like she saw nothing. She had no inkling of anything around her, with the exception of Gage. He was a giant, rock-hard presence beside her. And somehow, miraculously, he seemed to have an unerring sense of where they were going.

“What do you hear?” she whispered.

“Nothing. That’s good.” He pressed her hand against his waist, making sure her fingers were still hooked around his belt. “Let’s keep going. I’m pretty sure we’ve lost them.”

They moved forward again, and Kelsey tried to breathe. She willed her heart to slow down.

The ground beneath her feet grew steeper. The air felt lighter. A breeze stirred. She still couldn’t see but she knew somehow that they were coming out of the ravine.

“Where are we going?”

“West, around the mesa.”

“But isn’t the camp northeast?”

“I don’t want to go back the way we came. We’ll skirt the mesa, then go straight north, then cut east as soon as I’m sure our tail’s clear.”

Kelsey’s mind reeled. Walking around the mesa could take hours, and that was in daylight. The thought of hiking so far in the pitch dark, over this treacherous landscape, seemed impossible.

But Gage said they needed to do it, so they’d do it. He was the SEAL. She was the lab rat who’d gotten caught up in some horrible game of cat and mouse, and she was by no means confident she was going to make it out alive. At least not without help.

“How’s the ankle?”

“Fine.” How had he known about that? She hadn’t uttered a word of complaint.

“You need me to carry you?”

Yeah, right. “It’s fine,” she said. “I don’t think you could, anyway. I’m not exactly a featherweight.”

“Doesn’t matter. If it starts to hurt I’ll carry you.”

“It’s fine,” she said. They were running for their lives from armed thugs, and yet that tiny insult made her eyes sting with tears.