Fatal Strike (McClouds & Friends #10)(85)

Davy lifted a hand, wagged his finger “no.”

“Just pain,” Sean muttered. Sweat shone on his forehead.

Miles turned to address the room. “We’ll split up, and take all the vehicles. Nina and Aaro each drive one, with your shields up. I take Lara, and go south, Nina, you turn right and take Hauser Road north, Aaro, cut across the pasture and offroad until you get to the other side of the valley, and go east. Kev, you and Edie get your car out, too. Everyone. No vehicle can stay here for them to trace.”

Val slapped Miles’ back, and held out two sets of keys. “I brought my motorcycle. It is in the back of our van. You might need it, no? Take the van.”

Miles pulled out his own keys and handed them over. “Thanks, man.”

He grabbed the bag by the couch that had the computer, the router, the smartphone, and slung it over Lara’s shoulder. He helped Aaro lead the staggering Davy out the door. He was slumped, eyes half closed, blood streaming from his nose.

Once they’d heaved Davy into Connor’s vehicle, he muscled Lara into the van. Tam’s car, Nina at the wheel, was already barreling down the driveway at top speed. Connor’s vehicle, Aaro driving, tore straight across the pasture, due east. Tam and Val followed Aaro in Miles’ pickup, peeling off in another direction. Kev and Edie followed them.

He made haste, wheels spinning madly in the gravel before they found purchase and propelled the vehicle, heaving and bouncing along the driveway and onto the road, southbound. Which is when he realized he’d left the goddamn gun upstairs, too. Christ. In mortal danger, with the woman he loved, and he was stark f*cking naked. Unarmed.

“Miles.” Lara’s voice was hollow. “Your friends won’t make it in time. The shape Davy’s in.”

The dead tone to her voice scared the shit out of him. “They might,” he insisted. “Those guys are bad-ass. You would not believe what they have pulled off in the—”

“It has nothing to do with toughness, or smarts,” she said. “He’s too close. He’ll track them down. And he’ll kill them.”

“Fuck,” Miles muttered under his breath. “Fuck, Lara! So what do you want me to do?”

“It’s something I have to do, Miles,” she said. “Not you.”

He realized what she intended, and fear stabbed deep. “No, Lara,” he said. “Don’t. Don’t do this. Don’t you f*cking dare.”

“Listen carefully. I’m leaving the Citadel. If I offer myself up to him as bait, he’ll follow me, and the others will have a chance.”

“Don’t! Stop, just a second, and let’s—”

“When you’ve gone a ways, stop the car, and leave me. Just run. He’ll never find you, not with your shield.”

“No! Fuck, no! I’m not leaving you!”

“It’s the only way.” She looked at him, with terrible, quiet purpose in her eyes that drove him absolutely bugf*ck. “Thanks for everything.”

“Wait! Wait just a second! You can’t just—”

“Goodbye,” she whispered. Words appeared on his inner screen.

i love u And the bright place in his head went dark.

He howled, swerved madly to avoid a fencepost, fishtailed on the gravel in his panic. “Goddamnit, Lara!”

But she was already past hearing him. Here eyes were wide, staring at nothing, hands to her temples. She gasped for breath.

Miles took a sharp curve on screaming tires, yelling obscenities as her convulsions started.





“Stop the car!” Greaves barked. “Turn. Go back!”

Silva braked abruptly. “But the others are—”

“I don’t care about the others!” He squeezed his eyes shut, lunging for her. She shone in the mist like a pearl. He lunged for her, again, with desperate, slavering eagerness.

And he had her. He wound himself around her, psychically immobilizing her. Exulting. “Lara Kirk is south of us. Turn!”

But it took too long for Silva to do the maneuvers on the narrow road. Halfway through, Greaves lifted the vehicle and its inhabitants two feet off the ground, spun it a hundred and eighty degrees, and let it drop with a teeth-rattling thud to the roadway. “Drive!” he snarled. “Tell the others to follow!”

Silva obeyed. The other car would lose the scent of the other men without Greaves’ guidance. They weren’t close enough for Wilcox’s hunter talent to lock onto a target. But Lara Kirk and her rescuer were more tempting. And considering the state in which the mysterious ogre had left his staff the last time he visited, six people might by no means be too many to deal with the man.





Miles veered around the hairpin, fishtailing on loose gravel, perilously close to the sheer edge. A dry streambed on the hillside that fed into a big culvert under the road caught his eye. Further on, a logging road switchbacked sharply uphill once again, in the opposite direction.

It wasn’t a plan so much as desperate impulse. He braked on the curve, leaped out. Hauled out Val’s precious Ducati, and shoved the gleaming machine into the huge culvert, along with the dirt, the gravel, the drifts of dead brown scrub oak leaves and pine needles. He tossed his computer bag in, too. Back to the van. Lara was gasping for breath. She had slid down, crumpled half on and half off the passenger seat.