What Doesn't Kill Her (Cape Charade #2)(46)

No. Kellen heaved Rae over the top of a four-foot high boulder, vaulted over it, knelt beside her daughter and waited for a shot from that side. If it came, they were surrounded.

Nothing. So one direction to go—first sideways along the tree line, then up the slope and into the fog.

For the moment, they were safe here. Kellen put down the backpack, found the defective computer tablet, pulled it out and turned it on. She looked up, ready to explain her tactic, and saw Rae, round-eyed and with a trembling lip. “Are you okay?”

“You hurt me.” Rae hugged her ribs.

“I’m sorry.” Kellen was, for all the reasons. “I’m going to create a diversion.” The tablet was heating in her hand. “I need you to stay low and run as fast as you can. Can you do that?”

A shot hit the rock above their head.

Rae nodded, an exaggerated up-and-down movement.

Kellen leaned sideways and assessed the landscape. One shooter’s likely cover: a once-tall hemlock laid flat, its roots ripped from the ground by last winter’s wind. He was in a good position to nail them. “Rae, go that way.” She pointed toward a stand of trees, stunted and warped from the high winds that blasted off the Pacific.

Rae ran.

Kellen skipped bullets along the top of the log—and flushed him out. She fired again, a barrage of six bullets, more than she could spare. But she nailed him. His leg spurted red, flailed beneath him. He screamed and went down. Lucky shot at this distance, but she didn’t take the time to congratulate herself. She sprinted after Rae, zigzagged toward a windswept pile of downed branches and needles and flung the tablet in among them. With luck...

She raced behind a tree, then another tree, then another, then into a clump of shrubs.

Shots followed her every time.

One shooter down, two or three left. Stormtroopers who couldn’t hit anything. Or Kellen would be dead already.

She sprinted to the clump of trees where Rae hid, heard the barrage of shots, felt the slam of a bullet against her left arm between her elbow and wrist. Like a baseball player, she slid through the low-hanging tangled branches and into shelter and scrambled onto her knees.

Rae gasped. “Blood, Mommy!”

“I know.” Kellen had been shot before. It never got easier. This burned like hell and bled a river, and until she pulled back the torn material, she feared it had sliced through an artery. But no. The bullet had slipped through her flesh like a hot knife through butter, a clean slice of pain that bled too freely and needed stitches. “It’s okay. I probably won’t lose my arm.” An Army joke, an offhand way to say it wasn’t fatal.

Rae burst into tears.

Wrong thing to say, Kellen. Again. “It’s just a scratch. I promise. And you can’t cry. I need you to help me.”

“I don’t know how to shoot.” The child was trembling. “But I can try.”

“Not that. Darling, you don’t have to shoot anyone.” Kellen rolled up her sleeve.

“I can throw a rock.”

“No rocks. We’re not that desperate yet.” Kellen realized the shooting had stopped, and she held up one finger. She heard the soft fast shuffle of light footsteps. In a whisper, she said, “Not this time...someone’s sneaking toward us. Be small.”

Rae hunched down, wrapped her arms around her knees and squeezed her eyes shut.

In her mind, Kellen reconstructed the terrain. These trees, the cliff, the entrance to the canyon...the rocks whose shelter they had left. Whoever stalked them had followed Kellen’s trail. Very smart. How unfortunate. She didn’t want smart trackers, especially one moving at that speed. She didn’t have time for subterfuge. She had to get off a shot. On her belly, she crawled around a tree trunk, stuck her head out and ducked back.

The bullet hit so fast it ripped a chunk of hair from her head.

She didn’t take time to absorb the shock but leaped to the opposite side of the trunk and aimed in the direction of the shooter and pulled the trigger.

A low-voiced furious curse.

She zeroed in and shot again.

A scream, long and loud and vicious. High-pitched. A pause. More screams, longer and louder.

Okay. Okay. Two shooters dealt with. It didn’t even the odds, but it helped.

Kellen leaned her back against the tree trunk. She had to raise her voice above the shrieks. “Rae!”

Rae lifted her head. “Mommy?” She sounded calm, but her eyes were dark; the pupil almost swallowed the iris.

“I need you to help me stop the bleeding.” Kellen scooted toward her. “Get one of my socks out of the side pocket of the backpack.”

Rae wrestled with the zipper and found a sock.

“And something to use as a pad to absorb the blood.” What? Kellen needed to figure that out. Rae couldn’t—

Rae extracted the small remaining square of her blankie.

Kellen was surprised at the depth of her own shock. “Not that! That’s your blankie!”

“Mommy. I know what it is.” Rae’s voice trembled. “Now what do I do?” She took Kellen’s wrist and carefully pulled the arm toward her. She was still weeping, leaking tears, but she was ready to help.

Kellen almost choked on some emotion she didn’t understand. But she couldn’t cry, too. She was the adult. No, more than that, she was the mother. Rae looked to her to be strong. “Press the pad on the bleeding part.”