Witness in the Dark (Love Under Fire #1)(42)

“Zero, three, one, three,” she told herself as she punched in the code. The hatch popped. She hadn’t even gotten the chance to ask Garrett what the numbers meant. Was it his birth date? Or of someone he cared about?

As she pulled the hatch shut and turned on the light, she realized how badly she was trembling. She was shaking worse than when she’d been running through the woods. She was safe now, but she was terrified.

Garrett was still out there.

Suddenly, she understood what he had meant by complicated. With anyone else, she would have been content to stay here and hide. But Garrett was out there, alone, and she cared about him.

She couldn’t just wait here for ten days where it was safe, while he lay up there bleeding or dying. She just couldn’t. What if he needed her help?

She could almost hear Garrett’s gruff voice telling her to stay where she was.

But how was he supposed to fend off five or more armed men? He couldn’t. Even as skilled as he was, that would be impossible.

Without consciously realizing what she was doing, she strapped her rifle over her shoulder and picked up a box of ammo. It wouldn’t do any good to have to stop to reload, so she stole the clips from the three neighboring guns of the same caliber.

She tucked the Glock down the back of her jeans, and filled her pockets with clips and extra bullets.

Without so much as a second of hesitation, she left the safety of the bunker.

And went to save the man she was falling in love with.





Chapter Thirty


Finding her way back to the house took no thought. Sam had done it so many times her feet knew the way by instinct. No doubt, the reason Garrett had made her do it over and over and over.

Which left her mind free to make a plan. Or try to. Soon, she found herself on the hill behind the house.

One man stood on the deck, looking over the edge. She spared a glance at the impressive-looking gun in his hands. Two more men stood out front by the vehicles. She propped her rifle on a tree branch and used the scope to check out inside the cabin.

Oh, God! Garrett was fighting off two guys, and he was bleeding from his right arm. Three other men lay on the floor in the living room, not moving.

Eight enemies? This was worse than she thought.

She lined up her first shot. The man on the deck. He was closest to her. Since she’d run straight back into danger, self-preservation obviously wasn’t her biggest concern, but she was rational enough to know he posed the biggest threat. If he got to her, she couldn’t help Garrett.

So, first the deck. Then the two men inside. While the two from outside ran inside, she would change out her clip and take them out when they came into the living room.

After running it through her mind twice, she took a deep breath, pulled the clips from her pockets, and lined them up on the log next to her.

She flipped off the safety…and noticed how badly her hands were shaking.

“Get it together, Sam. Garrett needs you.”

By this time, he was down on the floor, being kicked.

“Come on. You can do this. For him. Calm down. Focus. Breathe.”

She took another deep breath, and wiped her hand on her jeans. Then she propped the gun on the branch again, and focused in on her first target. He was looking over the railing, and seemed to have noticed her footprints in the mud on the bank.

Letting out the breath, she squeezed the trigger. He went down.

She didn’t look at him again. She moved the gun and sighted in on the men inside the cabin. Since Garrett was on the floor, there was no risk of hitting him by accident.

She would need to do both shots quick. One fluid action.

She pulled the trigger. The gun thumped into her shoulder, but before she could register the pain from the recoil, she pulled back the bolt and chambered the next bullet. She quickly fired again, and the second man fell with the first who was still going down.

She didn’t risk another glance at them as she quickly repositioned the rifle. That was when she saw three men coming around the side of the house.

Crap. That wasn’t what she’d planned for.

They were looking up into the woods with their guns drawn, turning and searching in disarray. They obviously hadn’t spotted her yet.

“Come on, you can do it,” she told herself in a whisper. “One fluid movement. Three shots. Take the bastards down.”

It ended up being four shots because the last man ducked. She could live with that.

She reached for the next clip, but after surveying the bodies, she saw no movement.

None.

Not even from Garrett.





Chapter Thirty-One


With her heart in her throat, Sam leaned her rifle against the tree and pulled the Glock from the back of her waistband. She ran down the bank and jumped over the railing, careful not to look at the body lying there.

Holding the pistol up and ready, she pushed the door open and checked the room for any enemy she had missed.

All clear.

“Garrett?” she called to him.

Nothing.

Please don’t let him be dead. Please don’t let him be dead.

She went to the front door and saw another man lying in the parking area. Garrett must have taken him out.

Once she felt confident that everyone was down and accounted for, she ran back to Garrett and set the Glock on the floor right next to her, in case she needed it in a hurry.