One Step Too Far (Frankie Elkin #2)(88)

We should be running away, I think wildly, not creeping toward. We should be disintegrating into every man for himself.

But our group that was not a group has turned solid as a rock.

Death approaches.

Neil and I head out to meet it.



* * *



—

We pause in sight of Daisy’s snagged red vest. I don’t see any sign of Scott or Miguel. Were they able to take cover behind the bushes? Nothing moves. I don’t hear so much as the rustle of a leaf.

Once more I scan the horizon. Once more I come up with nothing. Sweat trickles down my brow, stings my eyes. I can hear insects now, droning in my ear. Look. Listen. Breathe.

Then the snap of a dead twig.

Straight ahead, the clump of bushes trembles in response. Scott or Miguel—has to be. But still, my gaze can’t pick out another person moving through the trees around us.

Neil is squeezing my arm very hard. Comfort for himself? Comfort for me? It doesn’t matter. I read once that soldiers hold the line for the sake of the buddy beside them. I get it now. I can fail myself, have failed myself. But I don’t want to leave Neil to face whatever’s out there alone.

The bitey bugs tangle in my hair, dive-bomb my ears. I’m incredibly thirsty, and simultaneously I really need to pee. The woods are too still, my pulse too fast. I taste salt and bug repellent and pine sap.

Then—

A huge form bursts from the trees. With an animal-like roar, it charges straight toward Neil and myself.

I register so many things at once.

The whites of Bob’s eyes as he barrels at us, red canister raised.

A high-pitched battle cry as the bushes behind him explode and Scott and Miguel come stumbling out.

While a form appears just eight feet from where Neil and I are standing. A single tree splitting into two—and the second tree raising a rifle.

It makes no sense, and yet is exactly as Bob predicted.

He hits the spray nozzle on the bear repellent just as the rifle cracks.

Bob goes down like an oak. There’s no time to react before a second crack brings a second scream. Scott, Miguel—I don’t know which.

Neil and I throw ourselves forward. I trip over one of my dangling pine boughs and careen wildly just as more gunfire explodes. I want to lash out with my knife, viscerally attack this evil tree figure who hurt Bob, attacked precious, oversized, lovable Bob, but mostly I’m pinwheeling my arms while trying to find my footing. In the next instant, I hit a wall of pepper spray, the burst from Bob’s canister. Immediately, my eyes well up and my nose streams. I drop my own can and claw at my throat.

It burns, it burns, it burns.

Through my swollen eyes I watch the tree figure move again. Neil has thrown himself onto the hunter’s back. I need to raise my knife. I need to help.

Except then Neil is on the ground. And the tree man is raising his rifle.

Gunshot. Single crack. Not from the tree man, but from somewhere behind him. The hunter recoils. Turns back around.

A frozen moment of time. Through my tearing eyes, I can see Miguel square off in front of the hunter. There’s a look on his face I’ve never seen before. Wild. Fierce.

The hunter has his rifle.

Miguel a puny handgun.

I’m raising my knife. Must attack—now—while he’s distracted. Go for the hamstrings, Achilles, anything.

Then he’s gone. Just like that. The hunter fades back into the forest as if he never was.

Birds resume chirping. Gun smoke and pepper spray clear from the air.

Miggy stands in front of me, still clutching his handgun, his brown skin nearly bone white.

Then the moaning begins. And I am almost undone by the carnage around us.



* * *



—

I want to squeeze my red-rimmed eyes shut. I don’t want to look. I don’t want to know. If Neil is triggered by men in tuxes, then gunshot wounds are my kryptonite. They take me spiraling back to memories I don’t want to have, final moments I still can’t bear to witness.

“Frankie,” Miggy states urgently.

I shake my head. I can’t. I can’t see more, I can’t lose more. I’m a collection of jagged scars, my own, other people’s. My skin has already been flayed away inch by inch. I don’t have enough left to cover this.

“Frankie,” Miguel snaps again.

But it’s the moaning that does it. Forces me to focus, to stand up, dump a bottle of water over my still-streaming eyes and nose. I’m covered in tears and snot. It feels appropriate.

I spy Bob first, mostly because he’s the largest of the fallen forms, and the red blood stands out brightly against his pale khaki shirt. He’s the one moaning. Neil, closer to me, is crumpled facedown. He makes no sound at all.

“I have Scott. You get Bob,” Miggy orders. He’s not swaying on his feet, or collapsing at the sight of so much blood. He’s moved to someplace beyond himself, where his normal squeamish sensibilities no longer apply.

I follow his example. This is not me, ripping the last of the stupid branches from my pack so I can walk without tripping toward Bob’s collapsed body. This is not me, leaning beside my oversized friend’s prone form. This is not me, peering into Bob’s face as he opens his blue eyes and smiles at me.

“Oops,” he whispers.

“Don’t talk,” I whisper.