Shirlee McCoy - Lone Defender

“Your concern is touching.” She glanced down at the protein bar, her mouth watering. Not a juicy burger, but she’d eat cardboard if it meant easing the gnawing hunger she’d been feeling for days. She tore the wrapper off, took the first bite and the second and the third.

Jonas grabbed the bar from her hand before she could take another.

“Hey!”

“I said take it slow. Not inhale it.”

“If I were inhaling it, it would already be gone.” She snatched the bar back, took another bite, actually managing to taste the nutty flavor before she swallowed. “It’s good.”

“I have more. I’ll get them out when we stop.”

“How about we stop now? Because I could eat another dozen of those.” She licked crumbs from her fingers, thought about dragging Jonas to a stop and demanding whatever food he was carrying.

“Weren’t you just saying you wanted to walk all night?”

“That was before I realized you had food.”

“Three more miles and you can eat all the protein bars you want.”

“Is that a bribe?”

“Whatever keeps you moving.”

“More food would do it.”

“Sorry. Everything else is in my pack. Getting it out would slow us down.”

“Are we in a hurry?”

“Only if we want to beat the storm.”

“I’ve weathered several storms already. One more won’t kill me.”

“The storm isn’t the only thing I’m worried about.” His pace had increased, and Skylar struggled to keep up, her sluggish movements no match for his long, easy stride.

“Please, don’t tell me there are mountain lions out here. I really don’t want to end up being cat food.”

“Mountain lions aren’t the worst predator we might run into. I’ve seen campfires the past couple nights. I thought members of the search party were following my trail, but the search-and-rescue coordinator said none of his people were out here.”

“Maybe it’s someone enjoying the desert,” she offered, but she didn’t believe it any more than she believed the person who’d drugged her and left her in the desert hadn’t meant her any harm.

“That’s what I thought, until you told me what happened to you.”

“How far away were the fires?”

“A few miles the first night. Closer last night.”

“So the people who built them could be right behind us.”

“Could be.”

“You’re a man of few words, Jonas, and I find that truly annoying,” she muttered, and he chuckled, the sound gritty and rough.

“I’ve never felt a need to waste words, but if you want me to expound on the kind of trouble we might be in, I will. You said someone drove you out here and left you—”

“I’m not just saying it. It happened.”

“A person who goes to that kind of effort probably isn’t going to sit around hoping that you’re dead. Not when your face has been splashed on every local news station and not when every newspaper in the Phoenix area has been running stories on the search efforts.”

“You think a killer is on our trail?”

“I think there’s a possibility.”

“In that case, walking three miles and getting to shelter isn’t going to do us much good.”

“Maybe not.”

“So we could wait here. Ambush whoever is following. There’s plenty of low vegetation. If we stay in the shadows—”

“No.”

“What do you mean, no?” “Exactly what I said.”

“I didn’t even finish outlining my plan.”

“You don’t have any breath or energy left to outline a plan, let alone ambush a posse.”

“You never said a posse was following us.”

“And I’m not saying it now. I’m just suggesting that you conserve your energy. You may need it before the night is over.”

He was right.

Of course he was.

But for the first time in almost a week, she wasn’t alone, and she was scared out of her mind that if she stopped talking, she’d be jerked back into reality and find herself lying on the desert floor. Alone again.

“I still think—”

“Shhhhhh.” He slid his palm up her arm, his fingers curving around her biceps, the warning in his touch, in the subtle tensing of his muscles, doing more than words to keep her silent. She waited, ears straining as she listened for some sign that they weren’t alone.

Thunder rumbled in the distance, and moisture hung in the air, carrying the musty scent of desert rain and wet earth. Nothing moved. No scurrying animals. No hum of life. Nothing but dead quiet, and a stillness that filled Skylar with dread.

A soft click broke the silence, and she didn’t need to wonder what it was. She’d heard the sound hundreds of times during her days working as a New York City police officer.

She was on the ground before she could think, her body pressed against prickly plants and gravelly dirt, Jonas right beside her. Shoulder to shoulder, arm to arm.

She turned her head, met his eyes.

“Stay down,” he whispered, the sound barely moving the air.

“That was a gun safety,” she responded, trying to keep the words as quiet as his had been. Fear made them ring out louder than she’d planned, and he pressed a finger to her lips, shook his head as he shifted, pulled something from beneath his jacket.

A Glock. 9 mm. Nice handgun. Exactly what she liked to carry.

They weren’t completely helpless, then.

He wasn’t, at least.

She felt a split second of relief, and then Jonas was gone, the darkness swallowing him so quickly, Skylar barely had time to realize he was moving before he’d disappeared, and she was alone again.

Alone, cowering on the desert floor, just waiting to be picked off by an assassin’s bullet.

No way. There was absolutely no way she was going to die without a fight. She needed a better position, more cover. She eased forward, her stomach scraping along the ground, cactus needles and desert pebbles digging into her skin. A minute passed as she struggled to move stealthily, her fatigue-clumsy efforts loud in the silence, her thundering heart masking any other sounds. Alone with her fear, wondering if Jonas had been nothing more than a hallucination.

Alone like she’d been one too many times in her life.

Alone, and it was okay, because she would fight, and she would win and she would get out of the desert alive.

She would.

A soft shuffle came from her left, and she stilled as a shadow crept toward her. Short. Paunchy. Not Jonas. That’s all she saw. All she needed to see. She launched herself up and toward him, her movements jerky and slower than she’d intended. She realized her mistake too late to correct it, realized her own weakness as she barreled into the man’s chest, bounced backward, landed hard. Breath heaving, she barely managed to dive to the left as the man aimed a pistol in her direction, pulled the trigger. The bullet slammed into the ground a foot from where she’d been, and she was up again.

Fight or die.

It was as simple as that.

Or, maybe, it was as simple as fight and die.

She didn’t know.

Couldn’t know, but she’d fight, anyway. It’s what she’d done her entire life. No reason to give in now. Jonas was either real or he wasn’t. He was somewhere nearby or not. God would intervene and save Skylar or He wouldn’t.

One way or another, she’d fight.

She threw herself at the man’s legs, knocking him off balance. A bullet whizzed past her shoulder. Then they were on the ground, tumbling into scrub and thorns, Skylar’s overtaxed muscles trembling as she grappled for control of the pistol.

Shooting a moving target used to be easy.

Not anymore.

Now guns were the enemy; Jonas’s memories of the damage they could do were as ripe and real as the nebulous mass that rolled on the ground ten feet away. Skylar and the man who’d been stalking them through the darkness. Jonas needed to aim his pistol, fire and hit one without hitting the other. A few years ago, he wouldn’t have hesitated. Then he’d achieved sniper status with his band of Shadow Wolf brothers, his aim truer and more accurate than anyone on the team.