Brynn Kelly - Edge Of Truth

“An inch in front of your foot.”

“I can’t see anything.”

“Like a bunch of nails sticking up.”

“You’re kidding me. That’s a bounding mine.” He shook his head. “I still can’t see it. You must have superhuman sight.”

“Guess I got used to the dark.”

To their left, the light snagged on trees.

“Maybe I should go first,” she said. God, that was the last thing she wanted.

“No.”

“I can see better than you.”

He caught her waist and lifted her sideways, moving them behind a tree trunk that was half his width. “I don’t want the responsibility,” he whispered into her ear. “You stay behind me, you’re safe.”

“Until you get blown up and then I’m on my own anyway, if I’m even alive.”

“Most of these things will be buried. Just then, we got lucky.”

Gunfire burst out. She shook him off. “And we might get lucky again if we can see. Come on.”

She took a step. He pinned her arms to her sides, his chest grazing her back. “I go first.”

“I’m quite capable of taking responsibility for my own death.”

“I can see that. I’m still going first.”

Wow, he sure had a hero complex. “Oh, I get it,” she said, changing tack.

“Get what?”

“It puts me in their line of fire. If I get shot, you get away.”

“What? No!”

He loosened his grip. Taking advantage of his indignation, she set out, her heart thumping hard enough to break a rib. Best-case scenario, she got lucky. Second-best, she died quickly. Her mind flashed up an image of a boy shepherd she’d met after his leg had been blown off midthigh. She’d forced herself to watch as a doctor had removed his filthy dressing, and then she’d swallowed vomit. The black, pulpy mass had writhed with maggots.

Sometimes knowledge wasn’t power.

Crap—Flynn wasn’t behind her. She glanced back, slowing. He was crouched over the mine. What was he doing—defusing it? He grabbed something from his pocket and laid it beside the spikes. The reflective strip he’d ripped off her bag. A warning to others? He would stop to be considerate, now?

He started running, waving her on. The land began to rise again up the other side of the gully. She stuck to where the trees were thickest. More gunfire. Not potshots—they were spraying the wood. Branches swooshed and cracked like a windstorm. She hurtled across the stony ground, bent double, scanning for shiny things. Or dull things. Anything that didn’t look right. Could the goons see her, or were they shooting blind? A burst clapped out behind her—Flynn had caught up and was returning fire.

A dark hulk loomed. She stopped, an inch from smashing her nose into it. A boulder. She swiveled, thrusting out her hands. Flynn was running sideways, looking back over his shoulder. “Fl—”

He rammed into her chest, slamming her spine into the rock. Pain spiraled through her torso. His rifle smacked her elbow, deadening her arm.

“Merde. You okay?” He bounced off and caught her, his hands pressing up and down her back.

Breath rasped back into her lungs. “Peachy,” she squeaked. It felt like she’d been hit by a rhino. A bullet cracked above them, showering her with rock chips. He pulled her into a crouch, leaning over her as the stone rain settled.

“Come on,” he said, grabbing her hand.

Blindly, she stumbled after him, rounding the boulder. He yanked her down on the other side and scooted in beside her. Cover. Thank God. Her feet pulsed. Ahead, the land flattened out again—the top of the gully easing out into a plateau.

She let her head fall backward onto the rock and took a shuddering breath. Gunfire tore through the trees, their echoes alone loud enough to burst an eardrum. Dozens of bullets, maybe hundreds. A lot of fingers on a lot of triggers.

“Still warning shots?” she said.

“Their orders have changed. My guess? They’re cutting their losses. They’ve realized they can’t risk you getting away.”

“So they’re shooting to kill.”

“It’s a good thing. It means they think we have a chance of getting out of here, which means we must have a chance—we just need to find it. This can’t be a dead end.”

“Wow, you’re quite the optimist.”

“Nah. An optimist sits back and waits for good shit to come to them. I don’t expect anything good to come to me—you gotta go out and make that shit happen. If you get lucky, you get lucky. No such thing as karma—you die or you don’t, whether you deserve it or not.”

“So right now, are we lucky or unlucky?”

“Depends what happens next.” He unzipped the bag and passed her a water bottle. “But don’t go all philosophical on me. My head hurts too much for thinking. Let’s just try not to die today.”

“Hey, it was you doing the philosophizing.”

“Hardly. I can’t even pronounce that word.”

She drank greedily, the water loosening her stuck throat. To her left, a bullet whacked into the dirt. Something pelted her temple. She gasped, fumbling the bottle, but it flipped out of her grip. She’d been shot in the head?

“Tess?”

She patted her face. No broken skin—just a burning sensation. Her T-shirt was soaked. “A stone, I think. Must have ricocheted up.” She grabbed for the bottle but it rolled away, into the line of fire. She lurched forward. A force hauled her back—Flynn’s hand, gripping her waistband. She flew for a second and plopped down, jamming his fingers into her butt crack. Graceful.

“Leave it,” he said, tugging his hand free.

“They’ll see it.”

“They’re more likely to see you—I don’t think they have your superhero vision.”

He grabbed a fallen branch and coaxed the bottle within reach. As good as empty.

“They could keep this up all night, all week,” she said. “Starve us out—if there’s anything left to starve by the time they run out of ammunition.”

“I’m counting on Hamid not having the patience for that. If what you say is true—”

“It is tr—”

“Then there’s too much at stake. The longer this goes on, the more anxious she’ll get, the more likely she’ll make a bad call. You said she reports to someone higher-up?”

“She runs al-Thawra, but al-Thawra reports to Denniston and the senator.”

“Then that’s where the bad call will come from. Bad decisions always come from bosses who aren’t on the ground, aren’t reading the conditions.” He punctuated his words with the bottle. “They want a black-and-white outcome, no matter the cost and screw the circumstances.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Personal experience?”

He scoffed like she’d asked an intimate question. “Human nature. They’ll be telling Hamid to find you before this gets out of control. Minefields aren’t put in dead ends. They’re designed to stop the enemy getting somewhere—they’re laid in shortcuts, thoroughfares.” He shook the last drops of water onto his tongue. “Which means this patch of scrub leads somewhere useful and they know it. It’s not just some oasis.”

“No kidding it’s not. Maybe it leads up into those hills?”

“Hills?”

“There.” She pointed. “Silhouetted against the stars.”

He squinted. “Yep, that’s where they’ll expect us to go.”

He flipped onto his belly and scooted to the far end of the rock. “Man, I could kill for NVGs.” He shouldered his rifle, let off a burst and ducked back under cover.

“What are you doing that for?” He couldn’t take on a couple of dozen soldiers.

The return gunfire surged. “Confirming we’re still alive.”

“If they think we’re dead they might stop shooting.”

“Hamid won’t believe we’re dead until she spits on our bodies. I want to make her nervous, impatient. Staying put and strafing this scrub to keep us pinned—or, better, kill us—is her best strategy. I don’t want her choosing the best strategy.”