I scrabble to my feet.
Dig the phone out and call Silas. He answers on the first ring. “Naomi? You okay?”
“No,” I whimper, knowing my voice is going to give me away. “They’re after me. There are too many. I’m in the woods. Inez said she was sending me to you. I don’t—I don’t know. I’m scared, Silas. I’ve killed some of them.”
“I’m coming, baby. Stay free, and stay alive. You’re a warrior, Naomi. You fuckin’ fight, you hear me? I’m coming.”
“I’ve got her!” A voice calls out.
I spin, gun raised. He’s there, right in front of me, a big black shotgun. Trained on me.
“Drop it, bitch,” he growls. “I won’t kill you, but you won’t much like gettin’ a leg full of birdshot.”
I hold the gun on him, dropping the phone at my feet and bracing the pistol two-handed. “Iwillkillyou.”
I hear a branch snap. Glance that way. Another one emerges, pointing a machine gun at me, with a light on the bottom of the barrel.
A third. A fourth. They spread out into a semicircle
One keys a radio. “Boss? We got her.”
“I’ll die first,” I snarl.
I throw myself to the side; a deafening blast echoes, and I feel something hot slash my leg in a dozen places. The pain is overwhelming, hot and hard and debilitating. I’m on my back, gasping. I see a face.
I shoot it.
It goes away.
I can’t see. Pain blinds me.
“GRAB HER!”
“GET HER GUN, GODDAMMIT!”
I shoot, and shoot, and shoot, firing at a different body each time. I hear grunts. A boot cracks into my side, and I almost vomit.
I kick, scream, but powerful, unforgiving hands have my feet. Another strips the gun away.
“Goddamn, she’s a fuckin’ wildcat,” someone pants.
Something cracks into my skull, and the world goes black.
old friend
Silas
Ishut the Explorer off and tuck the keys behind the gas tank lid. Securing my gear so it won’t clink or jostle, I orient myself by the huge, lightning-struck tree that is my landmark.
The trail I used to get to this location is little more than a deer track through the forest, just wide enough for a vehicle, as long as you don’t mind scratches on the sides. Putting the lighting-blasted pine on my left, I ease into the trees, HK gripped loosely, pointed down. I have an infrared filter on the under-barrel light, which I use to light my way and search for tripwires. I doubt Malik’s men know about this weakness in his security: I discovered it and kept it to myself, since it’s so difficult to exploit I figured it was best used as an ace in the hole for some possible future. Now, I’m glad I kept it to myself.
I creep through the forest, head on a swivel and ears pricked. It’s slow-going. My next landmark is a single, out-of-place birch surrounded by elms, oaks, pines, and spruces, its twin trunks angled apart from each other. I check the leftmost trunk and find my initials with an arrow pointing toward Malik’s farmhouse.
Twenty minutes of lurking and ducking and creeping through the forest, and I reach my third and final landmark: four dead trees which all fell inward toward each other, catching their trunks to form a thirty-foot high teepee. I pass directly beneath the crossed branches, veering a few degrees left to go around a deep ravine.
Another half mile or so, and a dim glow suffuses the night sky ahead, gleaming through the leaves and trunks. The ground slopes upward, and I creep more slowly and silently than ever, until the slope evens out, and then drops off precipitously. I lay on my belly at the drop-off, scanning the layout below.
A six-foot-high chain-link fence topped by razor wire runs the perimeter of the property on three sides, bordered by the thick, dense forest. The fourth side of the property, the front-facing one, is ten feet of wrought iron topped with spikes, the bars close together. The entire fence is electrified, as well, humming with enough amperage to turn a man into KFC. There’s a gap of ten feet of closely mown grass between the trees and the fence line, so no one can approach the fence unseen; here, the hilltop where I’m posted, is the only exception, and the hilltop leans toward the fence in a natural ramp, leaving a short gap of only three feet or so, and the hilltop stands a good foot or more higher than the fence.
