Sure, we had decent cover there, behind our log, but that wouldn’t last for long.
“The Box Square method?” Bex suggested.
“The Brennan-Black technique?” I countered.
But neither option held any hope against a trained sniper with a clear line of sight, and we knew it.
“Stay here,” I said, and started to my feet, but Bex was stronger—her reflexes even faster than I remembered—and I didn’t have a chance to break free.
“Are you crazy?” she snapped, pulling me down.
“I’ll circle around behind him. Or her. Or them. And then—”
“Are you bloody crazy?” she asked even louder, just as another shot rang out. I could see in her eyes that we were thinking the same thing: a hundred yards.
“Bex, let me go.” I shook my head. “I can outflank them and come around from behind. I’ll be fine. They won’t—”
“Cammie, where was I standing?” Bex challenged even though I didn’t think that was the time for a pop quiz. “Where was I standing?” Bex asked again, slower the second time. I looked at the place she’d been and did the mental math.
“He missed you by at least five feet, so let’s figure he’s moving to his left.” I was right; I knew it. And yet there was something in Bex’s eyes as I spoke. Somehow I knew she was a whole new kind of afraid.
“And that means…” I started, but I couldn’t find the words. “And that means…” I tried again, but instead of the lessons of Joe Solomon, I heard the words I’d chanted to myself over and over for almost a year. They need me alive. They need me alive. They need me alive.
“Cam,” Bex said, her voice low and steady, “it means they weren’t shooting at me.”
The birds had stopped their singing. The woods were quiet and still. And that was when I heard the music again. I squeezed my hands over my ears, but the sound grew louder and louder, and my heart rate slowed. The sun must have come out from behind a cloud, because everything seemed brighter. Clearer.
“Cammie.” Bex was shaking me. Her eyes were wide with terror. And I knew that we were in something of a clearing. Aside from the log, there was no cover for ten yards in any direction. We weren’t sitting ducks yet, but the shooter was up and moving, and it was just a matter of time before he gained a line of sight.
We had to move from that position, and fast.
“Bex,” I said, reaching for my best friend’s hands.
“Yeah?”
Another shot rang out.
Seventy-five yards.
“I’m sorry.” And before she could register the words, I kicked and sent my best friend tumbling, falling end over end, down the hill.
A split second later, I followed.
True, falling headfirst down a really big hill while you’re still semi-concussed is probably not recommended, but I didn’t have many other options at the moment. I landed with a thud against a large mound of blackberry bushes. Thorns sliced into my skin. My head swirled and throbbed, and I thought I would be sick. But there was a shadow overhead, and I knew that my plan (if you want to call it that) had worked, and we’d made it out of the clearing and into the cover of the trees.
Bex had landed twenty feet away from me. Good, I thought. Stay there. Stay safe, away from me.
But it was too late. She was already up and moving toward me, like a cat.
“How many?” Bex said, her breath even and steady. A piece of moss clung to her hair, and mud stained her cheek, but she didn’t move to wipe any of it away.
“Just one,” I said, then considered. “I think.”
I hoped.
I saw a figure moving through the trees behind us, up the hill. He wasn’t big, necessarily, but he was agile and quick and lean.
And closer. Coming so much closer.