Bear Meets Bride (R) - Amy Star Page 0,40

of them ran again but somehow they both knew it was useless. Another shot rang out, cracking into a cedar tree beside them with a gaping hole in the trunk and both Sarah and Dylan stopped dead in their tracks and slowly raised their hands. That shot had missed them on purpose – the next wouldn’t.

“Turn around,” they heard a gruff voice.

The other poacher had a sallow look to him, indented cheeks, like the skin had been shrink-wrapped over him. There was the same hard edge to him though, a trained and calculating killer. The rifle was pointed at Dylan, who merely sneered back at him.

“If you let us go right now, you might have a chance,” Dylan warned.

“I have the gun, you have shit,” the poacher retorted, “now turn around. You, boy, it’s the end for you. Girl, move aside.”

“What are you going to do?” she asked.

“Collect what we came for. He’s not… not human. He’s a bloody goddamned monster. Turn around I said! I don’t want you looking at me for this,” he commanded, bracing the rifle. “As for you, girl, you stay quiet… maybe we’ll have a use for you.”

Sarah realized what he was planning and took a step in front, opening her arms wide. The poacher hesitated only for a moment. “You’ll have to kill both of us.”

Dylan pulled her aside by both shoulders. “No,” he hissed. “Sarah… listen…”

“I’m not going to let him shoot you!” she half-screamed.

“He’ll kill us both, now stop!” he shouted at her. No, he was no longer a boy at all. There was fear in his voice but the fear wasn’t rooted in self-preservation, or in the expectation of pain, it had elevated itself to something outside of himself: he was terrified for her.

She started to cry, clutching at his jacket, which had ripped in their escape. “No… I’m not… I’m not going to let…” she pleaded, her cheeks scrunched up, tears rolling hot against her skin, and Dylan embraced her, pulling her head under his chin.

“You run… when I tell you, you run,” he whispered through her hair.

“I won’t leave you,” she insisted, but the strength had left her.

“C’mon! Move, back away, or I’ll put a bullet in both of you. Move!” the poacher said gesturing with the barrel of the gun. His face had gone a clammy kind of pale, but Dylan had no doubt that the killer had little compunction about pulling the trigger, whatever part of him that was human had been overwhelmed by the hunt.

Dylan himself had known that kind of pure unbridled instinct. But he had never let it control him so deftly. I’m going to die, he realized, and gently disentangled himself from Sarah’s arms, even as she pulled at him with her fingers.

“No,” Sarah pleaded.

The poacher raised his gun and cocked the trigger as Dylan threw Sarah aside in one harsh movement, causing her to stagger back a few steps and give his murderer an opportunity. He closed his eyes, waiting for the shot.

“You should have listened to him,” Sarah said in a low gravelly voice that didn’t belong to her. It was full of contempt, a bitter rind of syllables that couldn’t have come from such a sweet mouth. Even the poacher arched his eyebrows, confused by the ice in her tone.

Her shoulders were hunched, and her head drooped toward him, eyes thin as shards of flint.

“Shut up!” the poacher said.

Sarah twisted her head. “You might’ve had a chance… but now…”

“Shut up,” he pointed the gun at her instead.

She didn’t move an inch, merely smiled, a cunning smile that cut her lips like a sickle. “If you’re going to shoot something, then shoot. The problem with you,” she paused for half an instant, “is that you talk too much. Missed your chance.”

He was obviously puzzled by her words but there was no time for contemplation. It was all over in an instant. A brown blur flashed behind him, scattering leaves and twigs and neatly severing his head from his neck. Dylan gaped, trying to reconcile the imagery of the poacher’s last expression as his head sailed through the air, landing with an unceremonious thud against the rocks on the path. His trunk staggered, arms going limp as laundry, and the gun clattered uselessly onto the ground. Bright spurts of arterial blood jutted from his neck and drooled down the front of the camo outfit.

The edges of the neck were frayed and the image of an overused rubber eraser on a pencil entered