Courage Under Fire (Silver Creek #2) - Lindsay McKenna Page 0,89

end, and each time it hit the cliff, it had snapped the vehicle out into the air again, to fall another God knew how many more hundreds of feet downward until it plowed into the cliff once again. The fact they were alive shocked him. He thought they were dead. He repeated the question to her, his voice a harsh croak. Dirt was all across her short, red hair, dust on her cheek as she turned, looking at him, staring, as if not recognizing him. That scared him.

“We have to get out of here.” He pointed at the engine. It was smoking. “Can you move?” he demanded sharply. His tone seemed to snap her back to reality.

“Chase . . . where are we? Are you all right?”

“I’m mobile. What about you?” He watched the first flames lick up from beneath the hood that was halfway torn open.

“Y-yes.” She tried to sit up, slowly looking around.

“Get the go-bags,” he commanded, pointing to them at her feet.

He tried to open her seat belt. It was jammed. So was his. Opening the nylon sheath, he pulled out his seven-inch military-grade knife. “Cari, lift your left arm now!”

She jerked it upward.

It took one, clean slice for the first harness and one for the second. She was free! Turning the knife, he quickly cut through his seat belt harness. Now, they were both free! Cari fumbled and grabbed the go-bags. She got one of them up on the dirt-filled seat, then the second one.

Chase took both of them, throwing them out of the window and as far away from the truck as he could. “Come on,” he told her. He turned, getting enough room to try and open the driver’s-side door. It was jammed shut. He cursed under his breath, twisted around, and with all his strength, he slammed his boots into it.

The door creaked open. Again, Chase hit it with another blow. Another foot widened up! There was enough room to squeeze through. “I’m going out,” he told her. “Stay until I tell you to come this way.”

Cari looked back and gasped. “Chase! Valkyrie is gone! The cage is totaled.”

“Then she got free,” he growled, straightening. The first thing he did was get to his go-bag. He hauled out the Glock 18, and slid the safety off as he scanned the top of the canyon. There was no one there. Yet. Had those drug runners moved on? He heard nothing. There was a breeze in the V-shaped canyon. He quickly studied the truck and where it sat, about a hundred feet from the bottom. It was in a precarious position. Leaning down, he looked in at Cari.

“Slide very slowly toward me,” he ordered, holding out his hand in her direction. “Slow but sure. This truck isn’t stable.”

Nodding, she wiped her closed eyes with her forearm, opened them and then crawled toward him on her hands and knees.

The truck groaned and metal shrieked.

She gave a gasp, freezing.

“Come on,” he urged her hoarsely. “Grab my hand!”

She made a lunge, both her hands gripping his.

The truck started to move away from Chase. With a grunt, he hauled Cari out. She cried once, because the space was narrow and her hips had jammed into it until she turned sideways. Cari flew toward Chase, slammed into him, knocking him backwards. He took the fall, a grunt coming out of him as they hit the earth together, Cari landing on top of him. Tensing, he held her to him so she didn’t get hurt. He knew he was going to have a lot of bruises.

“Hold on,” he rasped, slowly releasing her, guiding her to the downside of him so that he was between a possible enemy above them and the smoking truck. There was no way he was going to have Cari hurt any more than she already was.

“Stay down,” he ordered, slowly rolling over, studying the cliff, looking for any sign of vehicles or drug runners. He saw nothing. His hearing was sharp and clear and all he heard was silence.

And then he heard an ominous pop.

Launching to his feet, he grabbed Cari, half dragging her, as far away from the truck as they could get, heading downward, rocks and pebbles like small avalanches, rolling downward around them. On the way, he grabbed the go-bags with the other hand, keeping himself between the truck and her.

The explosion that occurred knocked both of them off their feet. Chase never lost his grip on Cari’s arm, holding her tight to his

readonlinefreenovel.com Copyright 2016 - 2024