Curl Up and Dye - Liliana Hart Page 0,26
if they got in range.
He took out the earpiece and listened to the night around him, letting nature give him the warnings he needed. There was a shuffle of feet against earth, the snap of a twig, or rocks that were displaced and tumbled down into the bone yard.
He kept his eyes on where he knew they’d left the body until he saw movement in the shadows. The men stood still for a moment and then made hand signals and split up, circling around.
He heard the chatter in the earpiece and there was no need for translation. “Kill them.”
Chapter Ten
Agatha figured out pretty quick that climbing trees wasn’t like riding a bike. She didn’t remember the branches stabbing her in the thighs or getting dizzy when she looked down. Every time she pulled herself up higher her ribs protested, but she kept going because she’d promised herself a long time ago that she’d never be a victim again. She’d fight hard or die trying.
The rifle slung over her shoulder kept catching on the branches, and she gave up on trying to go any higher. She estimated she was probably eight or ten feet off the ground, and she clung to the trunk and tried to maneuver herself into a position where she could get the rifle ready.
The moon was bright now, and while it helped her see out through the trees, she was sure it was equally helping the bad guys. She caught a glimpse of movement and saw one of the men disappear deeper into the trees, and she knew he was circling around behind them.
Hank would be trapped.
The stillness unnerved her. Everything went quiet. Animals, insects, people—even the wind stopped.
Hank was almost directly below her, but she couldn’t see him. What she heard was the crackle from his earpiece, and if she could hear it, so could the killers. She tried to position the rifle so it rested on a tree branch, but she couldn’t do it without making noise.
Hank still had his pistol and the semiautomatic 9mm that she’d removed from the man she’d killed. In hindsight, she should’ve held on to that pistol because it would’ve been much easier for her to use.
The walkie-talkie crackled again. There were no voices coming through—just white noise. She looked all around on the ground, frantic that Hank had passed out again and had pressed one of the buttons, but she couldn’t see him anywhere.
Waiting in the tree was torture. She wanted to find Hank, to know he was safe. But she also knew their best chance for survival was for her to stay where she was until the time was right.
She breathed deep a couple of times and then tried to follow the path the killer would’ve taken. It wasn’t long before she heard branches moving from below. Much too close in her opinion. He’d slithered up like a snake before she knew it.
Her heart sank. Paralyzed and possibly passed out, Hank was a sitting duck against this ruthless hunter. He was close enough she couldn’t even take the safety off without him hearing. The sound would be familiar to an experienced shooter.
She held her breath until the beats of her heart drummed loudly in her ears. It was making her dizzy as she went from clear thinking to semi-panicked. The truth was, she was too old to be hanging on to a branch ten feet in the air with a rifle she wasn’t sure how to shoot balanced on an unstable branch while a military special forces mercenary stalked her soon-to-be husband like a ghost in fog.
A thought popped into her head, and she acted without thinking it through. Because if she would’ve thought it through, she never would’ve gone through with it.
She waited until the man was almost directly below her and then she jumped, swinging her rifle in a long arc and smashing it against his skull. The sound of cracking bone and flesh was horrific, and she knew she’d be hearing it over and over again in her nightmares.
She landed on her feet just as he was toppling to the ground, and her legs gave way beneath her. She gagged a couple of times, and then thanked God she hadn’t taken the safety off the gun. She’d have ended up shooting something and alerting the last man to her location.
Her mind began to race wildly with dark thoughts at the reality of having killed another human. She’d have done it again if it meant saving