Turning, Tanner saw Callan pull his own cycle to a stop, jump from the seat and run to David.
“Tamber has Scheme ahead,” Tanner yelled, as the other bikes skidded to a stop. From the corner of his eye he watched Dawn’s Lionesses take off on foot around the mountain as Dawn jerked her rifle from the scabbard at the side of her bike.
Pushing David into his father’s arms, Tanner took off at a run. He could smell them now. Scheme’s pain and rage sliced into his senses, as did Tamber’s killing rage.
A second later his roars followed the lions’ as he watched Tamber aim the deadly pistol at Scheme’s head.
“No!” He was too far away. He couldn’t save her. He wasn’t going to make it in time.
The shot came out of nowhere. He was within twenty feet of them when the bullet tore into the center of Tamber’s forehead, throwing her backward as her eyes widened in disbelief.
“Scheme!” He raced for her as the lions converged on the area, roaring, enraged as they paced the perimeter, the sound of the approaching heli-jet warning them of the danger coming.
“Spread out,” Dawn was yelling to the female Lion Breeds she commanded. “I want that heli-jet down. Go!”
They all packed small, cylindrical rocket launchers on their backs, which they tore free as they ran to take up defensive positions.
“Scheme.” Tanner fell to her side, his hands touching her, moving over her, shaking her as pure terror raced through him.
She was bloody, bruised, but she was alive. He rolled her over carefully, a roar ripping from his soul at the sight of her heavily bruised face and the blood that seeped from a wound in her forehead.
She was breathing. Thank God she was breathing. He buried his face in her neck. She was breathing.
At the sound of gunfire, he waved several Breed Enforcers over to her as he jerked the automatic rifle from his back and began to return fire.
The border was within sight, and somehow Tallant had managed to get his men in place with no advance warning. Which meant he had to have had help in Buffalo Gap.
“Cover her!” he yelled to the enforcers braced around Scheme and returning fire across the ravine. “Nothing touches her.”
Several more raced in to circle her as David was pushed into the circle as well. Tanner covered the circle of men, motioning other enforcers racing in to cover them as well as more gunfire began to echo through the mountain.
“The heli is gunning,” someone yelled as the rapid fire of the heli-jet’s onboard guns began to cut through the forest. “Get them the hell out of here. Now. Dawn, get a bead on that bastard and take out those guns.”
Someone, a Breed, grabbed David as Tanner lifted Scheme carefully in his arms and ran for the chopper landing in the small clearing below.
Behind them, Tanner heard the retort of a mini rocket launcher. The shoulder-held device Dawn and her women carried would pack a punch if one of them managed to hit the heli-jet. The problem was aiming at a moving target and managing to hit it before the rocket’s safety primer self-detonated in the air.
“Jonas, I want Tamber’s body back at Sanctuary,” Tanner snapped into the earwig. “Take no chances that she’s carrying any info.”
There could be hidden chips or any manner of other ways of hiding sensitive information on her body. “I want a complete examination and autopsy of her body.”
“Got it,” Jonas snapped. “Just get Scheme and David out of here. Go.”
Tanner was going. An enforcer tossed David to the pilot while another braced Tanner as he jumped into the cockpit. The doors slammed closed as the chopper was lifting into the air, angling sharply and rising above the trees.
Checking for the heli-jet, Tanner watched in satisfaction as one of Dawn’s rockets hit the tail, swinging it off-kilter before it righted itself and banked away from the area, shuddering before the pilot managed to engage one of the jets.
The heli-jet was still in the air but unable to fight now. It surged around the mountain, disappearing from sight as the Breed chopper maneuvered around the opposite hill and headed back to Sanctuary.
Shaking, Tanner stared down at Scheme, smoothing her hair back from her pale, bruised face as he realized his tears were staining her face.
“She was very brave,” David said beside him. “But you need to train her. She doesn’t know how to fight, Uncle Tanner.”
He didn’t want to train her, but he knew he had to. If she woke up. God, if only she would wake up. He wanted to protect her; he wanted life to be secure and happy; he wanted the threats she faced gone forever.
“I love you,” he whispered against her ear. “Don’t leave me, pretty girl. Please God, don’t leave me.”
It was like being buried alive. Scheme fought for consciousness, moaning as she felt her body being jostled, firepoints of pain erupting along her arms, ribs, legs.