Page 30 of Touchdown

The guy snorted.

We had reached deadlock. In the silence, the rain started falling harder again. The pitter-patter of little raindrops was becoming a minor distraction here beneath the semi-umbrella of our broad-leaf tree.

I strained my ears. The other two guys continued to be creepily still. Maybe I really had knocked them out?

Noah started to whisper something, but I touched his bare shoulder. He went still.

We listened. The rain picked up even more.

Say I really had knocked out the first guy. Dropped him like a rock with a lucky shot. I still didn't believe I knocked out the second. He'd screamed. Unconscious guys don't scream, do they?

But he'd sure been quiet for a long time now. Had I broken something? A leg or even an ankle would keep him down for the count. So maybe his buddy gave him a painkiller, and now he was knocked out for the count too.

That might explain the weirdness, maybe?

It was raining harder again. Somewhere off in the distance, I heard a sound that might be thunder.

The night vision was probably getting shorted out again. I tensed as I scanned the area for a flash of light.

There.

Right there.

In all this dark, you couldn't miss it.

I took aim with my final weapon.

And then the light swung up right into my eyes.

“Forget it, kid,” he said. “Hit me again, and I'll take you out right now.”

I blinked against the light. Tried to tell myself he didn't have a three-foot rifle aimed squarely at my center mass.

But he totally did.

“Recess is over, I'm tired of playing with you. Come on down. Nice and slow.”

Chapter 20

We climbed down that slick, dark tree inch by fucking inch. Naked, our skin alive to the touch of bark and leave and drizzle, we tested every branch along the way. All the while, I kept feeling the prickle of eyes on my neck and spine.

It's a psych. He can't shoot me. He needs us alive and unhurt.

But, just in case, we were coming down anyway. “We've tested them enough, babe.” Noah's murmur was a kiss that tickled directly into my ear. “We always knew it was a long shot.”

“Doesn't mean I had a plan to surrender.”

“It isn't surrender. It's being strategic.”

“Is it?” What did my eyes look like in the dark when I stared deep into Noah's? “It's easier for them if we climb down the tree voluntarily. We're giving this asshole exactly what he wants.”

“It sticks in my craw too,” Noah said. “But he isn't lying about the big-ass tranquilizer guns. I promise you that.”

“Rhino tranquilizer. No wonder we have memory gaps.”

And I didn't want to lose any more. All those kisses.

All those nights.

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