Page 33 of The Hero Within
"Neither of us has been in the kidnapping game." Eden couldn't help herself. "So I guess that's a no."
"Puta madre." Colton held up his hand, gesturing for silence. "Fucking motherfucking fuck. I can see a couple of shapes out there. They're not full-grown, but they're almost adult-sized by the look of them, which makes them just as dangerous." He turned in a slow circle. "I must have caught the scent of one of them. What I don't see is mama. She's the better hunter and she'll be downwind."
This was an appropriate time for swearing. Eden swallowed her nerves. "What do we do?"
"You keep your back to the rocks," he told her. "They'll try and pounce on you from behind and crush your neck or suffocate you. Do you know how to use that thing?"
She swiftly loaded the shotgun like a pro. "Do you think Adam didn't teach me how to shoot?"
"Only as a last resort," he warned. "Stay out of it if you can. You're more likely to hit CJ or me, than anything else. A combat situation's miles away from popping cans on the range, especially when your target can move faster than you can see in the dark. Use it to defend yourself if we go down."
She didn't argue. Her face was still bruised from Black Tom's sudden blow. No matter how much Adam had tried to prepare her for this sort of situation, she was rapidly learning how far out of her depth she was.
And if they went down, she was dead.
"How many are out there?" CJ's voice pitched high.
"I've got three on my radar and a mysteriously missing adult female, but I daresay she'll be out there. They don't call them shadow cats for no reason."
Yeah.Eden swallowed. So named because you never saw them coming. The genetically manipulated creatures had camouflage down to a fine art.
She pressed her back against the boulder and blinked, trying to adjust her vision to the pale moonlight.
Colton gave a burst of quick orders to CJ, the pair of them standing guard in front of her. With the rock at her back, the shadow cats could only come at them in a frontal assault—which was probably why Colton had picked this spot to camp.
"What are they waiting for?" CJ demanded.
"They're still young," Colton murmured, staring out into the night. "Learning to hunt. I don't think they expected us to sense them coming."
Something landed on her head. A bug or... no, gravel. It rained down over her shoulders, and she rubbed it out of her hair.What the...?Eden's heart stopped dead in her chest as she heard the faintest shift of sound above her.
Oh, shit.
"Colton," she whispered loudly.
He jerked a hand at her. "Shh. I'm trying to listen."
"I think I just found the mother," she blurted. "It's on top of the boulder."
His shoulders stiffened and he slowly turned around, just as Eden tilted her head back. Her heart started kicking again, and a shiver of breathlessness went through her. Directly above her, a patch of pure darkness separated itself from the velvety night skies, and then a high-pitched yowl erupted.
"Shit!"
The shadow cat launched itself off the top of the boulder, aiming directly for Colton. He jerked his shotgun up and fired, the sound echoing through the night. Eden was blinded momentarily by the sudden light of the muzzle flash, a scream escaping her and the shot echoing through the night.
Jesus.She blinked away the afterimage, catching a glimpse of CJ darting in with his knife, trying to get the creature off Colton. The world around her jerked like a vignette of slides running through a projector. Colton was flat on his back on the ground, as if the mama cat had slammed into him. CJ smashed into the cat, as Colton flipped to his feet.
A high-pitched scream pierced her eardrums, and then Colton was cursing as the shadow swiped its claws at CJ.
It was moving so bloody fast.
And worse, the night itself seemed to be rippling with darkness.
"The kids are joining the party!" she yelled, as CJ grunted and staggered back beneath the mother's sudden assault. "Colton!?"
Trying to dance in low to hamstring the mama cat.
Behind him a shadow loomed.
