Page 29 of Monstrous Heat
NATALIE
Heart pounding, I stared at the door, the gun held between both my hands, close to my chest. I’d set the phone down on the counter, still connected to Holly. At least there’d be a witness of whatever happened, though I didn’t think it would make much of a difference. What could a lone American college student do?
The door thumped open, making me flinch. A man stood in the doorway. I couldn’t see his face, but he was dressed in camo and held a big fucking rifle casually in his hand. I didn’t recognize him from camp, but he could be part of a rescue party.
Keeping myself as small and still as possible, I watched as he glanced around the dingy hut. His gaze narrowed in on my backpack on the bed. He yelled over his shoulder, “¡Más acá!” and adjusted the rifle forward.
Ready to shoot.
Bracing myself, I pulled the trigger. Several shots fired, too rapidly for my brain to even count them. My shoulders and arms jerked with the recoil. Too low. I got him in the thigh. He bellowed and jumped back out of the doorway.
Everything slowed. Or maybe my mind had slipped into super-sonic mode. More men yelled outside, calling back and forth to the man I’d shot. At least a handful of men. I didn’t have enough bullets to hold them all off. Especially when they were armed better than me.
Kroktl wouldn’t be too far away. He might have already heard the gunfire and be headed back. He’d sworn he’d come like a glaze of light if he heard me call for him. How long would it take, though? If all these men had rifles, they’d blast this hut to smithereens before he could help. I certainly couldn’t hold them off with a handgun.
I had to play this smart. Win the long game. Give him time to arrive.
“Go away!” I yelled. “Or I’ll shoot again!”
A different man called back. “We don’t want to hurt you, Natalie Whit.”
I clenched the gun so hard that my fingers ached. They knew my name. So they had to be working for Snyder.
“You’re lost, sí? I’m sorry that we frightened you. We’re here to help.”
Yeah right. Rescue teams didn’t carry AR-15s or whatever rifles those were. But if they thought I was naïve and stupid, they wouldn’t kill me. At least right away. “You’re from camp?” I asked, letting my voice quiver.
“Your professor sent us to find you.” A man slowly approached the open doorway, his hands held out on either side. He didn’t have a gun that I could see. “We should have called out to you, Natalie. We’ve been looking for you all morning. Put the gun down so no one else gets hurt.”
I sniffled loudly. “Okay. Please don’t hurt me. I just want to go home.”
“Sí, sí. Come along now and be a good girl.”
Inwardly, I shuddered. I didn’t like the sinister undertones in that phrase at all. As if he was already planning all the ways he was going to hurt me before we got back to camp.
The man I’d shot growled something low and vicious, biting off his words on a groan. I couldn’t suppress a quick grin. At least I’d wounded one of them.
“Come out now and no one else gets hurt,” the second man said.
I pushed up to my feet, forcing my shaking legs to carry me toward the door. I held my phone in one hand and the gun in the other, away from my body.I just have to survive until Kroktl gets here. Whatever that takes.“I’m coming out.”
The soldier quickly snagged the gun from me and jerked his head at a third man. He took my phone and then brushed past me into the hut. Three more men stood ten or twenty paces away, guns ready. The man I’d shot leaned against the wall of the hut, while another soldier wrapped a bandage around his thigh.
“Who are you?” I asked the man who’d been speaking. I assumed he was the leader of this little group. “Who do you work for?”
He flashed a tight, small smile as he tucked my gun into his waistband. “I could ask the same of you, chica.”
The man came out of the hut with my bags slung over his shoulder. They spoke rapidly in Spanish, and though I tried to listen and translate, I just couldn’t keep up. I scanned the trees and bushes around the hut, looking for Kroktl. Surely he’d heard the gun. I wanted to shout for him, but I didn’t want to set these assholes off, either. So far, they hadn’t hurt me, though the man I’d shot was definitely glaring at me murderously.
“Where’s your friend?” The leader asked.
Startled, I tried to play it off with confusion. “My friend? Do you mean Holly?”
“You must think we’re pretty stupid. Who are you working for?”
“Dr. Snyder. I work with him—”
Something slammed into the side of my head so hard it was like a thick black curtain dropped over my eyes. I felt my body slumping, slowly falling, and all I could think about was trying to call for help.“Kroktl!”
