Page 21 of The Scenic Route
She got out of the car as well, easing her door closed soundlessly after her. Bennett was already moving away from the car, and she hurried to follow before the dark could swallow him. The ground looked flat, but the rocks and scrubby plants threatened to trip her. She wished a flashlight wouldn’t have revealed their position like a beacon as she squinted at the dark ground. A shallow gully stretched across their path, and they scrambled down to the dry bottom before climbing back out.
A high-pitched yipping howl broke the night’s silence, and it was quickly joined by other, similar voices.
“Coyotes,” Bennett said, low-voiced.
“I know.” She was almost disappointed that the darknesshid her eye roll. PI Green needed to know how ridiculous he was being.
She could feel more than see his gaze on her.
“I’m notthatmuch of a city girl.” That felt like a lie, so she amended it. “Fine, so I’m like ninety-five percent city girl, but even cities have coyotes.”
“Sorry.”
“It’s fine.” His apology knocked all the defensive indignation out of her. “Just don’t assume I’m dumb.”
“You’re not dumb.” The absolute certainty in his tone made her stomach warm for some strange reason.
They crested a small rise, and the lights from the militia compound came back into view—although a lot closer than they’d looked from the car. They both fell silent, and Felicity tried to move as soundlessly as she could as the tall fence surrounding the compound loomed closer.
A flash of light in her periphery caught her attention, and she jerked her head around, but there was just darkness there. Splitting her attention between where she was putting her feet and the spot where she’d seen the brief illumination, she caught the moment of light again.
She exhaled in an almost silent huff.
“What?” Bennett asked in a whisper.
“Firefly.”
There was a short pause. “Is that a code word?”
“It is,” she whispered mock-solemnly. “Your code name, in fact.”
The silence extended so long that time that she didn’t thinkhe was going to respond. In the meantime, every time one of the lightning bugs flashed, she smiled.
Finally, he said quietly, “I’ve had worse.”
A huff of amusement escaped before she could smother it. She never would’ve guessed that this big, nearly silent PI would be so funny.
Her phone vibrated in her pocket, the screen lighting up and sending a faint glow through the fabric of her pants. She thought of how she must resemble one of the fireflies darting around them, but then the reality of where she was and what they were doing sank in. As her phone continued glowing and buzzing against her leg, she scrambled to shove her hand in her pocket. Her fingers fumbled blindly, feeling huge against the tiny buttons on the sides of her phone, but she finally managed to make them work. Her phone went dark, and she sucked in a breath, her heart pounding in her chest as her hand remained clutched around the device.
For a second, everything was silent and still.
Then there was a soft thud by her feet, and dirt spattered almost noiselessly against her boots.
Six
Bennett grabbed her arm and yanked her back, hard enough that her feet left the ground. The force of the movement almost dragged a yelp out of her, but she swallowed it down, burning her throat. Although her brain wasn’t sure what was happening, she knew that Bennett was sprinting away from the compound, towing her behind him, and that meant there was a good reason for them to be running.
As her feet moved more intentionally rather than just in reflex to avoid being dragged, Bennett’s grip on her arm loosened, sliding down to grasp her hand instead. She fell into a fast, familiar rhythm next to him, her boots barely touching down on the rocky ground before they were lifting off again. She moved a half step in front of him, trusting her sense of direction to steer her in the general vicinity of the car.
Then her boot left the ground and came back down, but there wasn’t anything underneath it. For a frozen moment, shefelt like a cartoon character after they’d walked off a cliff, suspended in midair, knowing that the long fall was coming.
Sure enough, she started dropping through the air, plummeting down until the ground appeared under her again after what felt like an eternity, her left foot hitting with a jarring wrench that twisted her ankle sideways. Bennett pulled her up just a fraction of a second too late as he stumbled on his own landing next to her.
As pain lanced through her left ankle, she realized she’d just dropped a short distance into the shallow gully they’d crossed on their way toward the compound. She didn’t let herself stop to check her ankle, knowing that any attention to it would just make it hurt worse. She knew if it’d been broken, she wouldn’t have been able to keep running like she was. Even so, the sprain still shot pain up her leg every time her left foot connected with the ground, making her gait uneven and agonizingly slow.
After losing her rhythm, every step felt endless. Bennett stayed next to her despite her hobbling pace, and she turned her head toward him.
“You okay?” she asked, breathless even more from the pain than the run.
