Mountain Wilds Bundle (8 page)

She pulled the bag to her, still open from when Logan had used it, and looked inside. Frank stood just outside the lean-to, wheezing, and watching her.

Where is it?
 

She dumped the bag.
 

The little glass bottle, where is it?

There!

She picked it up, checked the label, and quickly found a disposable syringe. As she knelt, she wasted no time filling the needle to capacity. Then she turned to Frank.
 

“You’ll need to sit down and roll up your sleeve,” she said, feeling a little more confident with the doctor patter.

He did as he was told, slipping easily into patient mode.

This is going to work.

When he’d finished rolling up his sleeve, though, he grabbed the bottle just as she set it down. He peered at it.
 

“Nembutal,” he said slowly, sounding it out.
 

Jules froze. If he knew what Nembutal actually was, the game was over.

He set it back down.

“You’ll feel a little stick,” she said.

He grunted and rolled his eyes.

She immediately stretched the flesh of his upper arm between her index finger and thumb and gave him the injection–all of it. But before she could even cap the syringe, he was on her.

Sitting in the lean-to had been a mistake. He quickly turned to her, took her by the throat, and forced her onto her back. Though her hands flew to his forearms, he straddled her thighs with his enormous weight. It was pointless to fight. What she
needed
to do was stall for time, at least a couple minutes.

“It doesn’t have to be like this,” she choked.

With all the will power she could summon, she let go of his arms. The squeezing on her throat immediately slackened and then his hands went to the buttons of her blouse. She looked him in the eye, forced herself to smile, and slowly moved her hands to his chest.

“Why don’t you let me do this nicely?” she said, trying to pitch her voice low.

Suddenly, he grabbed both her wrists, forced them to her sides, and jammed them under her, behind her back.

“Because I don’t like nice,” he said smirking.

But then he coughed–another horrendous and a long fit of coughing she wished would go on forever. But eventually, it stopped and his eyes went to her breasts. The last few buttons of the blouse came undone.
 

Panic suddenly flared deep in her chest.
What if the Nembutal doesn’t take effect in time? A sedative injected intramuscularly takes longer than an intravenous shot.
 

Frank ran his rough hand over her chest, swishing back and forth. And then he squeezed her right breast so hard she had to cry out.
 

He chuckled and coughed but the coughing didn’t last. He squeezed the other breast as well and now she couldn’t help but fight. She squirmed under his weight and tried to pull her arms free but she couldn’t budge. Her elbows felt as though they might break but she didn’t give up. She writhed her torso, trying to keep his hands from gaining a hold.

“That’s it,” he growled. “That’s how I like it.”

But the last few words were slurred.

Her eyes snapped to his face. He looked confused. She tried to buck him off but the movement of her hips gave him a different idea. He tugged at her bra as she bucked again and this time he wobbled. The Nembutal was starting to take effect.

Hurry
.

Suddenly his bearded face loomed large over hers.

“You’re pretty,” he said, definitely slurring now.

She felt the weight of his chest collide with hers and then his face planted itself in the blanket next to her head. Scrambling, she frantically rolled enough to free one arm and pushed him off her. His slack body was even heavier than when he was conscious. Eventually though, she managed to slide sideways and clear of him.

Breathing hard, she sat up, buttoned her blouse and looked down at him.

“Never say die,” she breathed.

• • • • •

Logan crashed through the undergrowth. Noise was not the issue. Visibility was not the issue. He wanted to be tracked. At this moment, distance was the issue. Up ahead was the best choke point he’d seen but he had to be quick.

He leaped over small boulders and roots and flew past the cedars and hemlocks as his vision narrowed on what he was seeing.
 

Yes
.

Up ahead was a rock outcropping to the left, a tightly grouped stand of trees to the right, and the terrain sloping down toward the gap between the two. He barreled through and came to a skidding stop in the loose leaves and slick ground cover.

Perfect
.

Except he needed some foliage–branches a couple feet in length that had plenty of leaves. He dashed to the nearest shrub as he withdrew the axe and unlocked the plastic shield around its head. After several swings into the center of it, he’d detached three good branches. Back at the choke point, he pivoted to see the way he’d come and knelt. This had to be quick and it had to be right. He’d only have one chance. With short sideways chops, he dug into the earth. It didn’t have to be deep but the deeper the better. He glanced back up slope. No sign of the man with the handgun but Logan knew he’d be coming. First, Logan had dropped the dollar bill and then he’d hacked some fabric from the side of his pants and thrust it onto a bush as he’d run by. The man probably thought he was actually tracking someone. If it hadn’t been for the ravine and the two pursuers having split up, Logan and Jules might have evaded them.
 

As the dirt flew, Jules’ face flashed into his mind yet again. He pictured her as she’d been in his arms, lit by firelight. He’d see that face again.
 

As he chopped, he angled inward and down. All four sides of the pitfall had to be sloped. No matter where the man’s foot landed, it had to be forced to the bottom. Logan chopped at a furious rate. It wouldn’t be long now. He glanced up to check the trees. Still nothing.

This depth was going to have to do. Though deeper would have made a broken ankle more likely, he had to move on.
Now to make room for the handle.
As the blade cut into the moist black ground, Logan judged the length of the short trough he cut in the center of the pit, chopping back toward himself, between his knees. He didn’t need it to be wide–just the thickness of the handle.

Good enough.

Quickly, he reversed the blade as though he’d use it for a hammer and swung with all his might at the center of the pit. The axe head buried itself a couple inches in the chopped soil, the blade protruding upward, slightly angled away from him.
 

Logan frantically shoved dirt over the handle. The yellow, rubber grip of it was going to be a liability. He heard something and looked up, holding his breath. Though there was no sign of the man, he heard the footfalls, heavy and plodding in the silence.
 

Time is up.
 

Using the branches, he brushed away all the excess dirt and then laid them carefully over the pit. The footfalls were getting louder. As he got up, he snatched the axe cover from the ground, reached into his jacket pocket and withdrew his sunglasses. He tossed them to the ground, a few feet beyond the pit and ran to the cover of the trees. Though his heart hammered in his chest, Logan slowed his breathing. It was time to be quiet.

The rifle was gone.

“Damn,” Frank muttered. “
Damn
.”

Seth was going to
kill
him.

He lurched to the truck.
 

Whatever the doctor had injected him with, it wasn’t wearing off fast enough. His mouth felt cottony dry, his head felt like he had a hangover, and he was getting more and more angry by the second. He crashed into the side of the truck and yanked open the lid of the aluminum storage box.

He pulled out the shotgun. Six bright, red shells were clipped to its side.

Plenty
.

It’d only take one to cut that bitch in half.

• • • • •

Logan’s pursuer was close–so close he could hear him breathing. He was huffing and puffing with each lumbering step. Though Logan couldn’t see him, the location of the trap was clearly in view. The sunglasses glinted on the ground just to the right of it.
 

Are they too obvious?

Maybe the man with the pistol had finally figured out that Logan had been leaving clues. Logan would know soon enough. He pressed his back into the tree and got ready. Even if the man’s foot was impaled on the axe, he’d still be able to aim and fire a gun. Logan would only have seconds to capitalize on the shock and pain. As he peered at the pitfall, he heard the footsteps get louder.
 

Almost here.

He could hear the man gulping air.

Finally, there he was.

But as Logan watched the pitfall in disbelief, the man’s stride went completely over it.
 

Dammit.

The choke point had been narrow enough. The trap was perfectly concealed. But the man’s stride was huge and random luck had worked against Logan.
 

Suddenly the man stopped and bent over.
 

The glasses.
 

This might be Logan’s only chance. One more try with the pitfall. His eyes darted over the ground in his vicinity. He crouched, snatched up a rock, and hurled it backhand, upslope, where the man had just come from. It landed with a plop and rustled the leaves. Logan heard the heavy breathing stop. Then a loud cracking of the branches over the pitfall was followed by a bellow of pain.
 

As Logan emerged from the cover of the trees at a run, he had a clear view of the results. The man’s left foot had landed in the pit. Whether or not he’d hit the axe, Logan couldn’t tell but it didn’t matter. He rushed the man. Though his pursuer had lumbered like a moose, his hand wasn’t slow. He immediately raised the pistol and fired.

• • • • •

It wasn’t the kind of cane Jules would recommend to patients but it worked. Holding the heavy rifle in both hands, off to her right, she jammed the end of the barrel into the ground as her right foot came down. Although there was less pain now that she’d wrapped the ankle, it was still sprained.

But she didn’t stop moving. The sedative wouldn’t last forever, especially on a man Frank’s size. She’d run in the direction she thought Logan would be, into the forest. As blood pounded in her aching head and she gasped for every breath, she heard his voice.

Never say die.

Where is he now? Is he okay?
He has to be somewhere on this side of the airstrip. Somewhere between it and that canyon. But where?

Nothing looked familiar. They must have come this way but she couldn’t remember. The dense foliage was identical in every direction. But the airstrip was behind her.
That
she knew. Though her lungs burned, she kept moving. She was
so
tired and every muscle ached.
 

An enormous fallen tree trunk blocked her path, as tall as her and stretching off left and right into thick bushes.

“Oh god,” she muttered and leaned heavily on it.

Standing on one leg, breathing hard, she looked down at the rifle under her right hand. At least she knew how to use it. Her father had taught her how to shoot when she was a kid and he’d had a gun with the same kind of bolt action.

Her good leg began to shake. It was doing all the work. If she could only lay down, just for a few minutes, give it a rest and get off her ankle. But she knew what Logan would say. He’d say to keep going.

There was a sound behind her.

“Logan?” she gasped.

She spun, her back against the dead tree.

But it wasn’t Logan.

In fact, it wasn’t even human. A giant grey wolf was approaching.
 

“Oh my god,” she said, raising the rifle–but too late.

As Jules swung the barrel of the gun upward, the wolf leapt. Ears back, fangs bared, and downy fur rippling, the animal sailed through the air, directly at her.

MOUNTAIN WILDS

An Erotic Expedition Novella

PART 3

By Hazel Hunter

The muzzle flash of the pistol was bright in the shadowy forest. Though he blinked, Logan kept his eyes focused on the weapon. He grabbed and wrenched the gun sideways as his shoulder slammed into the shooter’s chest. The man screamed in pain as the gun came loose in Logan’s hand.

The pitfall had worked.

Whether the man had broken his ankle or he’d actually stepped on the blade of the axe planted at the bottom didn’t matter. He was immobilized. As Logan’s massive upper body collided with the shooter’s, it forced him back and his leg bent at an awful angle.

Logan landed a roundhouse blow on the man’s jaw and followed it with an upper cut under his chin with the pistol. As though the strings of a puppet had been cut, the man collapsed in a heap.

Though Logan had been ready to hit him again, he pulled the last punch. Breathing hard, he stared down at the immobile form below him. He blinked at the warm pistol he gripped in his hand and suddenly felt a burning in his leg. He looked down at a red stain spreading on the outside of his right knee. The jeans had been sliced cleanly open, as though someone had used a pair of scissors. The injured man’s aim had been wild and the bullet had almost missed Logan but a deep gash about two inches long was bleeding. Another centimeter over and his kneecap would have been shattered. A centimeter in the other direction and it would have missed him completely.

Lucky
.

Logan’s eyes unfocused and he saw a similar scene in a very different place. His CC-130 had gone down under enemy fire. Wick, his co-pilot, had been killed instantly, shredded by shrapnel. The outside of Logan’s right leg had been peppered with it. He’d limped into the back of the plane just as two Iraqi soldiers had entered the damaged tail gate. The shooting had started immediately.