Under Fire (Winged Enemy MC Romance) (14 page)

I had never tried to run through the fields before.
If I live through this then I’m never trying this again.
Only the sounds of the bike engine on the road behind me spurred me further into the dense thickets.

It was slow going, but the good news was that my pursuer couldn’t progress any faster. Still, I was injured and it was slowing me down. I took a look over my shoulder.

A figure that must have been Kat waded through the growth faster than I was able to. She was the only figure in sight.
I wonder what she did to the others.

I had to make a stand somewhere, but I may have screwed myself over by running out of town. At least if there had been solid objects to hide around and behind I may have stood a chance of taking her by surprise, but it was mostly wide open out here above chest height. It didn’t help me running from someone with a gun.

If anything the brush grew thicker up ahead, and there were a few trees. I worked my way in that direction, hoping against hope that there was something there that could be my salvation.

It took nearly five minutes to reach my target, the going got slower the closer I got. Kat was close enough that I wouldn’t be surprised to hear bullets start whizzing by. Subconsciously I ducked my head as I struggled to fight my way through.

The undergrowth opened up underneath the trees where the sun didn’t reach past the leaves. There were signs of teenage partying, beer cans crumpled up in amongst the gnarled roots. I cast about in search of anything that could make my situation more tenable.

A low branch offered an option. I could climb into the trees and hope that I could hide myself well enough to drop down and surprise Kat when she got to the thicket. I didn’t like my odds on that one, though. Too obvious.

There was a long, smooth branch on the ground that looked as though someone had used it as a walking stick. I hefted it in my good hand. It was solid wood, no rot visible, and would make do for a weapon. I still needed a way to close the gap with Kat without getting shot first.

I looked back the way I had come. There was a sort of entrance into the grove where I had come through, but the brush on either side was fairly thick, especially towards the ground. It wasn’t great, but it was likely my only shot. Kat was closing the distance faster than I would have liked.

It was hard to put myself into easy view and the path of potential gunfire but I made sure that Kat would be able to see my green runner’s shirt as I jogged towards the back of the clearing, and then hid behind a tree. I took off the shirt, leaving me in an off-white undershirt, and threw it up so that it caught in the branches in a spot of sunlight. Then I dropped to the ground and carefully worked my way back towards the side of the entrance, careful not to become visible to Kat’s line of sight.

I tucked myself into the brush as deeply as I could and covered myself with as much grass and vegetation as I could pull over me. Luckily my shirt and pants blended in better than I would have thought, and from there I could see that the corner of the running shirt was easily visible.

Less than a minute later I heard brush crunching under Kat’s feet as she charged towards the thicket.
She must know that I don’t have a gun. She’s not being nearly as cautious as she should be.

Confidence made Kat reckless. A blast from the gun buried itself into the wooden branch just in front of the decoy I had left in the tree. The woman stood not ten feet from me as she finally slowed down her pace and advanced further.

Come on, just a little further.
This was exactly the wrong place for Kat to slow down. If she looked around at all when she stepped through into the shaded area, she would see me lying there and have an easy shot. I needed her attention to be completely captured by the shirt I had left in the tree. I tried to still my racing heart and stopped breathing entirely. I couldn’t afford to make a sound, otherwise my life would be over.

A boot appeared in my vision, two feet in front of my face. I couldn’t even look up to see where Kat was looking from here, which was a big oversight. I willed her not to look in my direction.

The foot didn’t move.

Oh, fuck.
So this was how I died.

The other foot came to join its mate.

She’s just standing there.

We were two feet apart, hunter and hunted, and it was only a matter of time until she looked down to her right and saw me lying there. I had covered myself with a little brush, but there was no way that I wouldn’t stick out like a peacock amongst hens if she looked right at me. It was a wonder she hadn’t seen me yet.

A flash of green out of the corner of my eye. Kat took a few steps forward to put herself behind a tree, looking out around.

My shirt had fallen loose from the branch I had tossed it on, and it caught and held Kat’s attention, saving me.
For the moment. She could look back at any time.

I rose to my knees as slowly as I could, as deathly quiet as possible. Kat was still just out of reach. My grip tightened on my branch like a baseball bat.

With a deep breath that I drew slowly in through my nose, I held it and braced my core. I pushed off towards the woman I loathed and swung the bat at her wrists as hard as I could.

There was a loud
crack
and gun went flying. Kat had started to turn at the sound of me exploding out towards her, and it was a good thing I had aimed further up her arms otherwise I would have missed entirely. As it was I just barely clipped the side of the barrel, but it was enough to toss it ten feet away into the heart of the dense brush.

Her eyes widened in surprise and she ducked as my follow-up swing flew over top of her head, brushing her long hairs on the way by.

The heavy branch took a lot of time to bring to bear after a missed swing. Too much time.

Kat dove straight into me and my breath flew out of my body in a mighty
whoof
. We fell to the ground, entangled, and I let go of the wooden weapon in order to try and grapple with her.

She had the benefit of superior position and two healthy hands. I had the benefit of hand to hand combat training. It made for a relatively even battle, as she managed to get in a few blows to my body while I kicked and punched up at her from my back.

I need to get out from under her.
If I could get her down and keep her there, maybe I could go and find the gun and regain control over the situation.

I could tell that Kat had never fought another woman quite like this, and I used that to my advantage. I targeting her right side until she leaned a bit too far to the left defensively, and then once she was off balance I put everything I had into a big roll to fling her off of me.

Each of us scrambled to our feet, breathing heavily. Shades of red crossed my vision, and it was tough to focus clearly past how much I hated this woman. She came in here and started killing and hurting my new friends, and me, and like hell was I going to let her finish the job.

I kept watch of her chest so that I wouldn’t be tempted to put too much stock into what her eyes did. I saw when she faked to my right but her body was already turned towards the left, and I caught her across the face with as heavy of a blow as I could muster.

Kat stumbled backwards and slipped, and I gave chase long enough to shove her as hard as I could. She went flying and I ran in the other direction, towards where I had hit her gun with the walking stick.

Come on, where the hell are you?
The brush was even deeper than I had thought. I had only seconds to search, and all too soon time was up.

I turned only moments before the enraged woman reached me, sprinting at full speed. There wasn’t much I could do aside from leap out of the way, but I barely moved an inch before she made contact and we both went sprawling.

I hit the ground hard, but at least she wasn’t on top of me. The slight movement I’d made had been enough that I slipped out of the grasp of her outstretched arms.

We had landed on the other side of the thick brush and into a wider area, but I didn’t have time to look around. A hint of black caught my eye, and I saw the gun laying only five feet away. The only problem was that Kat had already seen it, and she was between me and it.

I struggled to move; my arms and legs felt like they were moving through molasses. It seemed to take forever but was likely no more than a couple of seconds.

Kat had a hold of the gun, and had turned it on me.

Thoughts raced through my mind. I thought about my options, how I could try to lunge towards her, or push myself a foot to the side and if she pulled the trigger that instant then maybe she would miss.

I thought about how I missed Jed, and wished he was here.

Kat got to her feet slowly, backing away to put more space between us and not give me a chance to surprise her with a sudden movement.

I did the same, rising to my feet with my arms up beside my chest. It was over.

What a bitch. I can’t believe that she won.
It seemed impossible. I had killed three Mexican mobsters in a shootout, drove in and rescued Jed in the failed drop, and somehow woken up in time to save myself when Kat had tried to kill me in my sleep, and yet it was all going to be for naught.

She just stood there, staring at me.

“What the fuck are you waiting for?” I asked. “Just shoot me and get it over with, like you tried to do the other night. Like you did to Nathan and Patty, and like you stabbed Tim. You won.” I spat the words out. I was beyond bitter.

There was no reaction from Kat. Her eyes were looking right at me, but it was as though she didn’t see me.

What the hell is her problem?
Maybe she was mentally unbalanced. She almost had to be, in order to have done what she did. Maybe I still had a chance of getting out of this after all. I thought hard about what options I had and what would maximize my chances of walking away unharmed.

“Kat, you don’t have to shoot me.” I switched from angry to soothing in a heartbeat. “I’m a federal officer. I can get concessions for you, make sure that you’re taken care of. Isn’t that better than going in without any inside help? You’ll get caught either way, but you will never leave prison alive if you kill a fed.”

No response.

“Kat?”

“Leslie, I’m not the murderer.”

My mind went blank.
How could she possibly expect me to believe that she isn’t the murderer?

“You must be joking. Of course you are. Why did we just have that big whole chase and fight if you aren’t the killer?”

Her eyes, which had seemed a little unfocused, locked back on me. Any hint of mental absence that I had sensed before was gone. Her stance even relaxed a little, and I wasn’t sure if I liked it.

“Well, I thought that you were the murderer, obviously.” She said it like it was such a simple conclusion.

“What?” I was at a loss for words. “Me? Why the hell would you think that? How could I possibly be the killer, I’m a federal agent!”

She shrugged. “Think about it. I know what had happened before, with Frank making you have sex in front of all the men. That must have been humiliating. You had gotten what you needed from them, and then you wanted some revenge. It would explain why you haven’t reported anything to anybody, and there’s been no investigation. If it would lead right back to you, then of course you wouldn’t want anybody with actual forensic skills snooping around.”

It made a certain amount of sense. If it wasn’t absolutely crazy.

I almost forgot that she had a gun and my life in her hands. “Are you out of your fucking mind? I don’t even know why you’re bothering telling me this. I already know that you’re the killer, so why don’t you just admit to it and we can figure out where we’re going from here.”

Her words and actions didn’t make any sense. They weren’t what a guilty person would be saying or doing.

“Oh, don’t worry,” she said. “I don’t think you’re the killer anymore.”

“And why’s that?”

She just pointed behind me.

I was loathe to turn around, but I didn’t have much choice.
She could have ended me at any time, it’s not like me looking away is going to change who has the upper hand here.

What I saw stunned me. It was me.

At least, it had my name on it. The actual picture was a torn-up mess that looked as though it had been shot, stabbed, burned a little, and otherwise defiled in nameless ways.

“What the hell?” There was a picture of Jed there, and Frank, Nathan, Patty, Tim, Kat, and a few of the other members of the motorcycle club. All of them were subjected to the same treatment, and the posters of Frank, Patty and Tim had big red crosses through them.

“I just recognized where we are,” Kat said. “I haven’t been out here since I was a lot younger.”

I looked back at her. The gun was no longer trained on me, but hung loosely by her side as she looked around the clearing. I considering making a move towards it, but I didn’t know what to think any more. Instead I took the opportunity to look around as well.

There were copious numbers of beer cans on the ground, and a couple of camping chairs set up next to a fire pit. It looked like a hangout for a couple teenagers or young men, if not for the board that held a macabre display.