Page 180 of Empire of Shadows

“Come on. I’ll catch you,” he offered, mustering up a bit of his signature charm.

“I am entirely capable of—”

Another bullet snapped off the stone nearby. Adam’s gaze shot up to see Jacobs’ dark silhouette emerge from the window of the temple.

“Drat,” Ellie declared—and jumped.

Adam caught her with a grunt and nearly lost his footing. He pulled both of them up against the base of the pyramid, pressing closer for cover.

“Now what?” Ellie demanded.

Thunder cracked overheard. A damp gust of wind blew against Adam’s neck. Ellie flinched in his grip as another bullet cracked somewhere nearby.

“How about we get the hell out of here?” he suggested.

He grabbed her arm, swung her in front of him, and pushed her into a run.

They plunged into the deeper shadows of the brush, sprinting blindly through the gloom as more bullets snapped down at them from above. Ellie flashed a narrow-eyed glare back at him as she ran.

“Why are you behind me?” she demanded as she caught herself against a stumble.

“Does it matter?” Adam shot back, flinching as another bullet cracked off a tree trunk beside him.

“It had better not be out of some misguided, chauvinistic attempt to use your person to shield me from the bullets!” Ellie pitched the words back at him as she bolted across the tumbled stones, her boots skidding for purchase.

“Can we worry about this later?” Adam retorted as he caught her arm and steered her around the obstacle of a fallen wall. He yanked her down into a crouch behind the crumbling barrier as another quick cluster of gunshots flashed at them from behind.

“They areshootingat the structures!” Ellie protested. Outrage strangled her voice.

“They’re shooting atus,” Adam countered as he made a quick, sharp study of what lay around them. “They’ve come from around the front of the pyramid as well. Jacobs must have ordered them to try to flank us.”

“Well? What does that mean?”

The sun had already dipped below the mountains. It would set soon, sinking the entire place into complete darkness rather than the shadow-swathed gloom in which they currently hid.

Another scattering of gunshots splintered the tree trunks to Adam’s right. To his left rose the mountain. The face of it was far too steep for them to climb in the dark without equipment.

“It means we’re going straight,” he concluded and tugged Ellie into another sprint along the crumbling path.

They dodged through the slender trees as more shots rang out behind them. Adam heard pounding footsteps and calling voices as Jacobs and his minions coordinated their chase.

The road ended at a broad stairwell, which led down to a long, overgrown rectangle of ground framed by massive, sloped tiers of stone.

“It’s a ball court,” Ellie said. Her voice managed to mingle both urgency and wonder.

At the far end of the structure was a circular annex framed by more stone tiers. It looked almost like an amphitheater. Beyond that loomed the dark shadow of a thicker, wilder forest—a forest they could easily lose themselves in.

“Let’s cut through,” Adam ordered.

Ellie gave him a tight nod, and they hurried down the tumbled steps.

The tangled brush that grew on the old game field was thick and tall. It provided them with a modicum of cover. Adam shoved through it quickly, heedless of the thorns that scratched at his arms. Speed was what mattered now. No amount of foliage would save him from a bullet in the head if their pursuers managed to catch up from behind them.

The thicket ended, and Adam stumbled onto a paved court that surrounded a big, black hole in the ground.

It was the amphitheater he’d seen from above. The tiers of seats circled the dark gap. The space looked as though it had been deliberately constructed to frame the opening.

Probably another sinkhole, Adam thought.

---