Page 3 of Burning Secrets

She scrambled for footing. Stood.

He shook off the chemicals and rounded on her, furious.

“Brutus—” She scrambled back. “Don’t?—”

She sprayed again—nothing. Empty. She took another step back, threw the can at him, and reached for her gun.

Shoulder holster, and she hated to go for the .44, but she didn’t want to be torn limb from limb either. She held it out, took off the safety. “Please, go!” She shouted it, hoping the noise might deter him.

He didn’t look right. Pacing, his eyes glossy, foam at his mouth—rabies?

She took another step back and rocks fell. She glanced back?—

Brutus launched at her.

She turned, squeezed off a shot, and the recoil jerked her back.

Yelping, she took her eyes off Brutus as she windmilled her arms for purchase, but the momentum yanked her back, and she stumbled into air, the cliff dropping from behind her?—

Falling.

She screamed and landed with a hard, brutalwhuff, ten feet below, her breath jerking out of her body.

Writhing for air, her bones shuddering, everything inside her on fire.

A growl above her, and as she fought to breathe, Brutus appeared over her on the rock above.

She got her hands up just as he leaped.

Breathe! She rolled, waiting for him to land, but a shot broke the air.

Crisp and echoing across the mountainscape.

Brutus dropped next to her on the rocky ground, gone.

She lay breathing, over and over, shaking.

Brutus’s glassy eyes stared at her, the life winked out, blood puddling the ground under him.

And all she could do was curl into a ball, hands over her head, and weep.

Please, let him not have killed her.

Crew lowered his Winchester, his body shaking. Picked up his monocular. She lay on the ground, unmoving, the wolf next to her.

He wasn’t the best shot, and frankly, he’d end up back in jail if anyone found him in possession of a gun.

But from his vantage point, some four hundred yards away atop a nearby rise that overlooked the Copper River spring, it clearly looked like the wolf had intended on having the woman for dinner.

He’d had no choice—the story of his life, the conundrum driving every decision for the past few weeks since the sister of his cohort Tristan had stumbled onto the Sons of Revolution base camp.

And then the world had just exploded. Literally. The camp had gone up in a ball of fire while Tristan and Jamie had escaped. And then he’d watched a plane of smokejumpers go down, and that had sat in his gut like ash until he’d found out no one had died.

Still, he hated this job.

“Crew—you still there?” The voice crackled in his earpiece, and he jerked, tearing his gaze off the downed woman.

Rio, on the other end of the sketchy transmission. And who knew how much his handler had heard of his report?

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