Page 271 of Fearless

And then there was something strong and solid against her back, and the door was levitating up. Mercy, coming up behind her, his strong arms flinging the heavy metal door aside like it weighed nothing.

He hustled her up the steps, onto the pulpit, into the abandoned, sun-drenched church that smelled strongly of jasmine and wild grass. He still had the shotgun propped on his shoulder, but was missing his belt; that’s what he’d used to secure the door.

It was a mad sprint through the muggy heat, to the cypress cave, down those earth and wood steps until they were leaping into the bateau. Saints Hollow was abandoned in less than ten minutes, without a backward glance.

Mercy handed her the shotgun before he started the motor. “You know how to use that,” he said, like he was reassuring both of them of a fact they already knew.

“Yeah.”

With his usual deft touch, he whipped the bateau from the lacing roots, out into the shallow water, and then they were flying, the narrow banks crowding close, the moss trailing against her cheeks as she scouted the way ahead. Through the last moss curtain and out into the open swamp. And then Mercy turned the Evinrude loose, the bow of the small boat lifting up off the water as the oversized motor propelled them across the glass-top water.

Ava spotted the other boat behind and to their right. It had been circling, waiting, ready in case Larry and his gigantic captor failed to get the drop on them. She counted two men, and the slender, gleaming barrels of rifles.

At a distance, a shotgun was no match for the .30-06s they carried.

She gestured to Mercy, not able to shout over the roar of the motor, and he risked a glance over his shoulder, grim-faced when he turned back.

He made adowngesture with his free hand, and she dropped down low in the bow, as Mercy arced the boat to the left and ran beneath a drooping branch. Ava saw the glimmer of a fat black snake as they passed beneath, a water moccasin sunning himself, and didn’t have time to be afraid of it.

As the bateau glided across the water, she peeked over the edge, the fine spray of swamp water misting across her face, and saw that they’d left the open water behind, and were in a heavily shaded finger of swamp, the cypress crowding close, owl-faced raccoons watching them from the banks.

She glanced at Mercy’s face. His concentration was fierce as he weaved the bateau between submerged logs and jutting roots.

If the men with the rifles were following them, they were no longer in sight. And Ava guessed, rather than return straight to Lew’s, they would pursue them, too afraid to let them slip away into the swamp somewhere.

Because that, in fact, was exactly what they did.

Mercy finally slowed the bateau and ran it aground on a mucky stretch of grass. He leapt free, landing ankle-deep in the water, and extended a hand for her to balance against as she jumped down.

They slogged through the water, up onto the sloped shore. Nutria scattered in front of them, giant brown rats, wet and slick.

Mercy gripped her hand tight in his, fingers clamping and mashing hers down. “Stay with me, baby,” he said. “We’ll be alright.”

Ava had no doubt, that had they taken a stroll through this stretch of swamp, she could have found hundreds of things to be afraid of. Snakes, spiders, sleeping gators, dark hollows of trees that looked like men crouched and ready to spring. But this was no stroll. Mercy ran – jogged, really – and he wouldn’t let go of her, towing her along in his wake, the underbrush swaying and slapping at them, a melody to the percussion of her heartbeat. They jumped roots and logs and dodged prickly yucca fronds. Her legs burned and ached. Breathing and keeping upright were her sole focus, the threat of capture receding behind the screen of physical exertion.

When Mercy pulled up, she slammed into his back, grasping at his jacket to keep from falling. He was pointing, she saw, when she’d caught her balance.

Through the last layer of trees, there was a ramshackle building on the water’s edge, a small dock, array of outbuildings. Lew’s.

Mercy took a huge breath, chest heaving. “We need to get to the bike,” he said. “Do you remember the combination to the lock?” When she said it aloud for him, he nodded. “Open the door. I’ll keep watch.”

She nodded, hand closing tight on itself in anticipation. “Do you see anyone out there?”

They both crept forward to peer between the tree trunks.

All was quiet.

“Okay,” he whispered.

Ava felt like a drawn bowstring, all tight and quivering, as they stalked carefully across the property, to the outbuilding. Her hand was slick on the lock as she turned the dial.Click. Door was open.

Mercy pushed the door wide and propped the shotgun against the wall. “Thanks, Lew,” he said, absently. To her: “We can’t carry it on the bike.”

She nodded.

They donned their helmets and swung aboard.

Before he started the Dyna, he reached back and covered her knee with his hand. One silent squeeze that said so much, and brought a lump to her throat.

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