Page 70 of V-Day
Chloe.
Cristián gripped the tree as coldness spilled through him. It was pure fear and for a moment, he couldn’t pull a coherent thought together.
“Ah, shit,” Locke breathed. “She’s gonna pull them away from us. Brave,stupidgirl.” He put his back to the tree and let out a heavy breath.
Cristián realized he was leaning against the tree. His legs were shaking. “What do we do?”
Locke looked at him. “Nothing,” he said flatly. “It’s her choice. It might actually work.”
Cristián stared at him. There were no words to express the horror Locke’s response built in him.
Locke shrugged. “She’s a non-entity in their minds. She’ll tell them she’s a tourist who stumbled onto the island and they’ll either lock her up or throw her back to the mainland. Either way, they stop looking for us.” Locke’s gaze was steady. “It means they don’t get their hands on you, which is a very good thing. You’ve got too much information in your head.”
“They could kill her,” Cristián said. His throat ached with each word.
Locke considered. “They might,” he said at last.
Fresh horror, boiling hot and scalding, rushed through his limbs. Cristián curled his hands into fists, to hide their shaking.
“It was her choice,” Locke repeated. His gaze drilled into Cristián’s eyes. “She’s doing it for you. You know that, right?”
High pitched buzzing sounded in his brain. Cristián couldn’t bring his thoughts together. All he could think of was the need to dosomethingto stop this from happening.
Locke was relaxed against the tree, his heavy caliber pistol dangling from his hand, the rifle hanging from his shoulder.
Cristián snatched the pistol and sprinted for the road.
He pumped the pistol, checking the load as he ran. Duardo was an irritating big brother, yet he had drilled them all in how to load and check the load on weapons, just in case they needed it one day.
Today, Cristián needed it.
Locke was not chasing him, the way Cristián had expected him to. Instead, a soft two-note whistle sounded. Locke was raising the alarm.
Cristián ran faster than he’d ever run. Chloe had been strolling. He should be able to catch up to her if he gave it his all for a few moments. He would never compete with her speed over the middle-distance, but he wasn’t a sloth, either.
He leaned into the curve, his feet pounding the dirt, the pistol hanging from his hand. Around the curve, the road opened up, running straight for an amazing thirty yards before disappearing around another curve.
The image slammed into Cristián’s brain—Chloe with her hands up, two Insurrectos standing in front of her, one with a rifle swinging around to point at her.
Cristián lifted the gun and fired, not at the one with the rifle, because Chloe was in front of him. He fired at the shorter one and was amazed to see him drop.
The taller one swung the rifle to point at Cristián instead.
He threw himself forward into a Parkour roll, the soft dirt absorbing a lot of the impact. His impetus brought him back up onto one knee, the other foot jammed into the dirt, stopping his roll. He would never in a million years be able to repeat the roll deliberately.
By the time he was upright again, Chloe had thrown herself on top of the short one and was fighting him for the rifle.
The tall one was still trying to adjust his aim when Cristián fired, aiming for the middle of his face.
The Insurrecto fell backward.
Cristián leaned forward and caught the rifle as it fell.
The short one hadn’t been hit by his first shot. He’d dropped to the ground instinctively. Now he struggled under Chloe’s full weight. She had her knees on his back. He had to be short of breath under that pressure.
Cristián got to his feet, moved over and shot him in the temple.
Around them, the forest was ringing with shouts and cries and the sound of running feet. Cristián shoved the pistol into the back of his jeans, grabbed Chloe under the arm and hauled her to her feet. He pulled her over to the nearest big tree and put her back against the bark. He covered her and checked the rifle. It was loaded and cocked.
He lifted it, trained it on the road and waited, listening.
Chloe reached around him. He thought she was trying to hold him, until she plucked the pistol out of his belt. She was breathing hard. Her arm as she pointed the pistol in the other direction, covering his left flank, was perfectly steady.
If there were to be any later moments, he would find one and explain to her how much he admired her strength in this moment.
