Page 48 of Master of Lies

She touched them, and realized that they were full of blood.

The handheld lay on the ground, not far from her bloodied hand.

It all flooded back into her head. She’d been shooting at Jed Clearwater. He returned fire. He had good aim with that AR-15. She should have killed him the second he had stepped out into the clearing. Before Wex gave him that opening. That asshole couldn’t have just executed him and taken the girl so they could proceed as planned.

Oh, no. The dickhead had to jerk off first. Lack of discipline would always bite you in the ass.

She slowly sat up, nausea roiling. She hated vomiting, and kept it down by grim force of will. She looked over at the other side of the gorge and saw the Jeep’s taillights receding. Gone. Freya was gone. The key to controlling Ethan Masters.Poof, gone.

God, how she wanted to kill Wex for fucking this up for her. Wanted it so badly.

Wex was still squawking into the void. She let him babble. Her face hurt. She explored the damage. One of Clearwater’s bullets had hit the lump of granite beside her head, and fragments had sprayed out. One had hit her in the temple. A few had peppered her face. Cheekbone, jaw. She was going to look like hammered shit for weeks when they scabbed up. Blood run down her neck and into her fleece shirt, sticky and hot.

One of those bleeding wounds was barely a half an inch from her eye. That made her angry. That piece of shit would pay.

As a matter of fact, he’d pay in eyes. When the time came.

“…go up there and personally shove that radio up your whore ass!”

She picked up the handheld. “Nicole here,” she said. “I got knocked out.”

“Are you shot?”

“No, just a ricochet. Some shards. You?”

“He threw a knife! He knocked me off a fucking cliff and shot at me!”

“Yeah, I saw you fall,” she said. “I tried to take him out.”

“Well, you failed, bitch!”

“You’re still alive, right?” she asked. What, did he want sympathy? He should know better at this point than to ask that from her. He wasn’t that stupid.

“Let’s get the fuck out of here,” he snarled.

“Yes. Where are you now?”

“Downstream. From the creek bed, I had a great view of Jed Clearwater taking his own sweet time climbing down to hook up Freya Masters to the rope and pull her up. It must have taken fifteen, twenty minutes. Completely unmolested by anyone shooting at them, immobilizing them, incapacitating them. Nothing. Crickets.”

“I was unconscious, Wex,” Nicole said, her voice expressionless.

“Good of you to come back up to consciousness just in time to watch them leave, bitch. Are you capable of operating the ATV? Or is that too much for your delicate sensibilities?”

Nicole got to her feet. Her legs were shaky, but she was upright. “I’m fine.”

“Then make yourself useful. Get your ass down here and pick me up.”

“I’ll meet you where the rapids end,” Nicole told him.

“Great,” he said sourly. “I also have a dislocated shoulder.”

“I’ll fix it when we meet,” she said.

“Get moving,” he growled. “Over and out.”

Nicole put the handheld back onto her belt, broke down the rifle, and got going, her good mood destroyed. The bumping of the ATV hurt now. Her head throbbed like a rotten tooth. And she hadn’t even hit anyone with the gun today. So disappointing.

The only thing that kept her going was how fun it was going to be to pop Wex Boer’s shoulder back into its socket.

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