Think, Eden. I can’t go rushing in there. I need to see what’s happening. Looking around, I try to find inspiration. My eyes dance over the brush and green twice before settling on the tall, heavily branched trees. It makes me think of Lucky, whistling from the treetops as he fired down on the hunters.
Tucking my knife into my belt, I hurry around until I’m as close as I can get to the clearing without revealing myself.
Carefully, quietly, I climb a large, overhanging tree. It takes more effort than I’d like—my upper body strength isn’t what it should be—but I manage it. My ears ring and my pulse thrums a staccato beat in line with the gunfire. I’m desperate to hear Beau or Dom, but I can’t tell voices apart in all the yelling.
Keeping low on a thick branch, I edge forward until my head just peeks from the leaves and I can see down in the clearing.
When I do . . .
I press a hand to my mouth.
Carnage.
There are more than four men here. Three bodies are sprawled and splattered in the clearing, one over by the tree line. I try to avoid looking at the gory chunks torn from their sides, their heads, and just take in features, clothing.
Not Beau.
Not Dom.
My relief is short-lived though. Heart in my throat, I watch as men move behind the tree line, leaning out to fire shots and then curving back behind protective trunks. Gunfire flies in every direction, and it’s hard to make anyone out in detail.
I notice, though, that one crack of noise sounds louder than the others. Closer. Turning my head slowly, I can just make out a man dressed all in dark brown lying flat along another branch, just a few trees over from mine. His branch protrudes far out over the clearing and he’s much farther forward than me. He fires down into the trees, a killer in the canopy.
My bladder starts to quiver, and I press my forehead to the branch beneath me, breathing shallowly. He hasn’t seen me. I’m okay. Everything is fine .
“Fuck! Beau, get that goddamn sniper!”
My head lifts at Dom’s rough order, eyes scanning the clearing. I can’t see him. I can’t see either of them.
“Kind of busy right now,” Beau shouts back with a grunt, as though the air has left his lungs.
Relief makes me dizzy. Alive. They’re both alive.
Then what Dom said registers. The sniper has to be this man in the tree. The way he’s lying on the branch, he must be almost impossible to see from below. But from up here . . .
Fear locks my muscles for a moment. It’s crazy. I can’t do this. I can’t do anything about this. I’m a librarian, not some G.I.
Jane. Sweat beads at my temples, under my arms.
I can’t do nothing.
With more effort than I’d like to admit, I unclench my grip on my branch and ease back as slowly as I can. I do not want to draw attention to myself. When I’m sure I’m deep enough into the leaves that I won’t be seen, I stand and, holding nearby branches as I go, make my way toward the adjoining tree.
The benefit of these woods is that the trees have grown densely, so it’s not too hard to work my way from tree to tree until I think I reach the one the sniper is on. As I clamber quietly onto one of its nearby limbs, a bullet collides with the trunk behind me, smashing a deep gouge in the wood and sending splinters flying.
My hand wraps around my throat to catch myself before my scream escapes. I have to swallow it back three times before I’m confident it will settle.
I really hope Dom or Beau doesn’t accidentally kill me while I’m trying to help them.
Frozen, I wait on the branch by the trunk, waiting to see if the bullet disturbed the shooter. When nothing shifts in front of me, I shakily get down on my hands and knees.
After a moment of hesitation, I pull my pocketknife from my belt. It will make climbing more difficult, but being armed makes me feel better.
Marginally.
The limb is thick and wide and it protrudes far over the clearing, so it takes a few moments of shuffling through the cloud of leaves before I catch sight of the sniper. When the boots come into view, I breathe a sigh of relief. Despite the thick branch, I was half-sure he’d have felt me moving along it and that I’d clear the leaves only to find myself facing the barrel of a gun.
I pause again about a foot from him, realizing I have no idea what to do next. Stab him? How quickly can he turn around and point that thing at me? I nervously realize we’re about fifteen feet in the air.
I have to do something.
While I hesitate, the sniper tenses and fires off three more shots. Stomach bottoming out, I don’t think. I throw myself forward and push his legs to the side, hard. He yells, twisting and trying to keep his hips on the branch, and his flailing pushes him more off balance.
But he keeps hold of the firearm.
The gun spooks me, and I shuffle up quickly and shove at his hips, wanting him to let go.
His lower half falls off the branch.
The man’s eyes widen in fear, and he drops the weapon to clutch at the branch as he begins to slide off, only just catching himself from a complete fall. The gun drops to the ground, splitting apart, and a sob escapes me, but I quickly turn my attention to the dangling man. This close, I can see his eyes are brown, and his face is gaunt and dirty. He looks like someone who used to frequent my library. He’s young—younger than me, definitely. He could be anyone.
“Help me,” he gasps, scrambling at the tree limb for leverage. “Help.”
He was shooting at Beau, at Dom, I remind myself, trembling. He wants to kill them.
My throat closes over. God, he’s still a person.
I edge closer, not sure if I’m going to help pull him up or stab his fingers to make him fall. I don’t recognize myself right now. The sounds of the firefight fade into the background.
“Please,” he says, brown eyes soft and begging.
I reach for him with both hands—one to help, one to kill.
More quickly than I can register, he grasps my wrist. “Bitch,” he snarls. “Sam’ll have to miss out this time.”
And he yanks me, hard. Unbalanced on my knees, I go flying, but at the last minute I twist and try to use the knife in my other hand to catch on something, anything, to stop my fall.
It does catch, puncturing deep into something thick and tough, and the jolt changes the angle of my fall. Momentum spins me and brings me in close to the tree again, and I hit the man’s back with my front. The knife jerks down, sawing through whatever it’s caught on. Something warm and wet sprays over my face, blinding me.
The man screams and releases my wrist, and he arches, throwing me back. My stomach drops out from under me as I realize I’m falling. I throw my arms out again in pure panic, blind, not sure which way is up. Something hits my right arm in a burst of shocking pain, then my shoulder, then I manage to catch onto something solid and rough, which slows me for just a moment before the momentum tears me away and raw scratches rip down my arms.
I hit the ground, and I remember to fall to the side and crumple as I land on something at once soft and hard. I read about that, the falling, that’s what you’re meant to do. Parachuters fall that way. It’s how not to die. I’m pretty sure that’s what I read.
Or maybe that was what not to do.
Everything stops.
Am I dead?
I don’t feel dead.