It was probably something blowing out of a tree, she guessed.
Several more shots rang out.
She whipped back around, focused once more on her mission, and hurried back to the building.
Brandon lay in a deep hole in the snow, holding his breath.
Following Chloe had been a simple matter of stepping in her boot prints. When he had reached the fence where she’d climbed over, he scaled the chain-link as quietly as possible. What he didn’t anticipate was slipping off the top rail and falling into the deep patch of snow on the other side.
At first he was too stunned to move, then he heard Chloe heading his way and realized his fall had made enough noise to alert her. While he knew he should probably stand up and let her know he was there, a part of him worried she’d shoot him if he did. Another part, a more vocal one, was concerned she’d send him back to the motel. That was the last thing he wanted to happen. He wasn’t a kid anymore. He was a soldier like the others, like his dad. His place was here whether she wanted him around or not.
The sound of her boots stopped only a few feet away. If she came any closer, she would see him for sure.
Two rifle shots boomed from the roof of the building. As the echo subsided, Brandon realized Chloe had moved away. That’s when he finally allowed himself to breathe again. As soon as he felt sure she wouldn’t be able to see him, he rose and started to follow her again.
The utility shed was easily scaled. When she stood on top, the eaves of the main roof came all the way down to her chest, making it even easier than she’d anticipated to pull herself all the way up.
As gunfire erupted again, she used the noise as a mask, and sprinted up the roof toward the peak. Five feet short of the top, she lowered herself to her belly and slithered the rest of the way up.
As she’d suspected, there were only two shooters. They were set up about two thirds of the way down from the peak, each sitting upright, with the barrels of their rifles resting on large sacks of grain. Both were bundled up tight in dark winter gear, the only difference between them was that the one on the left was smaller than the one on the right.
A man and a woman?
Didn’t really matter. What did were the guns they were using to shoot at Chloe’s friends.
Both of them had their eyes to scopes mounted on their weapons, looking toward the motel. She hadn’t expected that. If they had scopes, that meant they could have zeroed in and hit pretty much anything. Instead, their shots, at least when she had still been inside, had flown harmlessly over the top of the motel.
No time to figure out the why, though. Climbing to her feet, she raised her rifle and started walking down the other side. The first sign that one of the shooters knew something was wrong was a tilt of the smaller one’s head, as if she or he were trying to listen for something.
Chloe, only fifteen feet behind them now, took another step forward.
This time the small one twisted all the way around. “Rick!” A girl’s voice.
Her companion grunted and pulled back from his scope.
“Rick!”
“What?”
The girl nodded toward Chloe, and her friend turned to see what was up.
“Oh, shit!” he said, grabbing for his gun.
“Don’t,” Chloe commanded, her voice calm and even.
Rick didn’t seem to hear her. He wrapped his hands around the stock of the rifle and started to lift it off the milk crates.
“Drop it,” Chloe said. “I will shoot you.”
“Rick, put it down,” the girl said.
“Don’t tell me what to do!” Rick said.
“Please, Rick! Please!” The girl turned to Chloe. “Please don’t shoot him. We weren’t trying to hurt anyone. We were just trying to scare you off.”
“Put the rifle down,” Chloe said.
She could see Rick’s chest rise and fall with a deep breath.
“Rick, put it down!” the girl said again.
A tense second later, Rick swore under his breath and dropped the gun.
“Now stand up. Both of you,” Chloe said.
The girl complied right away, while Rick took a moment to do the same.
Now that Chloe was able to get a better look at them, she saw her suspicions were right. They were both kids, the big one probably a teenager, but the girl no older than Brandon.
“We’re sorry, ma’am,” the girl said. “You’re the first new people we’ve seen in a while. We were afraid you were going to make us sick. We don’t want to be sick.”
“Shut up, Ginny,” Rick said.
Chloe jerked in surprise. “What did you call her?”
Rick didn’t answer her.
“What did you call her?” Chloe repeated.
“Ginny,” the girl said. “That’s my name.”
Something clawed at Chloe from the dark space in her mind, the space that had contained the memories taken from her by the Project Eden assholes years before, and it was as if the rest of the world suddenly disappeared.
Ginny. But not Ginny.
And a girl. But not this girl.
“Rick! Don’t!”
The shout snapped Chloe out of her trance just in time to see a rifle magazine flying through the air toward her. She ducked to her left, and the metal casing flew past her shoulder, almost clipping her ear.
But the near miss came with a cost.
Chloe slipped, her foot shooting into the air, and she landed hard on her hip against the sloped roof. The impact loosened a wide section of snow that began sliding downward, taking her with it.
“Chloe!”
She twisted her head and spotted Brandon standing at the peak of the roof.
How the hell had he—
But the thought went unfinished as she flew off the edge, and arced through the air toward the ground.
The big one, the one the other had called Rick, dove for his gun as Chloe sailed off the building.
Though Brandon wanted to scramble down so he could help her, he knew he had to deal with the problem at hand first. He aimed his rifle and pulled the trigger without warning.
The bullet smashed into the side of Rick’s weapon, knocking it away and taking at least one of the kid’s fingers with it.
“Son of a bitch!” Rick yelled.
He grabbed his hand and looked as if he might charge up the slope at Brandon.
Brandon, the gun still tight to his shoulder, said, “Stay right there or the next one goes through your head.”
“Rick, listen to him. Please!” Ginny pleaded.
Rick was only able to glare at Brandon for a second before pain forced him down onto his knees. Ginny immediately crouched next to him.
“Are you okay? Let me see,” she said. “Oh, God.”
“You’d better wrap that up,” Brandon said.
Ginny looked at him, stunned, before nodding and setting to work.
Without taking his eyes off the two shooters, Brandon yelled as loudly as he could, “Mr. Hamilton! It’s Brandon! I’ve got the shooters! But I think Chloe’s hurt!”
It took only a few minutes for the others to get there. They found Chloe unconscious in the snow just a few feet from the scoop end of a tractor. Dr. Gardiner made a quick assessment and had four of the men carry her back to the motel. He then examined Rick’s finger, and accompanied the boy and Ginny — with two other men acting as guards — back to the Paradise.
When Brandon entered the motel parking lot, Josie raced over and threw her arms around him. His father followed, but at a much slower pace.
“What were you thinking?” she said. “You had us scared to death.”