She turned back to Lucy. “Remember, I’ll be right behind you.”
Lucy leaned her bat against the wall and, swallowing hard, climbed up onto the windowsill with all the care of a woman preparing to do a high-wire walk with no safety nets.
“Just let yourself drop down, feet first, right into the bushes,” Allie said.
Lucy nodded nervously, her legs dangling out of the house now. She gave Allie a slightly terrified look, then rocked slightly forward and disappeared out of view.
Allie quickly raised the rifle to her chest and aimed it across the yard at the mercenary. The world looked different in fluorescent green — it was brighter and clearer, and she thought she could see patterns on the back of the man’s black sweater through the night-vision scope mounted on Womack’s AK-47. Her forefinger tested the trigger and she kept waiting for the man to turn, to discover Lucy somewhere in the bushes below. It was the last thing she wanted, but what were the chances he hadn’t heard Lucy falling, or the (too) loud whump! as the girl landed?
But the man didn’t turn around, and if anything he seemed to be leaning slightly forward, as if he was trying to get a better look at something in the woods.
What the hell is he looking at?
“Allie,” a voice whispered from below her.
She lowered the rifle and leaned out, looking down at Lucy as the girl stumbled awkwardly out of the bushes. She was brushing at her clothes and glancing worriedly back at the guard the entire time, her legs becoming tangled with branches. Allie swore she could hear every crunch and snap as Lucy struggled her way forward.
Allie slung the assault rifle and climbed onto the windowsill—
“Come in,” a voice said loudly.
She almost jumped at the sound but managed to grab the window frame first. She didn’t have to go very far to find the source of the voice: It was coming from the radio clipped to the back of Womack’s belt, inside the master bedroom behind her.
“Womack,” the voice said. It was Dan. “Report. Did you find the girl yet?”
Now or never, Allie thought, and dropped down from the window.
Despite all the assurances she’d given Lucy, Allie was shocked her legs didn’t snap as soon as they vanished into the bushes below her. Instead, branches poked at her ribs and arms, and something long and green rushed up at her face, but she raised both hands to protect herself just in time.
She found her footing and scrambled out of the thicket, Lucy giving her a helping hand while snapping terrified looks back at the lone figure across the backyard from them. The man still hadn’t turned around, and Allie thought, Just keep looking and don’t turn around. Whatever you do, don’t turn—
She hadn’t finished thinking the word “turn” when the man did exactly just that — he started to turn around. He was holding something (a radio) up to his face as he did so, and she knew without even having to think about it that Dan had just sounded the alarm.
Allie stumbled out of the bushes, brushing past Lucy, and was unslinging her rifle at the same time the man lowered his radio and reached for his own slung weapon.
Neither one of them got a chance to fire, because something burst out of the woods behind the man first. The mercenary whirled around, sensing the incoming, and had his rifle halfway up when Apollo knocked him to the ground and sank his teeth into the man’s neck.
“Run!” Allie shouted.
Chapter 22
“Apollo, stop!”
The dog had clamped down on the mercenary’s left arm, which the man had lifted in a futile attempt to defend himself against the charging animal. The two of them were on the ground with Apollo perched on top when she screamed her command, and the dog stopped what he was doing and looked up at her.
She pointed frantically toward the trees. “Follow Lucy! Go!”
The dog let go of his victim, whirled around on a dime, and bounded in the direction he had come. He was already nipping at Lucy’s heels before Allie had the chance to take four more steps forward.
She didn’t know why she did it — ordered Apollo to stop attacking the mercenary. The man was clearly still dangerous, and he proved it when he wasted no time scrambling to his knees while simultaneously searching the ground for his fallen rifle. Maybe seeing Apollo attacking (killing) Jones had more of a profound effect on her than she wanted to admit, but there was a very real part of her that didn’t want Apollo to kill again.
She picked up her speed when she saw the mercenary going for his rifle. The man had wrapped his fingers around the barrel of the AK-47 when Allie lunged forward and kicked him in the side of the face and heard something break. The man rolled away from his weapon and Allie kicked it, watching it skid into the shadows.
Apollo and Lucy were almost at the tree line when the girl threw a look over her shoulder and opened her mouth to say something, but Allie cut her off first: “Keep going! Stick to Apollo!”
A second later, the girl vanished into the woods with Apollo next to her. Allie knew very well that the dog could have outrun the teenager, but he was sticking close.
Ever the protector, she thought, her lungs burning from the short sprint. God, she was out of shape. Two years of city life and eight-hour work days had made her soft. It was a miracle she had managed to survive this long tonight.
You’re lucky, girl. You’re so, so lucky.
She pushed through the pain as the wall of dark trees rushed toward her — ten, then nine, then eight yards from salvation — when the first gunshot cracked and she felt the bullet zip! past her right ear and saw it smash into one of the trees dead ahead.
She couldn’t help herself and glanced over her shoulder.
Two men in black clothes were coming around the right side of the house while a third was rounding from the left. Two more burst out of the back kitchen door, and one of them was wearing a suit. Dan. A sixth man was leaning out the second-floor master bedroom window with a rifle—
She dived just as the man fired—crack! — and something small and fast sped past the left side of her head, vanishing into a bush directly in front of her.
Jesus, that was close!
She managed to stick her arms out at the very last second, just in time to stop herself from slamming face-first into the ground. That would have hurt. That would have really hurt.
Even so, the breath rushed out of both lungs as she crashed back to earth, and she began rolling away from the spot in case the shooter sent more rounds after her. Pain shot through her body as Womack’s slung rifle dug into her back.
Seconds later she was pushing up onto one knee, then was back on her feet, all the while waiting for more cracks of gunshots from behind her. But for whatever reason, there were none, and she wasted exactly half a second wondering why before launching into a full spring, dodging trees and ducking branches, and gasping for breath with every step.
I’m out of shape. God, I’m so out of shape!
“Lucy!” she shouted. “Apollo! Where are you?”
She hadn’t finished shouting when Apollo burst out of the bushes in front of her, and Allie finally (finally!) slid to a stop. She doubled over, hands on her hips, to catch her breath as Lucy stepped out from behind a tree next to the dog.
“Are you shot?” Lucy asked.
Allie shook her head, smiled, and struggled to respond. She managed to gasp out, “I’m fine. You?”