“Hey, man. Good to see you,” Cliff greeted his friend Harlan as he entered the tattoo shop. They clasped hands and went in for one of those one-armed man hugs.
Harlan and his band Exoneration had been on tour for the last few months, despite his wife’s protests. But the band had taken a year and a half hiatus, and the short tour was required by their record label. Harlan’s wife Cassidy and their two-year-old son, Ryan, threw him a party because they were so excited to have him home.
“Glad to be home,” Harlan sighed, the relief evident in his words as he settled in the chair across from Cliff’s station.
Harlan had called him last night during a bit of insomnia, asking if Cliff could fit him in today. There was no way he was going to turn down his friend because he knew what they would be working on. It was one of Cliff’s favorite pieces to date.
When Harlan had married Cassidy, he wanted something unique to symbolize his love for his wife despite the days that they would spend apart with both of their demanding jobs. After a few minutes of discussion, Cliff had designed a dogwood tree in a way that he could continue to add leaves, branches, and flowers. A dogwood symbolized rebirth, an emotion Harlan felt whenever he returned home to his family. For every day that his friend was absent, they would add leaves to the tree to show his wife that she was always on his mind while he was gone.
Despite its beauty, Cliff knew that Harlan hated how many leaves were on the tree. There were also only three flowers – each representing a member of their family. It was no secret that Harlan and Cassidy wanted to increase that number.
Cliff hoped for his friend’s sake that the number increased soon.
“So, anything new?” Cliff asked as he set up the ink and prepared to freehand the ninety-three leaves for the tree. At this point, the tree was going to meet completely around Harlan’s waist soon,
“Naw, just happy to be home. I was so fired up to see Cassidy when I walked in the door that I almost locked her in the bedroom for the next few days. Too bad Ryan had other ideas. Who knew a two-year-old could be a cock block?” Harlan chuckled at his joke and Cliff couldn’t help but join in. Harlan’s brother-in-law, Logan, had the same complaint when he stopped by for a small tattoo last week. Except Logan had a trio of cock blockers with his three-year-old twins and a one-year-old.
“I’m sure you could ask Mrs. Connelly to watch Ryan for a few days so that you and Cassidy can have some alone time.”
It was no secret that Amy Connelly adored her grandchildren and constantly requested more additions to the brood. Cliff almost felt like an adopted son to her with the way she stopped by and brought him dinner leftovers. She apparently had a notion in her head that he couldn’t take care of himself. She knew little about his time on the battlefield, not only fending off the enemy, but fighting to stay alive with a lack of water and food.
With a subtle shake of his head, Cliff cleared his thoughts and went to work on finishing Harlan’s piece. It only took about twenty minutes of Cliff expertly placing each leaf on the branches, looking as if they’d been there all along.
“You’re all set.”
“Thanks, man. What do I owe you?” Harlan asked as he reached for his wallet, but Cliff shook his head as he held up his hand. “No way, I’m not charging you.”
“Dude, let me pay you.”
“No, I don’t want your money.” Even with his recent purchase, Cliff didn’t need Harlan’s money, or anyone to pay for that matter. The shop did well enough with the tourists in the summer and fall seasons, and his checks from the military were sitting pretty in his savings account. He barely touched any of the funds. When his parents died in a car accident when Cliff was fifteen, they had left him a hefty life insurance payout that would take care of him for longer than he would ever live.
“Well, can I at least take you out to lunch?”
Cliff accepted his friend’s request with a smile and cleaned up his space.
“The Grill or Angie’s Diner?” Cliff asked as they stepped out of the shop, Cliff double-checked that the door locked behind him.
“I need to check in with Dylan if we can head toward The Grill,” Harlan suggested. Dylan was the former FBI agent that ran The Grill, and the closest connection to the woman that left Cliff without a backward glance. He also happened to be married to Sydney, Cassidy’s sister.
Cliff always liked Dylan and the two of them had worked on a few missions together when trouble found its way to their small town. He swore that Carson, North Carolina saw more action in two years than he had ever seen on the battlefield in that same amount of time.
The walk from the tattoo shop to The Grill, which shared space with Sydney’s bakery, Wake and Bake, was short. It was just a block down Main Street which had seen a recent resurgence. The large department store that had gone out of business before Cliff had moved to town was now an indoor recreation center for the kids in town, which were growing in number at an astronomical rate; most of the Connelly family were the main contributors. There was now a brand-new retirement community about five miles away from the downtown center and so many wineries that Cliff had lost count. At the end of the main thoroughfare, the second bar in town was being cleaned out. It was a slow process done by a man that no one in town had seen except for a few quick glances. Cliff had tried to do some research on the man, but his searches came up empty. But, as long as he was here to better the community, Cliff saw no fault in the man keeping to himself. He heard from the Lady Busy Bees, the town gossipers, that the newcomer had applied for the proper licenses and permits to open a craft brewery. That information had Cliff thinking he had a new best friend in town.
Together, Harlan and Cliff walked through the door of The Grill, the bell chiming as they entered.
Sydney smiled warmly at them as they passed, her beauty took his breath away and Cliff turned his head quickly. Yeah, he may have had a little crush on the town’s sweetheart when he moved to town. But he knew that she was happily married to Dylan – a guy that he liked and respected. Together they had helped save her from a kidnapping that kept Cliff up at night.
“Hey, Sparta,” Cliff greeted Dylan with the nickname he bestowed on the man at their first meeting. He perched on one of the diner’s barstools and Harlan did the same.
“This is an unexpected surprise. What kind of trouble am I in to have both of you two assholes in my place?” the man in the white apron said in jest.
Harlan spoke up first. “Nothing at all. Cassidy wanted me to ask you and Sydney if you all wanted to join us for dinner. Ryan has been asking to see Maddelyn and Alice.” It wasn’t a town secret that Sydney and Dylan struggled to have children. So, when they showed up at her brother Ryker’s wedding reception with baby Maddelyn, the town was happily surprised. Little did anyone expect the second surprise that she was also pregnant at the time. Their youngest Alice was only seven months younger than Maddelyn.
“I don’t think that will be a problem, but are you sure? We know you just got back from tour.”
“Yeah, it was fine. Maybe it will tire Ryan out and he’ll sleep through the night. Six sound okay?”
“Sure. What can I get you both to eat?”
Cliff and Harlan ordered their sandwiches and Cliff listened quietly as his friend and Dylan gossiped like a bunch of old ladies. He had always been more of an observer, probably what made him a great sniper and Army Ranger. He usually knew what someone was going to do before they did. Just as he knew that Sydney was going to walk over and give him a hug.
It only took two minutes before he felt her hand touch his exposed forearm and he turned to welcome her embrace.
“Cliff, I’m so glad that you’re here. I have a question for you.”
“Sure, what’s up?”
“Well, you know that I love that picture you took of the lake. The one with the dock. Do you think I could get something again like that, but a panoramic shot with the dock in the center? I want to do a few canvases in our bedroom, so when we wake up in the morning, we’re waking up to a lake view.”
Cliff remembered the shot. It was one he took the day before Alexis had barged into his life. The woman with the swaying ponytail that haunted his every thought for years.
“Sure, I can do that.”
It wouldn’t be hard; the lake was on his property. One of the few large purchases he made.
“You’re the best. Thank you,” she exclaimed as she lifted up on her toes and kissed his cheek. He could feel his skin heat beneath her lips and Cliff tried to duck his head in embarrassment.
Like a whirlwind, Sydney spun on her heels and swooshed through the side door into Dylan’s kitchen. Cliff and Harlan watched the love-sick man move behind his own door, disappearing to see his wife.
Cliff continued to eat his sandwich in silence, mentally going through the list of clients he had for the day and the inventory he needed to order to get ready for their busy season. Spring was coming to a close and summer was rearing her head earlier than usual.
Taking a final bite of his lunch, Cliff smacked Harlan on the shoulder and thanked him for the impromptu lunch before heading back toward his shop. But he didn’t step through the front door. Instead, he went around the back and climbed the stairs that led to the apartment he once occupied above his shop.
This was the secret domain that only a select few knew about. Sure, many suspected that it was his apartment, but it was so much more than that. Until recently, he had been a part of an underground government agency working to gather information on a drug cartel that was dabbling in sex trafficking. Unfortunately, that mission had recently been shut down and Cliff had been waiting anxiously for a new assignment. Though drawing and photography eased his mind, let him see the beauty in the world, his covert missions gave him a sense of purpose.
Stepping into the main room, Cliff booted up the computer that looked like it was straight out of 1998 and typed in a name. Alexis Alta. The woman he couldn’t get out of his mind and a woman with almost as much government clearance as himself.
Seven hundred and sixty-two days since he saw her last, but she wasn’t far from his mind. A silhouetted version of her constantly played in his daydreams.
The computer pinged when it came up empty. The same sound it’d made for the last year whenever he searched for her. Cliff didn’t know why the compulsion to make sure she was safe possessed him, but he knew that it was impossible to turn off. He had tried, tried so damn hard to forget her. Forget her smile, forget the small tinkle in her laugh, forget the haunting brown eyes that held more secrets than they could handle. She was his undoing and she didn’t even know it.
Sighing as he shut down his computer, Cliff leaned back in the chair, his hands rested on top of his overgrown hair.
He hated this feeling of being weak. This feeling as though someone needed his help, but he’s powerless to do anything. Alexis was smart, Cliff knew she was more than capable of taking care of herself, but the last check-in he was able to find had her along the Mexican border infiltrating a drug cartel.
Cliff didn’t let anyone knew he was keeping an eye on Alexis because he knew his friends would bend over backward to try to get him the same happiness that they were all experiencing. He had his chance at a happily-ever-after, but his career burned that hope into a pile of ash on the ground. Cliff and his bride barely said “I do” before their world changed forever.
An alarm sounded across the hall, and he almost fell from his chair as he startled. His first appointment would be arriving in five minutes and he needed to unlock the front door.
Taking two steps at a time, Cliff used the interior stairs taking him to the storage area of his shop.
On the way to the front door, he took a glance at the calendar, remembering that his part-time receptionist would start next week along with a second tattoo artist. Their background checks came back clean and neither had any outstanding red flags on the other tests he liked to run.
Cliff used to be able to run the shop by himself, but the last two summer and fall seasons had him turning people away. Not something Cliff wanted to repeat this year. He felt lucky to find two people wanting to move to the small town of Carson. Though he made sure to warn them that once you step inside the town, they may find it hard to leave.
Moving to the door, he flipped the lock and turned on the neon sign signifying that the shop was open.
Back at his booth, Cliff set up the ink and gun he’d need for the appointment then grabbed his camera out of the bag that sat in the corner of his booth. He hadn’t taken many pictures recently, his time spread thin between the shop and renovating his new house. Cliff felt a pang in his chest as the weight of the camera settled in his hand. Photography had a way of relaxing him, making him feel as if he was one with whatever it was he was capturing on display.
Flipping the small LCD screen toward him, he pressed the button that allowed him to scroll through the images. Just as it landed on a picture of a woman’s back, the chime above his door sounded, alerting him to his customer.
Stepping out of the booth, he marched toward the small waiting area and greeted the older man.
“Good afternoon, what can I do for you today?” Cliff asked as he shook the man’s hand.
Together they moved toward the booth as Cliff listened to the man describe the dragon he wanted along his forearm. Immediately he sought out his portfolio for a design he had drawn last week, and the man only asked for a small change.
It didn’t take Cliff long to print it on the transfer paper and line it up how the man wanted. The motions were automatic as he drew the ink onto the needle and swiped it slowly across the man’s skin, wiping every so often with a paper towel to see the progression.
He got lost in the movement, in the flow, as he permanently etched the design on the man. Normally it would have been enough to keep his focus far away from Alexis and her whereabouts, but he had a sinking suspicion that even the mundaneness of his day wasn’t going to keep his desires at bay.
No matter how hard he wished them away.
***
Her breath was steady as she crept along the side of the deserted building. Except, she and her team knew what was lurking beneath the floorboards. Alexis and her team had been working for over a year to infiltrate and gather enough evidence to take down this drug ring.
That was all the mission called for at first, but their recent intel discovered the groundwork for an undercover sex ring.
There was not a single thing that fired Alexis up more than sex trafficking. When she heard the news, she had been ready to rush the entire process with guns blazing. She was so keyed up that her boss required her to take two weeks of personal leave to get her head on straight. Alexis didn’t understand at the time. She didn’t understand how the men on her team could sit back and continue to let this happen, even though she knew they didn’t have enough evidence. All she could see in that angered haze of red were people’s wives, sisters, mothers drugged and carried off to who-knew-where.
“What’s your position?” a voice asked in her ear. The small device sat snugly in her ear canal that Alexis almost forgot that she was wearing it.
“We’re on the south side of the building. Was the picture coming in clear?” she asked Heath of the small camera attached to her bulletproof vest.
Alexis and Heath had been assigned to the same missions since they were both recruited by the FBI. He was the closest thing she had to a brother and she loved him fiercely. She knew, without a doubt, that he would have her back, just as she would have his.
And tonight, she needed his eyes and ears. There was no moonlight guiding them, just a few night-vision goggles and the keen eye of Heath through the camera. The team she was working with were talented, but it was the first time the eight of them had been placed together. These kinds of missions were always difficult, but when you were working with new people, it was hard to gauge if they would have your back. And from Alexis’ standpoint – they didn’t.
Their director had explained the plan to them before they left the New Mexico office. Charlie and Ted were to enter the bunker first, followed by Alexis and the rest of the team. But when they arrived on the scene, Charlie (who had announced himself the mission’s leader) rearranged the lineup.
Which was why Alexis now stood in front of the group, peering her head around the corner to make sure it was clear before they breached the Eastern entrance.
“All clear,” the crackling voice of Heath sounds in her ear.
With a flick of her wrist, Alexis motioned for the men to move around her and stand guard as she pressed her body against the wall slipping inside the door. She held her breath, listening for any movements as she raised her gun at eye level, poised and trained to take anything out that so much as took a step in her direction.
But as expected, the room was empty.
She and the team moved quickly toward the basement entrance. She had hoped that they could have found the outlet on the other side of the Mexican border to trap the cartel in place, but cooperation with multiple teams was futile.
Primed at the base of the stairs, Alexis leaned down slightly to check for clearance and found a barren hallway. The team followed her down the steps and through the narrow passageway. The walls were shrinking around them until they could only pass through in a single line.
“Something’s not right,” Alexis whispered, knowing Heath was monitoring a surveillance drone they had hovering over the property.
“Then get out of there,” he replied.
She immediately imagined the scared looks on the women and children that had been taken by these drug lords and Alexis knew that there was no turning back for her, she’d see this through to the end.
“I couldn’t. We couldn’t. There was literally no place to go. Check the tracking against the layout. How much farther do we have?”
They had been lucky that their intel was able to provide a layout of the underground bunker, and the man knew the consequences if he tried to pull one over on their team.
“Five yards ahead, you’ll find an entrance on the left.”
“Charlie,” Alexis whispered, “run an infrared scan.”
The group paused and Charlie stepped around Alexis, leaning the infrared camera into the opening, scanning the space for any heat. As he gave the all-clear, Alexis motioned for the team to follow her inside the room.
The darkness swelled around them, threatening to suffocate them in the abandoned room. Alexis’ heart pounded in her chest, sounding like she was running a marathon. Her fear spiked and the earlier notion of something being wrong bubbled to the surface.
This room should have had men gathered or standing watch. The team knew how this cartel worked and they always covered their backs.
Alexis paused, the group halting behind her, and she glanced around the room with her night-vision goggles. Nothing seemed out of place, just a room with a few chairs and a table. A dark stain marred the corner and Alexis shivered at the thought of what may have occurred there.
“Let’s move forward,” Charlie barked, stepping around Alexis and waving his hand toward the group.
Ted immediately moved to follow his friend farther into the room, but the rest of the men stood stoically behind Alexis. She knew that they’re waiting for her decision to proceed.
But something nagged at her – something wasn’t right.
Just as Alexis began to call out for the team to fall back, Charlie and Ted stepped farther into the room toward another exit. She held in a deep inhale as they opened the door and moved into another hallway.
The rest of the group followed the two men down the hallway, leaving Alexis at the rear. She kept her eyes peeled, twisting and turning her head, continually taking in their surroundings.
She remembered the layout from the map and knew the hall led to six more rooms with the possibility of no outlet, at least not one that their intel could recollect.
They traveled farther down the narrow path, passing two doors that Charlie claimed to show no heat signature. Her feet faltered when the thud of a door shutting sounded behind her.
“Stop,” she called out in a breathy shout, but the men didn’t hear.
Alexis turned behind her and aimed her gun as she scanned the space. Though they’ve traveled quite a distance, she could see the door that led to this second hallway was now closed.
Her heart falters at the notion that they’re not alone.
“Fallback, team. Fallback!” Alexis shouted to the group only to have Charlie overrule her. “Continue forward!”
His yell was muffled by the first round of shots. Alexis looked around in horror as two of her men fell onto the concrete floor, both taking shots to the head and neck.
“Shots fired!” Alexis screeched.
“Get the fuck out of there, Alexis!” Heath roars in her ear.
“Couldn’t trapped. Find me a way out.” Reaching out, Alexis held her hand against the neck of one of the downed men, trying to stop the blood flow and hating that his pulse was weakening.
She knew that if anyone could save her and the members of her team, it was Heath.
Closing her eyes, Alexis leaned away from the dying man and pressed her back against the wall tucking herself into a ball toward the ground. She wasn’t cowering – far from it. In the group home as a teenager, Alexis learned how to intensify her hearing. She could close her eyes and listen for every ping and crackle to know when someone was approaching, which was always helpful when one of the older boys would try to enter the girl’s rooms.
Her previous teams and friends liked to call her a ninja. She was quick, stealthy, and despite her small stature, she was powerful.
Alexis closed off from the world around her and listened. She could hear her own heartbeat, hear her shallow breaths with each inhale, hear the screams of her men as they tried to outrun the bullets in the blackened hallway.
Whoosh, whoosh.
The hiss of bullets passing by her ears had her fighting the urge to jump in response. They came from her left side – the side facing her men. She listened again. The sound of bullets cracking against the concrete mixed seamlessly with the cries of her team.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh.
Three more shots. All from the same direction. From her estimate, they were coming down at an angle, possibly from the ceiling. With her goggles in place, Alexis held her gun in the direction she heard the shot and fired blindly. She emptied the magazine and reloaded as more bullets buzzed across her ear. One coming too eerily close to her cheek that she felt the kiss of air.
Steadying her breath, Alexis stood from her perch on the floor, her back pressed against the cold concrete threatening to seep into her skin, her heavy clothes doing little to provide warmth.
With a quick glance at the floor with the night-vision goggles, she took in the massacre before her. The men’s screams had stopped, their shallow breaths fading into the background of the bullets still echoing in the hall.
“I found an exit. Go back to the room on your right. There was a false air vent that leads to a ground-level door. You’ll have to find a way to get up there, but that’s your only way out. The rest of the cartel was entering the bunker as we speak.”
Swallowing against the lump in her throat, Alexis said, “I couldn’t leave my men.”
It was a creed she’d always followed, so had Heath. So, it surprised her as he said, “If you want to live, you have to. They’re almost gone, Alex. I’m not getting a reading on any of them. Now get out of there.”
She took one final glance at the men that had worked beside her for the last few weeks and whispered a prayer that she remembered.
Resolute, Alexis cleared her mind of the ambush and slinked her way back toward the room she had walked past, constantly scanning her surroundings with her gun drawn. The handle of the door pressed into her hip, and without turning around, Alexis twisted the knob from behind and slipped into the room, praying that she wouldn’t find anyone inside.
Slowly she closed the door, her hand still holding the twisted knob to avoid as little sound as possible. Alexis turned on her heels, scanned the room with her gun, and breathed a sigh of relief to find it empty.
“The room was all clear,” she relayed to Heath.
Through the earpiece, she could hear a struggle. Alexis paused, not knowing if her friend was being attacked or killed while she’s stuck in this room, helpless.
“Heath! Heath, what’s going on?”
“Sorry, Alex. Had some douche try to sneak up on me. Don’t you worry, I got him taken care of. Now, let’s get you out of there.”
The relief that washed over her was immediate and overwhelming. She didn’t want this mission to go more awry than it already was.
Knowing that her friend was safe, Alexis frantically searched for a way to reach the vent, but the room was empty. Nothing except her and the cold concrete – and her lack of height.
“I couldn’t get out this way. I have no way to reach the vent.”
Shit. She knew where there were chairs though, but backtracking seemed like her worst possible nightmare. And she knew by now that the upper level of the bunker was going to be swarmed with cartel members.
“Heath, I have to go back to the basement entrance. I can get a chair from that room. It was my only way out.”
Alexis heard his muffled curses before he agreed to her plan, promising to keep watch through the drone and her on-person camera.
As she exited from the room back into the hallway, she was greeted by silence. The shooting had stopped, but she didn’t doubt for a second that she was in the clear. Using soft, swift steps, Alexis strode back to the end of the hallway. The opening that she had left opened, now closed as she had heard not five minutes before. She should have turned back at that point, saved the team. But hindsight was an unyielding demon. It would devour you from the inside, leaving you rotting in regret.
The first thing she noticed as she slowly opened the door was that light illuminated the space. The once haunting square of concrete now resembled a mildewed storage room.
Voices sounded in the distance, far enough away that she should be able to grab the chair and leave without notice.
But as she stepped into the space Alexis realized that she should have known better. This entire mission was a catastrophe from the start. Why would this moment turn out differently?
The instant her hand touched the back of the chair, the series of voices traveled down from the steps. They approached the room and Alexis knew that her time was limited.
Thinking on her feet, she grabbed a second chair and lifted them both under her arms as she performed an about-face into the hallway. Alexis placed one of the chairs on the floor and maneuvered the other in front of her body, preparing to lodge it under the doorknob to buy her some time. It wouldn’t be a lot, but she’d take any few extra seconds that she could.
The men filed into the room with a woman tied up and dragging behind them. Alexis could see that the fight in her was gone and she had succumbed to the death sentence she was about to endure.
Alexis’ body flinched at the sight, and she knew if she didn’t escape that she’d be in the same position as the woman. Her need to fight took over her body.
Hastily she reached for the knob of the door, preparing to close it before anyone witnessed her presence, their focus on their prisoner in the corner. But as a final man entered, Alexis couldn’t hold back the gasp that escaped her lips.
He’s dressed to the nines. Full three-piece black suit, pocket square and matching tie, shoes shinier than slick ice. He’s a man of power and fear with a face that Alexis could never forget. How could she when she wore a constant reminder of him around her neck?
Whether he could sense her company or merely heard her gasp of air, she’d never knew. But Alexis made no mistake that his eyes mirrored the same amount of confusion as hers when they landed on her face just as she closed the door completely.
With a shove, she heaved the chair under the doorknob, locking the door in place temporarily. As if the god Mercury had taken over her body, Alexis moved as fast as lightning through the hall to the abandoned room.
With the help of the chair, she was able to remove the vent cover and jump into the metal shaft.
“Which way, Heath?”
“Go to your right five yards, then you’ll meet a fake barrier.”
She aimlessly followed his direction in the bleakness until her head bumped against a wall. With all her might, Alexis shoved at the false wall until it gave way. Dirt and rocks crumbled around her as she maneuvered her body out of the tunnel.
“I’m out,” she breathed in relief as she pushed up from her knees to stand.
“Head two miles to your left toward the canal then continue for five miles. That’s where I’ll pick you up.”
Alexis scrambled away from the opening, tripping over her own feet in the process, the sandy ground coating her hands as she braced herself against the fall. But she knew there was no time to waste, the sounds of heavy feet closed in as the goonies raced after her.
She weaved in and out of trees until she reached the small canal of water Heath described.
“I’m at the water,” Alexis declared as she moved back into the tree line, staying out of the sight of the men chasing her. Thank goodness for the years in high school running long-distance because if there was ever a time to need the stamina to run for long distances, then that was this moment.
Steadying her breaths, Alexis listened to the pounding of her feet on the ground as she weaved around the trees and bushes. To her horror, an opening lay ahead, and knowing that she’s only about three miles into her trek, she realized that she’s about to make herself an open target.
The men couldn’t be too far behind her, they don’t appear to be the kind that gave up easily. With a deep inhale, letting the air fill her lungs, Alexis prepared herself for the sprint.
She turned to look over her shoulder and caught the eye of a man quickly approaching. She aimed her gun in his direction and pulled the trigger. Her shot hit the target dead-on, a surprise to Alexis due to her wavering energy, and the man fell to the ground.
Four more men approached her line of sight, just far enough away that she should be able to cut across the clearing just in time – hopefully.
With one final prayer, Alexis tucked her gun in its holster, took a deep breath, and ran for her life. Her feet pounded the surface, the dark night sky doing little to illuminate the area around her. She’s thankful for the night-vision goggles that offered some form of illumination.
But the other men must have a pair as well because just as she reached the endpoint of her sprint, a bullet soared by her head, lodging itself in a nearby tree.
Three more shots fire off.
Pain. Excruciating pain overtook her as bullets hit her shoulder and thigh, both threatening to bring her to her knees. But Alexis knew that if she faltered now, she’d have no escape. This was her only chance out.
Miraculously she made it to the woods and ducked behind a large tree truck, hunkering down toward the ground, as close to the sandy soil as possible. Ripping her gun free from its holster, she peered around the tree, trigger poised at the ready.
Despite the wound on her dominant shoulder, she knew she could still expertly aim and shoot; Alexis always practiced shooting giving both hands time on the trigger.
The first man came within the scope and Alexis fired off two shots, then turned her attention to the other three men approaching, proficiently taking them out as well.
She continued to scan the surrounding area, not finding anything amiss, then turned back behind the tree.
“Heath, I’ve been hit. Took out five men. I’m just outside the clearing.”
“Sit tight until I’ve located you. Don’t move.”
Her vision began to swirl as she rested against the tree. Through the haze Alexis slipped her belt free from her pants and fastened it around her thigh, just above the bullet wound. She tensed as she took in the amount of blood pouring from her leg and couldn’t imagine that her shoulder looked any better.
“I’m losing a lot of blood.”
“Fuck. I’m coming for you, okay? Don’t go out on me,” Heath cried out. “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
Alexis did her best to stay coherent, but the need to close her eyes was overwhelming. Her body fell to the right, landing on her injured shoulder and leg, a grunt sounds from her throat at the contact.
She knew that her consciousness was slipping away. Too much blood loss. Too much adrenaline. Too much fear.
Slipping the goggles from her eyes, she peered up at the night sky through the trees, a lone star twinkling far off in the distance.
“Heath. When was the last time you stared up at the sky? I mean really looked at the stars?”
She knew that her words were on the edge of peculiarity, but couldn’t find a way to restrain them.
“Alexis? Hang on. I’m close.”
“Oh, the pretty star is fading. That’s sad.” Even to her own ears, she knew that she sounds different, spoke differently.
“If I die, will you. . .”
“You’re not going to die, Alexis.”
“I’m going to go to sleep now. So tired,” she whispered, unsure if Heath could make out her voice.
She heard her name off in the distance, a gentle buzzing in her ear as she settled in to sleep. Behind her closed eyes, Alexis’ mind lands on an image of a man with brown eyes before the shadows encompassed her completely.