Colleen’s chest pounded as she squatted under the window to Melanie’s room. Inside the girl continued to shout for help.
“Help me! Please—help me!”
Colleen’s heart went out to the poor child.
Inside the cabin, two men conversed in hurried voices. Footsteps pounded the floorboards. On the far side of the cabin, the front door screeched open.
Someone coming out to investigate. Colleen’s nerves ratcheted up.
Crouching, she drew her Bersa, turned to face the corner of the cabin. Waited.
Heavy boots came her way, thudding on the ground. The big man.
Meanwhile, she heard the door in Melanie’s room inside fly open, hit a wall.
“What the fuck are you up to now?” an Englishman growled. He had a Cockney accent. Ev. She detected the light from a handheld lantern shifting.
The boots coming along the side of the cabin toward Colleen slowed as they drew closer.
Colleen readied her pistol. Flicked the safety off. Her hand vibrated with tension. In her other hand, she gripped her flashlight.
The big man’s heavy breathing was close by.
She held her breath, ready. Her left thumb was on the flashlight switch.
Inside the room, Ev struck Melanie with a blow that made Colleen flinch. “You want the gag again, do you? You know how much you enjoyed not being able to breathe.”
Melanie cried out.
“I should just let you bloody die!” He slapped her again. Melanie screamed, making Colleen’s wrath boil over. “Shut up!” he yelled. “Shut the bloody fuck up!”
Melanie whimpered.
“Be quiet or I’ll let the wolves have you!”
Melanie fell silent.
A large shadow darkened the corner of the cabin where Colleen squatted.
She saw the outline of the sawed-off shotgun.
She brought the Bersa up fast as she flipped on the flashlight, aimed the light into the eyes of a melon-size head full of grizzled stubble. The man squinted.
She fired just before he did.
He flinched back as his shotgun went off, up close, deafening, but thankfully, off-kilter. Even so, her left arm took a good portion of the blast, sending her to the ground with a thump. The flashlight tumbled away, the shaft of light rolling off into darkness.
She righted herself, head swimming, shut one eye, kept firing.
Each subsequent snap of the .22 caliber pistol made the big man balk, one bullet hitting him in the cheek, another taking out his right eye. Screaming, he reared back, shotgun flying off into the shadows. He clawed at his face like an enraged bear and fell to the ground with a wallop.
Wounded arm buzzing, Colleen scrambled to her feet. Her head reeled from the blast. The big man lay facedown, motionless in mortal surrender. She looked over in horror at her left arm. The leather sleeve of her bomber jacket was torn away. Blood soaked through. Her arm was warm and numb.
She sucked in steady gasps, reclaiming her sense of equilibrium.
She had to get Melanie out of there.
“Stop right there!” the Cockney voice said.
She turned, saw a tall skinny man with cropped blond hair, shirtless, wearing leather pants, barefoot. Maybe in his thirties. The same guy who had been at Steve’s flat that night. With Lynda.
Ev Cole.
He was holding a very large revolver, aimed directly at her. His bicep was wrapped in a sloppy, amateur bandage where Lynda must have shot him. It didn’t seem to slow him down.
He gave a sneer.
“Lose the bloody pop gun.” He motioned at the Bersa in her hand. “Now.”