Trapped (11 page)

It
was impossible. I'd forgotten all about my birthday, and I
hadn't told him anything about my dream other than the fact
that Anton had been about to kill us both. I didn't believe in
prophetic dreams or any of that psychic junk, but this was more than
just a strong case of déjà vu.

"This…this
was all in my dream last night. You were wearing those clothes, I was
sitting here at the counter and you lit the candle. It's all
exactly the same."

I
could almost see the gears turning in Ash's head.

"You
mean the same as the nightmare where Anton came for us?"

"Yes.
I know how crazy that sounds, but everything is exactly the same. How
can that be possible?"

Ash
put a finger to his lips as he set the candle on the counter. I
blinked and he had a gun in his hands. I would have felt sheepish
reaching for my gun, but the dream combined with how serious Ash was
taking things washed all of that away. I was halfway to having my gun
out when it happened.

Anton
crashed through the front door in a spray of glass, but Ash got two
shots off before Anton was even able to take a second step. I tried
to track over and get a shot of my own off, but Anton was too fast.
He streaked into the hallway just as Ash fired off his third shot.

Ash
was out from around the counter now, pulling me back towards the side
door that led outside from the kitchen.

"Keep
your gun up. If you see movement shoot, don't worry about
collateral damage."

We
backed up a step at a time and Ash's gun never wavered from the
opening to the hall. I could feel the door at our backs, but just as
Ash reached back to open it Anton sprang out of the hallway. I pulled
the trigger, unsure whether or not I'd hit him, but the report
of my shot was swallowed up by three quick shots from Ash. Anton
jerked once, twice and then fell back into the hall.

Ash
pulled the door open and carefully pushed me outside.

"What
are we doing? This is our chance. He's hurt and trapped
inside."

"No.
He's far more dangerous in close quarters. He's faster
than we are and the only reason we're still alive is because
he's got too much distance to cover."

"So
what do we do?"

"I
want you to go to the range. If you climb the west hill at the top
you'll see a path. Follow it north and you'll find a
group of trees. Inside, covered in camouflage netting, is a vehicle.
The unlock code is three-thirteen-thirty-five. Bring it back here,
but don't stop unless you see me."

I
repeated the combination back to him and then took off at a run, glad
I'd slipped some shoes on after my shower. I heard two more
shots before I crested the hill and found the trail.

The
group of trees was right where Ash had said it would be and it looked
so dense I never would have believed that there could possibly have
been a motorcycle in there, let alone a full-sized car.

A
growth of some kind of vine tore away more easily than I'd
expected and then I was inside. The vehicle wasn't just any
car, it was a full-sized black Hummer. There was just enough room
inside the grove of trees to walk around to the other side of the
Hummer. I noticed that the netting seemed to be attached to two of
the larger trees behind the SUV.

The
unlock code worked like magic, and once I was inside I found the keys
in the ignition. Backwards was out of the question, and the brush in
front of me looked like a lot of fake stuff woven into a lattice of
slats, so I turned the Hummer on, dropped it into gear and floored
it.

The
Hummer tore out of the grove, destroying everything in front of it,
and the netting slid right off of the back just like I knew Ash had
intended for it to. Less than two minutes later I was once again in
sight of the cabin and I felt my heart skip a beat until I located
Ash. He'd moved around slightly more in front of the house than
he'd been before, but very much still under cover behind a tree
that I suspected he'd left there for exactly that purpose.

It
made sense considering that Anton now had access to a very large
cache of weapons. Frankly I was surprised that Ash was trying to
bottle him up like that rather than just making a run for it.

I
veered around and stopped the Hummer just out of sight of the house,
below the crest of the hill that Ash was on. He yelled at me before I
even got the door all the way open.

"Kristin,
in the back of the car there's a bunch of cases. Get me the
longest black one!"

A
couple of seconds later I was running back down the hill, case in one
hand, my pistol in the other. Ash took the case without taking his
eyes off of the house, and I felt my stomach drop as I looked down at
his feet and saw that he'd moved a small pile of rocks to
expose a mechanical device that I suspected was some kind of
landmine.

"Don't
worry, it's an IED, but I disarmed it first thing. I didn't
like leaving this tree here without some kind of insurance policy,
but once you know it's there, it's relatively easy to cut
the cable that sends the detonation signal."

Ash
was trying to calm me down, I could tell that even through my rising
terror, but he wasn't letting the effort slow him down. Working
still by feel, he used his left hand to unlock the case and fish out
what I recognized as his favorite model of fully automatic rifle. His
switchover from pistol to rifle was so smooth I almost didn't
see it, but apparently Anton tried to use the action to do something
because Ash put two rounds into the house from the rifle before his
pistol had even hit the ground.

"Good
work, Kristin. Next I need you to go back to the car and get out a
smaller square case. There are a couple of them, but you'll
know you have the right one because it will have three cylinders on
it with red writing."

As
I came back over the crest of the hill from getting the second case,
bullets tore into the ground at my feet. I nearly stumbled, but
somehow made it to Ash's tree as he returned fire with four or
five rounds designed to make Anton duck back down.

I
was running on nothing but terror and adrenaline now, but I managed
to get the case down at Ash's feet and open without dropping
it.

"Are
you still with me, Kristin?"

"I
think so. What do we do now?"

"I'm
going to lay down cover fire and I want you to run back to the
Hummer. Once you're there, listen for my signal. When I yell
for you, bring it down on the left side of this tree."

"What
are you going to do?"

"Can't
tell you. Anton can hear us from there and this needs to be as much
of a surprise as possible. Are you ready?"

"Yes."

Ash
pulled his left hand away from his rifle and grabbed my arm.

"Go."

I
tried to run, but Ash's grip stopped me and a second later I
realized why as I saw movement in the house.

Anton
only got off a single shot before Ash hit him in the shoulder. I felt
Ash push me in the direction of the Hummer as he placed three more
shots in rapid succession into the wall just above where Anton was
hiding.

I
took off at a sprint, and made it to the top of the hill before Anton
managed a return shot which was close enough that I felt it buzz past
me before I heard it. I was on the other side of the hill before he
managed a second shot, and I felt the adrenaline start to crater as I
shakily climbed back into the Hummer.

Ash
changed over to three-round bursts, upping the tempo of the
firefight, and then I heard a crash as something broke another set of
windows.

"Now,
Kristin!"

The
Hummer surged forward as Ash fired into the house again and then
there were three separate explosions spaced about two seconds apart
from each other.

As
I came over the top of the hill I was finally able to see what Ash
had done. The entire front of the house was ablaze, already burning
so hot that I was pretty sure Anton was trapped inside.

As
I came even with him, Ash threw the rifle case inside the Hummer and
then jumped inside. Ash swore under his breath and then I saw it. A
very large jaguar streaked away from the house its coat singed in a
number of places.

"Follow
him!"

I
stomped on the gas, but Anton was quicker than the Hummer, he was
stretching out his lead, headed straight for the thickest batch of
trees in sight.

Ash
slapped a new magazine into his rifle and leaned out the window,
heedless of the very real possibility that he'd be bucked out
of the vehicle. His first burst seemed to miss, but the second seemed
to hit.

Anton
missed a step, before righting himself and continuing his sprint to
safety. I started to slow down so Ash could get a better shot off but
he yelled at me to step on it, so I pushed the pedal the rest of the
way down and prayed that we wouldn't hit something that would
flip us over.

Ash
continued to time his shots, a three-round burst every time the
Hummer bounced up, but Anton was moving more erratically now. It
meant he wasn't as fast, and he was already at his top speed.
We were really gaining on him now.

Ash
suddenly flipped over to full auto and cut loose with three long
bursts. One of them hit Anton with at least two bullets, but Anton
rolled back to his feet and then dodged behind a tree.

"Stop
the truck."

When
I didn't respond quickly enough Ash grabbed the wheel, turning
us away from the group of trees that Anton had just disappeared into.

"Sorry,
my ears are still ringing."

"It's
OK, we just can't risk getting any closer. Even wounded, if we
get too close then Anton will kill us both before we can react. It's
time to get out of here. With any luck, we can get far enough away
before he recovers that we can lose him for a little while."

Ash
pointed towards a ridge and I nodded and put the Hummer back in
motion, albeit at a slightly more sedate pace than when we'd
been chasing Anton. Ash spent the first twenty minutes still hanging
out of the window, ready to open up at the first indication that
Anton hadn't chosen to hang back.

When
he finally slipped back inside and put the safety on his rifle I
asked the question that had been lurking in the back of my mind since
Anton had burst into Ash's house.

"How
did he find us?"

"Apparently
Anton is even more dangerous than I thought. A few of the
southerners, the oldest ones, have the ability to home in on their
prey. They call it tracking, but they don't need a scent trail,
they can just feel the direction and an approximate distance of their
targets."

"So
he can find us wherever we go?"

"I'm
afraid so."

We
kept up a punishing pace. Once we made it onto paved roads, Ash let
me stop just long enough for him to take over driving and then we
were off.

Adrenaline
could only keep me awake so long. I fell asleep about midnight and
woke up only when the sun started to creep over the horizon.

Ash
spared me a smile when he saw that I was awake, but I could tell his
heart wasn't in it. That actually worried me more than anything
else that had happened. If Ash was starting to run out of ideas, then
we were in hotter water than we'd been in before now.

"So
what do we do now, Ash?"

"I'm
still working on that piece. I think I've got a plan, but
before I fill you in let's talk about your dream from the other
night."

"You
mean the one with Anton?"

"Yeah.
The one that I'm pretty sure saved our lives."

Now
I was uncomfortable. I'd never believed in this kind of thing
but there had been too much in common between the dream and Anton's
attack for it to have just been coincidence.

"I
don't really know what to tell you. It wasn't exactly the
same, but I dreamed about you lighting the candle on the cupcake and
then Anton came through the front door and he was too fast. He got to
you before you could really get any decent shots off."

I
felt my throat close up. I wanted to stop there, but if Ash thought
the dream was important then I needed to try and give him as much
detail as possible.

"I…I
was useless. I just kind of stood there and watched as you…died."

Ash
looked down at the fuel gauge, buying time before responding, but the
motion had the air of something he'd been doing a lot while I
was asleep.

"That's
pretty straightforward. Think back to the differences between the
dream and what actually happened. What changed?"

"Well,
you were ready for him when he burst into your house in real life.
You already had your gun out."

Ash
waited to see what else I'd say and then nodded.

"So
that all changed because you warned me, because you brought up the
dream. Can you think of anything else?"

"I
don't think I had a gun in the dream. I think I might have been
wearing shorts instead of jeans. I guess that really was because of
the dream too. Because of the dream I woke up feeling vulnerable so
you gave me the gun and it felt silly to wear shorts and a shoulder
holster."

Ash
took a deep breath. "I suspect this isn't the kind of
thing you really want to hear, but I think you were going to end up
in my world sooner or later. I've described some of the
abilities that the more powerful hybrids develop. What I didn't
mention is that sometimes normal humans develop some of the same
kinds of abilities."

"What,
like psychics?"

I
got a shrug, but he knew that wouldn't satisfy me.

"I'm
not really the one to ask, Kristin. I'm about as weak as a wolf
can be and still be a shape shifter. It's hard to conceive of
anyone less likely to develop a power on their own than me, and the
wolves who do develop powers tend to play things pretty close to
their vests. I've never even met a human who I really believed
could do anything extraordinary like that. All I really know is that
other wolves claim to have known humans who could see auras, find
things that had been lost, or even recount the history of inanimate
objects."