Trouble and Treasure (#1, Trouble and Treasure Series) (15 page)

“
What the fuck happened to this car?” A
gruff and deep baritone rang out from behind, giving me a fair
indication from the language and tone that this wasn’t a country
farmer with a particular love of military-grade cars and tinted
windows.

“
It's had the shit shot out of it,” replied
a man with a wiry tone, offering laugh at the end, as if a
bullet-riddled Lexus was the funniest sight on this green
earth.

I bit my lip so hard that the pain radiated
down into my chin. I ground to a halt, pressing my back up as far
as I could against the rigid bark of the large oak tree behind
me.

“
Hey, I know this car,” a far more
unpleasant tone replied, “It belongs to that lawyer
shit.”

My eyes widened, and I clamped my teeth
down, lips sucking in. This was Maratova, wasn't it? The same
Maratova Sebastian kept warning me about, the same Maratova who'd
chased me through the woods last night.

That thought was enough to see me shaking,
arm jittering so hard that the tips of my fingers danced over the
wood of the trunk behind me as I tried to hold myself steady.

“
Well, looks like someone got to him,” the
baritone replied, voice not peaking with concern.

“
Should we call it in?” someone else
asked.

“
Don't have the time, plus, not our
problem,” the baritone replied.

The man's tone was starting to get to me;
it didn't feel right somehow. It seemed as if he was artificially
holding his voice even, as if he was trying not to frighten
someone. I hardly doubted he was doing it for the benefit of his
men; I didn't think the army was a place where the softly, softly
approach to interpersonal conversation was cherished.

My lips dropped open, my throat dry. Very
carefully I tried to step back from the tree, and it was at that
moment I heard the crack of a twig not too far from my left.

My heart gave a kick, and I’d never felt
anything like it. An intensely cold sensation rushed across the top
of my chest, a horrible tingling feeling cascading down my arms and
legs.

They were hunting me. The apparently normal
conversation by the car was meant to draw my interest and distract
me while they sent several other men off into the forest to corral
me.

“
Still, it's a pity, looked like it was a
nice car,” someone said as the sound of a door being opened
filtered through from the lane-way.

With a fresh, undeniable, inescapable
tingling pulsing through my body, I did the only thing I could
think of, and I ran. It might have been smarter to peel off, assess
the lay of the land, and try to pick the best route possible. I
wasn’t in a sensible mood here; I was about to be the antelope
captured by the pride of lions.

As I launched myself from the protection of
the tree, heart beating so fast, chest trying so hard to suck in
deeper and longer breaths, the conversation behind stopped.

I had stupidly, stupidly kicked my shoes
off in the car, and I found myself running from the army in the
woods, barefoot and desperate.

As I belted forward, in my peripheral vision
I saw one of them, crouched low by the side of a tree barely five
meters from where I’d been. The second he saw me, was the second he
snapped up with the speed of a jumping spider.

I screamed, constricted throat making it
sound as if I was choking.

Arms flailing about madly, feet striking the
ground with hard, shuddering, quick footfall, I ran in the only
direction I could see that didn't have a crouching soldier in
it.

Sure enough, as I pelted forward, I heard
another one move from my other side, snapping up just as quickly as
the other one had.

This section of wood was infamous for its
dips and rises, seemingly level hills dropping off dramatically
into tree-lined ditches – and as I could hear the breath of the
closest soldier behind me so loud it sounded as though it was
issuing from my own skull, I came across such a treacherous
rise.

Foot striking a raised root, and knee
buckling at the sudden pressure it sent zipping through my leg and
up my hip, I fell forward, realizing that the ground gave away
sharply. With no time to scream, I sucked in a breath, closed my
eyes, and somehow managed to tuck my body in. I hit the ground and
began to slide down the sharp incline, leaves and twigs grating and
brushing over my scooting form.

I had no idea how long it took, but I
rolled onto a thankfully-soft pile of leaf matter at the bottom of
the incline. Were it not for the fact my body was already primed
with adrenaline from the pressing issue of having several
heavily-armed soldiers chasing me, I would probably have lain there
for some time, shocked as I tried to process what had occurred. I
didn't have that luxury.

Shaking violently, my teeth clattering as I
tried to clamp down hard on my jaw and get a hold of myself, I
pushed to my feet. It didn't feel as though I had broken bones, and
I didn't have time to check for the bruises and scratches and cuts
that I knew for sure would be there.

“
Come on, Amanda, you don't have to run
from us,” one of the soldiers said from the top of the
incline.

I chose to ignore his words as I saw two
others expertly making their way down the horrendously steep
incline towards me.

“
We are here to help you,” the soldier
tried again. He wasn’t the baritone, that much I did know, and his
voice, dare I say it, had a kinder edge.

That didn’t stop me from turning from him
and resuming my escape. “Like hell you are,” I muttered under my
breath.

I heard him swear, just as the other two
soldiers, boots skidding, made their way towards me.

Though I hadn’t been to these woods for
many years, I still remembered them from the fond times I had spent
with my great-uncle as a child. He had often taken me out here, sat
me under the different trees and told me of his various adventures.
I remembered the time he'd pointed out this hidden old lane-way to
me, leading me along it, my small hand in his, as he pointed out
all the different trees and plants and birds.

As I ran, feet so painful it made me want to
close my eyes to get away from it, I remembered something more. My
great-uncle had told me this lane-way and the woods around it were
surrounded by one of the country roads. If you kept walking down
with the dip in the land, you would get to the road below. The
other thing he'd mentioned was the thing I had proved to myself as
I had thrown myself face-first down that steep hill: the land
around here was full of ditches, valleys, and bloody horrendously
steep hills.

That would be when I saw another incline pop
right up in front of me. This time I managed to skid to a halt,
grabbing a tree trunk before I fell off the hill and rolled down to
the flat almost 20 meters below.

They were right behind me, and I do mean
right behind me. For some reason my hearing was more acute: I could
pick up the tread of their boots as they ran through the soft
forest floor. I could even pick up the metal clinks and clangs as
whatever horrible weaponry they carried impacted with their belts
and buckles as they threw themselves forward.

Below me, beyond the massive dip, was the
road. I could see it, see the slice of gray bitumen through a gap
in several trees.

So I did it again, this time intentionally.
Taking the most massive of swallows, and wincing like I’d never
winced before, I plunged over the dip in the hill, trying to keep
myself low for as long as I could. I had intended to control my
descent, but I started to slide out of control, and I had to curl
myself in tight as I began to roll violently down the incline.

I thought I heard someone swear from behind
me; it was hard to tell as air rushed past my ears, the sounds of
twigs and small branches cracking as I skidded and rolled past.

I bottomed out and reached the flat
below.

This time my body felt so bruised and
battered that I gave out a terrible moan as I pushed myself to my
feet.

“
For fuck's sake, love,” the soldier from
before shouted from atop the incline above, “We're not here to hurt
you. We're here to get you to safety.”

I think I was crying, it was hard to tell;
the skin along my cheeks, nose, and forehead was so tingly and over
sensitized from the fall and rush of adrenaline, it was hard to
differentiate between a stinging sensation in my eyes and the
possibility of tears rushing down my cheeks and over my chin. Plus,
my face felt so dirty from the beating I had given it by rolling
down two inclines in the space of less than two minutes that you
would probably have to press right up close to it in order to see
the tears, if they were there, between the mud, muck, and
scratches.

In front of me, near the road, I saw someone
move. Before my heart could leap at the possibility it was
Sebastian, I recognized the large, heavy, black-leather coat and
thick neck. It was the man who had shot at us outside of the
library. He was barely five meters before me, picking his way
towards me from the road beyond. He had a gun in hand, and sliced
his eyes upwards to the soldier on the rise. Before he could do
anything, he sliced his eyes back to me and pelted for me.

I didn't have time to think; I had fallen
down yet another incline, body so full of painful protestations at
my punishment that all I could do was stand there and shake.

The soldier above yelled, “Contact.” As he
did several bullets zipped around me, but not close enough to
indicate that I was the intended target. One of them ripped through
the shoulder of the thick-necked man's leather jacket, one plunging
into the ground right next to his boot. It was enough to make him
falter, and he jerked back, before his outstretched hands got a
hold of me.

I threw myself to the ground, or fell, more
like it. My legs buckled out from underneath me, mouth so open and
wide and limp that I didn't think I could ever get it closed again.
I tucked my arms over my head, nestling my chin down until it was
as close to my chest as I could make it.

I could hear the noise of the soldiers
above, as they kept shooting, kept shouting. Then I heard far
closer shots as the thick-necked man obviously drew his own
gun.

With the smell of dirt clogging my nose and
the mud on my face mixing with my tears, I sobbed.

I had to get up and move. I couldn't assume
the fetal position and wait to be kidnapped by the victor; I had to
act, I had to get away.

Pushing to my feet, arms and neck so stiff
it felt as if I was trying to unwind a coat-hanger, I plunged into
the woods by my side, as far away from the shouting and gunfire as
I could get.

I ran, ran, and ran. Whereas before I
hadn’t noticed the pain in my feet and the tears streaking down my
cheeks, I noticed nothing; my attention was inexorably focused on
getting the hell away.

As the sounds of the gunfight were swallowed
up by the woods, I found myself facing yet another incline.

For the freaking third time, I slipped right
down it. The only difference was, this one led straight to the
road. In an uncontrollable, desperate descent, I rolled right off
the hill and straight onto the bitumen below.

There was a sudden and violent screech of
tires, and a massive wave of air broke against me as something
large and fast dodged closely by my side.

Before I could process what had happened, or
more likely, what hadn't, I heard a car door slam.

“
Amanda? Amanda?” It was Sebastian, and in
another second he was right by my side, lifting me up off the
road.

His face was still with shock, a tender and
overwhelmed expression muddling his features, one at odds with the
character I was so sure he had.

He shook his head several times and led me
to the car. “Get in the car, get in the car,” he needlessly
repeated as he opened the passenger door for me and gently but
surely led me towards it.

Behind us the sound of gunfire stopped.
Sebastian twisted his head in a snap towards it and let out an even
quicker swearword as he slammed my door closed and pelted to his
open driver’s-side door. He jumped in, slammed his own door and
didn’t bother to put his seat belt on as he slammed his foot on the
accelerator and the car sped off down the road.

I was shaking in my seat, clutching my hands
tightly as I rocked back and forth.

I was aware that Sebastian was looking at
me, slicing his head back to the road as he took another corner at
full speed, then looking back at me. Not caring how I looked, I sat
there, knuckles perfectly white against my pink flesh as I
continued to rock back and forth, back and forth.

He reached out a hand to me, hesitated and
patted me on the shoulder. “You're okay, you're okay, because
you’re here now, you're safe,” his voice was quiet, at odds with
his usual arrogant gusto.

I shook.

“
What happened? Was it Maratova? Did he
find you?” Sebastian didn’t slow the car down, and it sounded as if
he gunned it even harder at the mention of Maratova's name, the
engine revving wildly.

I was able to nod my head, and kept nodding
for some reason, as if I was one of those dolls with a bouncing
head that sat on the car's dashboard.

“
Fuck,” he said, the word bitter and drawn
out, “That fucking bastard.”

I felt cold, frigid, my limbs seizing up. I
wanted to huddle into a ball and try and keep what warmth I still
had left in me inside.

Sebastian wound up his window, which had
been down when he had rescued me, and turned the heat on to full
bore, directing each of the vents towards me. “I wish I had some
water in this car,” he mumbled.