There shouldn’t have been anyone left in the forest. No one left for John and Henry to mistakenly run into.
But Randall also wasn’t stupid. He must have been prepared for something. He’d known that the folks in Ellis Woods had seen him. Hell, he’d been looking right at Marlon and John while they were looking at him! So there was a very good chance that he had in fact done something just in case anyone in town had made their way over there.
The problem was that Marlon had no bloody clue what exactly what Randall was doing, in terms of either attacking the town or protecting himself.
And if John and Henry had run into trouble, it was clear that there was nothing Marlon or anyone else could do about it. Not from where he stood in town. Though he had a man with a gun, and had one himself, Marlon had never been a sniper, and didn’t have any confidence in the man next to him to hit a target from that far away.
The man with him, Joe, might have been a good hunter, but Marlon wasn’t entirely convinced that he was a sharpshooter—he definitely wasn’t a sniper. Even though he was probably the best the town had for this particular job, it would be ill-advised to count on him to save John’s life, if it came down to it.
And the problem was, if Marlon or Joe took a shot, they had to be damn well sure they hit whatever they were shooting at. Shooting and missing just made it more likely that Randall and his men would end up shooting John and Henry.
Marlon ran his fingers along the lines of his own sniper rifle, trying to remember all the training he’d ever had on shooting, but shook his head at the thought. He was many things. He could do many things. But if it came down to shooting a man who was walking right next to John, perhaps leading him…
No, he wouldn’t take the risk. There was too great a chance that he’d miss and hit John.
He cursed his lack of training in that skill—not for the first time in his career—and tried to let his brain relax a bit. Maybe he was just borrowing trouble. For all he knew, John was sitting in that forest, right on the edge of the clearing, waiting until he had a plan for moving into the encampment. The man was one of the smartest Marlon had ever met, and one of the best planners. The man had skills Marlon could only ever have dreamed of.
John had proven himself time and again in Afghanistan, running missions almost on his own and protecting every man the military had assigned to him.
Marlon had read the reports—he knew the man’s history.
So Marlon had told himself to trust John and tried to put the worry to the side. Tried to believe that John was just pausing, waiting for the right moment to dash across that small clear spot and into the tents of the encampment.
Then John and Henry walked out into that very clearing, with Logan Smith at their backs, firearm trained on them.
“Dammit,” Marlon breathed, gripping the binoculars so hard they creaked.
This definitely complicated matters. And he couldn’t do a damn thing about it.
8
My mind started moving the moment I realized he had a gun.
It started moving even faster the moment I realized who he was. Logan. Dammit. Of all the freaking luck. The one man who was nearly as high up as Randall—and the one who I suspected actually had the brains to do damage.
Randall was obviously the most aggressive of them all. He was certainly the man in charge. And he was also definitely the one most likely to kill you, just out of pure rage. But in my two intersections with Logan—back in that cabin in the woods—I had come to the conclusion that this man actually had brains to match his brawn. He asked the important questions.
He was the one Randall trusted.
So it made sense that he was the one Randall hadn’t ordered to his little pep rally. Made sense that he was the one Randall had sent into the woods—probably just to watch out for us.
“Put your weapons down and walk,” he growled from behind me.
I felt the muzzle of whatever gun he was using being shoved right into my back, and I put my gun down and quickly got to my feet, noticing that Henry was doing the same, backing away from his rifle. I was in the wrong position right now to argue with the man. This was the time to take orders.
Once I got into a better position, I’d consider talking back to him. But for right now, my one goal was to make sure he didn’t think I was going to cause trouble. Because the moment he started thinking that was the moment he started thinking about shooting me in the back.
“Toward your friend,” he muttered, using the gun to direct me toward Henry—who, having now absolutely proved his lack of military training, was staring at us with his mouth open and his eyes wide.
“Lo-Logan,” he stuttered.
“Henry,” Logan answered, his voice coming out in a disgusted growl. “Didn’t you get our instructions?”
He could only be talking about the instructions to join them here at the camp. In which case he was referring to the fact that Henry had decided to go to town—literally—rather than join Randall’s gang of thugs. And this was exactly the moment we’d prepared for.
This was exactly why I’d brought Henry along.
We’d rehearsed what he was supposed to say right now. The story he was supposed to tell Logan—and after him, Randall—that would maybe, possibly, get us out of here alive. I was just hoping that he remembered that conversation. Because the look on his face did not make him appear to be… prepared.
Dammit. Bad idea, counting on a man who had never had the training for this sort of thing.
I made a face at him, practically pressing my eyes out of my head as I willed him to remember what we’d talked about. Remember the story I’d given him to use in this very situation. I made that face so hard that I was almost shaking.
But he wasn’t looking at me as we walked toward him. He was looking at Logan. And the gun Logan was holding.
“I… I did,” he said slowly.
Then, finally, he turned his eyes to me. He jumped at the face I was making—which no doubt looked as though I was having a stroke—and then seemed to come suddenly back into himself. I watched his face clear, his eyes become more focused.
And for the first time since Logan had spoken behind me, I started to breathe in relief.
By the time we reached Henry, he looked like he was ready to play his part.
He stood up before Logan asked him to, his hands above his head, but his expression wasn’t that of a prisoner. He didn’t look frightened. Instead, he look relieved—like someone had saved him.
“Thank God you found us, Logan,” he started off. “I was on my way to you guys, to join your camp, just like you said, when a bunch of men came running out of town and tackled me. They put me in cuffs and dragged me into town, told me they weren’t going to let me go join you. They were claiming me as part of their team, you know? Claiming me for their side?”
A rough snort behind me was Logan’s first reaction to that, and honestly I couldn’t blame him. The story didn’t make a whole lot of sense. It had just been the best we could come up with on short notice.
“What the hell would they want with you?” Logan asked.
“My weapons, I guess,” Henry said.
I almost grinned at him, but stopped myself just in time. We would be done for if he grinned back—and I couldn’t be sure that he knew how to control his facial tics enough to stop himself.
Logan snorted. “How many weapons could you possibly have, that they would want them?”
“I had three hunting rifles with me, as well as three handguns,” Henry answered immediately. “Plus my own expertise, I guess. And they knew I knew you. They thought I could tell them what you were doing.”