“Wait.”
She blinked.
“You have one minute to get to the side door.” Eddie jerked his chin and his grip tightened. “If you’re not there in sixty seconds, I’m coming in after you.”
Wow! The man had given her nothing but grief since they’d met and now he was being heroic. Was there something different in the air? It certainly hadn’t affected her or her mother. Maybe their breeding made them immune. “I’ll be there in sixty seconds.”
“Count it down.”
Down? She counted up. Opening her mouth, she quickly snapped it closed. What did it really matter. “On three. One. Two. Three.”
Shoving with her foot on the ground, she straightened the leg on his knee and pitched to the side.
“Steady there.” With his free hand, Eddie hooked a finger through the belt loop of her trousers and gathered the fabric in a clump.
She ground the bones in his hand together before correcting her aim. Thigh muscles burned. She released his hand and grabbed at the window pane, pulling her torso inside.
A hand flattened against her left buttock.
“Oh!” She glanced over her shoulder. What had he done that for?
“Almost there.” He shoved.
“No.” Her fingers lost their grip and the floor rose up to meet her face. The sill scraped her belly then thighs. Fabric ripped. She raised her hands and held her breath. Flesh slapped tile. Her elbows absorbed the shock as they bent and her chin rested on her chest. Her legs cleared. Exhaling, she tucked and rolled. Years of falling in ballet had finally paid off. Mother would be proud.
She rolled onto her boot soles and stopped in a wobble on her toes.
“Sixty. Fifty-nine.”
He was actually counting. Pushing off the cold tiles, she stood. The world spun a little and she grabbed hold of the metal countertop to steady herself. The surface felt gritty to the touch. Shoddy cleaning. Her father would have fired the night manager over it.
But he was gone now.
She hoped Daddy was laughing at her from Heaven. Her neck popped as she straightened. Maybe that hadn’t been as graceful as she imagined. Then again, she was healthy and whole. She inventoried her body as she walked between the staging area and the counter.
The side door rattled. “Forty-two. Forty-one.”
She set both hands against the small of her back. Eddie might not speak English well, but at least he could count down from sixty with his shoes on. “I’m coming.”
Rounding the corner, she angled across the lobby. The faint scent of musk lingered in the air. Good gracious, whoever had worn it must have doused themselves with very liberal splash of cologne since it still lingered two days after the restaurant had closed.
Eddie cupped one hand to the window and peered inside. “Thirty-one. Thirty.”
“I can see you.” Which meant he should be able to see her. Which meant he should stop counting down. Her boots stuck to the floor by the soda machine. Lord a’ Mercy, why hadn’t the night crew cleaned better.
He shook his head and backed away from the glass door. “Twenty-five.”
She unlocked the door and shoved it open. “Patience is a virtue.”
He stepped back then sidled through the door beside her, the shotgun clutched in his hands. “So is having clean briefs.”
“Must you?” The world may be ending but really it was no reason to abandon civilized manners.
“It’s perfectly natural.” He stalked across the tile, heading for the bathrooms near the counters. “You have something against nature, Princess?”
“No, I—”
A cough interrupted.
Fear tracked down her spine. “Are you sick?”
Eddie stopped cold by the soda machine and raised his shotgun, aiming into the kitchen. “That wasn’t me.”
Chapter Seven
“Why do they always run, Big D?”
Sergeant-Major David Dawson clutched his M-4 as he humped his ass up the incline. A German shepherd crouched by the top of the incline. Ears flat against his head, he stared at the far side of the hill. His sides heaved and his tongue lolled out of his mouth, but David could swear the dog was laughing.
“The dog likes the chase.”
Private First Class Robertson snorted. “We should make him an honorary member of our squad. He’s already bagged one bad ‘un with your help.”
He shrugged. The dog had control of one hand, but the bad guy had a weapon in both and he’d planned to use it on the dog. A bullet had stopped him. The stitches from where his late commanding officer had tried to kill David pulled at his skin. Charred bushes and trees created gray smudges in his peripheral vision. When the hell had Phoenix gotten so many hills? His knees ached; pain radiated down his spine. Damn, but he loved the service.
“Just once I wish the assholes would trip. They always trip in the movies when they’re being hunted.”
And they’re always scantily clad women. David smiled. He liked nearly naked women just on principle. “Guess, they didn’t watch the movies.”
“Oh, they’ve watched them. They know we’re going to smoke their asses as soon as we get them in our sites.”
“They shot first.” Near the top of the hill, he dropped to his knees and scrambled forward. Rain drummed on his helmet. For a moment, the triple scents of damp earth, wet fur and asphalt overrode the stale barbecue smell.
Robertson belly flopped on his right. The kid wasn’t even winded from the two and a half mile sprint.
“Guess they didn’t expect us to fire back.” Near the top, he scooped up some of the gray ash and smeared it onto his tan and green helmet. Last thing he needed was to poke his head over the hill and have it blown off. Mavis wouldn’t like it, and he’d be damned if he allowed Lister to have her, even if he was a general.
“Fucking morons.” Robertson rolled to the side and removed his Close Combat Optic. “We’re in a damn military convoy. We’re armed and know how not to shoot ourselves in the foot.”
Yeah, but they hardly dressed the part. No combat shirt, kevlar vest or flak jacket. He and his men could be scavengers just like the scum they pursued. Removing his own scope, David dropped it into his pocket. Despite the weak sunlight, he wouldn’t have the glint of light reveal their position. For all he knew, they’d just run pell mell into a trap. He would not be responsible for getting the majority of the healthy servicemen killed.
Ray, a six-foot-seven Latino with enough muscles to make a body-builder drool, dropped his two large bags. “Candy. Get your candy here.” He snapped his fingers and the dog walked closer. He scratched the German shepherd’s ears. “Next time, I’ll bring biscuits for our latest recruit.”
The other six members of his squad fell to the ground, replenished their rounds of ammunition, then checked their weapons.
David fingered the throwing knives in each boot and the extra clips in his pockets. Good to go. In the span of a heartbeat, he belly-crawled across the cold asphalt to the top and peered over. The dog appeared on his right, his ears worked like a radar station.
A brick and stucco high school hunkered in the valley below. Their quarry hobbled across the weed-infested parking lot aiming for the wrought iron gate. Two look outs crouched in the northwest and southwest corner of the auditorium’s flat roof and aimed their rifles in David’s direction.
Robertson’s sigh stirred the dusting of gravel on the road. “Two Smokies on the far building, might be a gymnasium, given its height.”
On the far east side, Robertson’s lookouts smoked. The red eye of their cigarettes glowed intermittently and their weapons dangled from their backs. Beyond the auditorium lay an elongated u-shaped dirty white stucco building, no doubt holding the classrooms. Four pasty men, stripped to the waist, batted a soccer ball across the yellow grass.