“What are you doing here?” she hissed.
He hesitated, as if trying to decide if he should turn back around or proceed forward. She took pity on him and motioned for him to join her. He rushed over, making so much noise that she now understood what it was like for Will and Danny whenever they had to deal with her and the others.
You have the patience of a saint, Will.
Roy crouched next to her and looked forward. She glanced over and was surprised how young he looked. Maybe it was the water and shower, wiping the grime from his face; she’d had him pegged as being in his late twenties when they first met, but that couldn’t have been right.
“How old are you, Roy?” she whispered.
“What?” he said, straining to hear her.
“How old are you?” she said, raising her voice just a little bit.
“Twenty-eight. Why?”
“Are you sure?”
He gave her an amused look. “Pretty sure, yeah.”
“You look younger.”
“I have one of those faces. My friends used to make fun of me. When I was an infant, I looked like an egg, they said.”
She smiled.
He saw it and looked pleased. “You’re pretty when you smile.”
Uh oh.
“I’m taken, Roy.”
“I know. I just had to say it.”
They sat in silence for a moment. Of course, it didn’t last, just as she knew it wouldn’t.
“So, this Will guy…” he started.
“What are you doing here, Roy?” she said, cutting him off. “You should be back at the hotel with the others.”
“I didn’t feel right letting you chase West out here alone.”
“Danny’s doing most of the chasing. I’m just backing him up.”
“I know, but what happened to Blaine was our fault. I keep wondering if I could have warned you sooner that Brody and West were dangerous. I should have told you about the watch…”
“The gold watch that West wore?”
“You know about that?”
“Bonnie told me. She said she wasn’t sure, but she thought that maybe West killed the guy who owned it.”
“He did,” Roy said.
She looked over at him. “What are you saying, Roy?”
“I wasn’t there when they did it or anything, but they told me about it afterward. Brody was gloating about how they got the drop on them. Jesus, one of them was just a kid…”
“It’s okay, Roy. Bonnie warned us. She warned me. It’s my fault for not acting on it earlier. I should have—”
“Ahem,” Danny said in her right ear. “I don’t mean to cut in on your little chat with Geek Wonder over there, but I can hear you all the way across the island.”
“Sorry,” she whispered.
“For what?” Roy said.
She started to answer, but shook her head and put a forefinger to her lips instead. He nodded, understanding.
Another click, and Danny said, “Lara and Roy, sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g.”
She sighed. This was going to be a long morning.
Roy was getting antsy next to her, shifting back and forth, going from one knee to both knees, then back again. The last two times she had ordered him back to the hotel, he’d insisted on staying with her. His version of gallantry, she supposed. Not that she needed him. He was more of a burden at the moment, but she couldn’t help but feel slightly impressed with his stick-to-itiveness.
Salvation finally came in the form of a click in her right ear, and Danny’s voice: “He’s moving. Push ahead and cut him off. Fire three shots into the air.”
“Stay here!” Lara said sharply to Roy, lunging up to her feet and racing away before he could respond.
She fired one shot into the air, heard the echo, then fired a second and a third time.
She was still moving when she heard gunshots in front of her. Not too far away, but far enough that she didn’t have to dive for cover. She heard footsteps, threw a quick look over her shoulder, and saw Roy giving chase. He was surprisingly fast for a former tech geek.
She heard two more shots in front of her, then nothing.
Lara slid to a stop, and Roy almost crashed into her. He was breathing hard, out of breath. She had to wonder how Roy had managed to survive so long when he was so clearly out of shape.
Click. “Forty meters,” Danny said. “Your twelve o’clock.”
“Danny,” she said.
“Sorry. Directly ahead.”
She looked over at Roy and nodded, and they both climbed back to their feet and began jogging forward through the brush. Roy was already huffing and puffing again by the time they reached a clearing.
Danny was sitting on a boulder, facing West, who sat slumped against a tree trunk. There were bullet holes in the tree over West’s head, though at the moment those were the least of his worries. West was holding on to his right side, where he had been shot. His right thigh, where he had caught some of Blaine’s buckshot from last night, was covered in mud and pieces of his shirt that he had been using as a tourniquet. The stolen M4 with the ACOG scope lay a few yards beyond his reach.
Danny was chewing on a twig. “West decided he’d like to give up.”
“Is he armed?” she asked.
“Not anymore.”
Lara turned to Roy and handed him her shotgun. He took it hesitantly. She also drew her Glock and handed it to him as well.
“I need to take a look at that wound,” she said, walking toward West and crouching in front of him.
He looked tired, his face a mess of mud and blood and dirt. He had been running around the woods all night, trying to stay one step ahead of Danny. It showed in his hollowed eyes and all over his slackened, beaten body. He was barely breathing; whether from his tired condition or a lack of desire, she didn’t know and didn’t particularly care at the moment.
Lara took a handkerchief out of her pocket. “I’m going to remove your hand. Don’t fight me.”
He didn’t say anything. Instead, he continued to watch her curiously.
She ignored his stare and pulled his hand away from his side. Blood oozed out, and she quickly pushed the handkerchief against it. The orange fabric turned dark red and West flinched a bit, though he was clearly trying not to show it.
Tough guy, huh? Not tough enough.
“I need to get you back to the hotel and sew this up, or you’re going to die,” she said.
West’s eyebrows furrowed. “I thought that was the plan. Letting me die.”
“It was never my intention to kill you or Brody.”
“Sending us back out there is the same thing.”
“Not to me. You have no future on this island, but you have a chance out there.”
He snorted. “I don’t have a shit ounce of chance out there. Especially not now, without Brody watching my back.”
She met his eyes with her own harsh glare. “You should have thought about that before you tried to murder Blaine last night.”
He looked away, but Lara didn’t feel the flush of triumph she had expected. If anything, there was just overwhelming sadness. For him…and for herself.
She looked back at Roy. “Give the weapons to Danny, then I need you to help me get him back to the hotel.” While looking straight at West, she added, “Danny, if he tries anything, you have my permission to end his miserable life.”
There were no holding cells in the hotel, but there were two extra beds in the makeshift infirmary. She had Danny zip tie West’s hands and legs down on one of the beds while she kept him from bleeding to death. Blaine was snoring lightly on the next bed over, oblivious to West’s presence. Just to make sure West behaved, Danny, eating breakfast, stood watch as she worked.