“Yeah.” I squeezed my eyes shut as a jolt of pain plowed through my skull. I sighed and forced myself to focus on him. “Wanna tell me what you are doing in the middle of the desert, Brick?”
He shrugged. “Deal went south. Just using the woods to hide until morning.”
“Seems convenient.”
“Could say the same about you.” He tried to light a cigarette, but it was too wet. “Fuck!”
I knew there was definitely more to the story, but I left it alone.
We lowered our voices when we heard someone talking.
“We need to get moving.” I checked my clip as we kept low and started to make our way around the hill. We needed to find higher ground.
The mud was thick, and Brick’s sneakers were slowing him down. This painful pace wasn’t going to cut it. We needed to get higher now.
I pressed my fingers to my comms. “Fox Two to Raven One.” I waited for Cole to come in as Brick took a moment to stop.
A crackle broke through the earpiece. “Fox Two to Raven One. If you can hear me, click your com.”
Again, static.
Shit.
“That can’t be good,” Brick muttered.
“We need to get up there,” I said more to myself and shielded the rain from my vision to inspect the mountain. “Come on.”
He grunted but followed. He slipped a few times, and I had to wait for him to continue to climb.
“Follow in my footsteps, so the mud isn’t as thick.”
He tried, but his Vans were filled with sludge.
Fifty-six minutes later, we made it to the top of a ridge where I could get my bearings.
“You ever think of working out more?” I smirked, and he tossed me the finger.
“I work out, just in different ways.” He chuckled, but his eyes widened, and I felt the danger before I saw it. I whirled around and jammed my fist straight into the guy’s nose then punched him in the throat. He fell back, and his head slammed into a rock.
Quickly, I ripped his weapon free and handed it to Brick, who admired the AR with a silent whoop.
The fat guy moaned, and blood drained from his nose, but it would be a while before he’d wake fully.
I cut his jacket off and tossed it out of my way. My knife had sliced his shirt too, and when I rolled the bastard over, I caught sight of some ink on his forearm.
Seven. I memorized the number and the design then went back to removing his weapons.
Taking off my watch, I flipped it over and bit the back of it off. Cole had added two different tracking devices inside the watch, one for us and one if we needed to monitor someone else.
“Watch my back,” I ordered Brick, who stood and scanned the cliff.
Carefully, I removed the tiny device and used my knife to cut into the tongue of the fat bastard’s sneaker and tucked it neatly inside. I patted his pockets and felt a thin wallet.
Dammit, no ID.
I improvised instead. Removing one of his credit cards, I pressed his thumb onto the plastic and slipped the card into a baggie in my side pocket.
“Hey!” I hit Brick’s shoulder to grab his attention. “Time to go.”
“Yeah.” He waited for my lead.
“Do you have any idea how far you’d been walking since you saw a road?”
“Maybe forty minutes.” He turned around like he was finding the direction he came from. He started to climb higher to another part of the cliff. “Look, there.”
I squinted through the rain that was finally tapering off, and sure as hell, there was a road.
“That’s pretty good.” I was impressed.
“Well,” he followed me to the edge, “this ain’t my first rodeo, my friend.” His fake drawl made me grin.
Carefully, I dipped low and scanned the area. There was the road a few miles out, but what was more appealing was the gas station off in the distance.
“How good are your knees?”
Brick shook his head, confused. “You want, like, a zero to ten here or…”
I ignored his sarcasm and pointed to a bush.
“See that bush?”
“You mean that cactus?”
“Sure.” I dropped my voice when someone shouted from behind us. Company was coming. “When I say jump, jump, and once you land—”
“You mean once my knees shoot up into my chest? That’s, like, thirty feet down.”
“Correct. Pull them out and run southwest and meet me at that gas station.” I pointed it out to him.
“And where are you during all of this?”
“I’ll be running parallel to you so if we get seen they’ll have to split up.” I moved closer to the edge and planned out my moves step by step.
“Ready?” I turned to Brick, who was now beside me.
“No.”
“Too bad.” I gave him a nudge, and he dropped off the ledge. He landed awkwardly and shot me the finger before he jumped up and scrambled across the terrain and into a gully.
I glanced back at the fat man, as his noises were getting louder.
Easing my body over the crumbly rock, I balanced my weight on my fingertips and dropped straight down. My knees absorbed the impact, and I landed without a sound. I kept low as I raced across the clearing and slipped into the tree line and blended with the brush.
I kept my eye on Brick. He was a distance ahead of me, and we both ran like cheetahs through the brush. Low ground was not my comfort zone, and we could be attacked at any moment. I constantly scanned my surroundings, mentally calculating each move. I imagined myself like a human spring ready to bend to whatever Mother Nature had in store on this run.
The road came up fast, and I waited for Brick to cross and disappear into the ditch. Once he was out of sight, I did the same, nearly taking his shoulder off as I landed next to him.
God, I missed my brothers already.
Brick’s chest heaved while he patted his pocket for his smokes. He pulled them out and cursed at the damp, crushed mess.
“I blame you.” He shook the box into his hand and showed me the cigarettes.
“You’re welcome. They were wet, anyway,” I muttered and suddenly tuned in to a new sound.
“If I was Rail, you’d be getting a mouthful right…” He trailed off when he realized I wasn’t listening. “What?”
“Shh,” I ordered and closed my eyes to block out all the white noise. The sound of pebbles scraping over sand made me hyperaware we were about to have company.
Static from a radio had us both frozen mid-move, and Brick motioned with his eyes that someone was approaching from behind me. He moved his weapon, but I shook my head. If there were more cartel around, we needed to stay quiet. I pulled my knife from my belt where it was hidden in the buckle. It was small, I knew, but it could be just as effective as a bullet if used correctly.
Brick spread out his hand and silently counted down to when I should make my move.
Three.
Two.
One.
I darted from the protection of the ditch and rammed my knife into someone’s ribs, and when he fell, I kneed his face then carefully lowered his heavy body down to Brick, who dug through his pockets like a grave robber. He grinned when he found a half pack of smokes.
I felt the bullet graze my cheek a hair of a second before I heard the click as the bullet left the chamber.
“Shit!” That was close.