“Wait for the cavalry,” Truman said. “Is this as good of cover as we can get?”
“I’d say so. I’d rather be on the other side of the Tahoe, but no one shooting from the house can get us here.” She scanned the pile of junk behind them. “It’s mostly bricks and car parts, but it’s something. How are you feeling?”
“Like my chest is on fire,” he said. “Probably broke some ribs.”
“Can you run if we have to?”
“If we have to.”
The gunshot woke Rose.
I’m still alive.
Loud footsteps pounded down the hallway, and she scooted to the far corner of the bed, as far away from the door as possible. Locks slid and the door flung open. “Get up!”
“What’s happening?” she shrieked. Who’d he shoot? The smell of the fired gun reached her nose.
“Get up!” Craig grabbed her upper arm and lifted her completely off the bed. Her legs scrambled for purchase, and she flung out her arms to keep her balance. He hurled her through the doorway and she fell to her knees.
The air in the hallway smelled heavenly compared to the bedroom.
He hauled her to her feet and dragged her down the hall, her bare feet feeling warped wood floors. They turned into another room and he shoved her against the far wall. “On your knees.”
She collapsed against the wall, feeling old plaster and rough boards under her fingertips. She knelt, her forehead pressed against the plaster. One of his legs was firm against her back, but his attention was higher. Metal scraped against wood and he cursed. “Where’d they go?” he muttered.
Who?
Nervous energy rolled off him, and the odor of his sweat filled the room. A second scent emanated from him: her.
Her stomach turned over.
Then she felt his blade press against her cheek.
Truman breathed shallowly, the pain from the shot stabbing him with every inhalation.
At least I’m still breathing.
“Think Rose is in there?” Mercy whispered as they crouched behind their temporary cover.
Truman’s gut told him she was. But is Rose alive?
A woman’s screams sounded from the house and Mercy jumped to her feet. Truman lunged and grabbed her elbow before she dashed to the house. “Sit down!” he ordered as blinding pain radiated from his chest.
Mercy whirled on him, her eyes wide and her chest heaving. “That’s Rose!”
The screams intensified.
Mercy dropped to her knees and crushed her hands over her ears, pressing her gun against her temple. “He’s killing her,” she whispered.
Truman grabbed her other arm, holding her down, knowing she was seconds away from bolting toward the house again.
“We can’t wait,” she hissed, staring him in the eyes. “We’ve got to go in. I’ll go in.”
He shifted up to one knee with a low moan and gritted his teeth against the pain. “No one’s going in there.”
“If we wait for the others, it’ll be too late! Craig has to know we called for reinforcements.”
“We can’t go through the front door,” Truman said between clenched teeth. “He’ll kill us before we get there. Where’s the tunnel?”
With Mercy’s help, Truman made it to the Tahoe and backed it up the driveway to the road, out of sight of the house, hoping the shooter would think they’d left. Then they cut back through the woods on foot to where Mercy remembered Ned’s woodshed stood. Every step shook Truman’s chest, creating shooting pains that radiated up to his brain. Mercy glanced at him with concern a few times, but kept her mouth shut. He’d push on until it was physically impossible, and she knew it. A hundred feet of ground stood between the back door of the home and the woodshed. The woodshed’s door was out of view of any windows.
“Think Craig knows about the tunnel?” Truman asked as Mercy peered inside the shed.
“I think he would have locked this door,” she replied. She pulled out a tiny flashlight and lit up the space. Chopped wood was stacked from the concrete floor almost to the ceiling. Maneuvering room was tight. She squeezed through a narrow aisle, the wood catching her jacket and hair.
Spiders.
Mercy didn’t seem to care, so Truman firmly put all thoughts of hairy spider legs out of his brain and followed. A piece of wood jabbed his chest and he winced, catching his breath.
“I found it!”
He squeezed between a few more feet of wood and found her kneeling in a wider area, peering down into a large hole. A ladder stuck up out of the opening and vanished down into the darkness.
Good Lord. Pushing between the woodpiles had been claustrophobic enough. The sight of the black tunnel made him light-headed, and he looked away.
She shone her flashlight in the hole and cocked her head, listening carefully. “It’s quiet. I doubt he knows it exists.”