GAME ON - GoM 2

11

Inside the house, Markus left the runts playing poker and watching TV to go to the kitchen for a beer. He found the teacher by the small window looking north. The man glanced at him and nodded to the window. Markus joined him and looked out, right in time to have a glimpse of half a dozen shadows sneaking down from the road into the woods. He also noticed the police lights reflecting on the welcome sign.

"What the hell?" he grunted. "Check the southern side," he said to the teacher, hurrying out of the kitchen.

He rushed upstairs and into the guest room. From there, he had a good view of Graham's checkpoint and the trucks parked on the shoulder of the road.

"Shit! What are they up to now?" he muttered.

He headed back to the kitchen and spotted Aidan under the last trees, only steps away from the front yard, with the barrel of his shotgun to his shoulder. Aidan saw him too, and tipped an imaginary hat at him, flashing his trademark smug smirk.

The teacher joined Markus back. "Two of them went into the woods near the clearing," he said.

"Armed?"

"Rifles."

Markus knew that meant Bass and one of his own old hunting buddies. "Get the men ready," he said. "Whatever they're doing, we gotta find out and stop them."

Claire was finishing her last digit when she sensed like a wave of hostility and violence flowing from the house.

"Claire!" Aidan called out.

She followed his voice under the trees and he met her halfway, scanning the dark slope going down to the lake.

"How many?" she asked, grabbing her small crossbow.

"At least a dozen on this side. You done? Let's find Al. They're gonna need a hand."

Claire drew an arrow and they sneaked down the slope together.

Five hundred yards away from them, Alex drew the sigil on the rocks as fast as she could. But there were lots of rocks on that side of the woods. She'd only covered half of her part when she saw Tom's dark figure move. He watched from the top of a rock a couple of steps away. He drew an arrow and aimed up the slope. Alex straightened up with her shotgun.

"Keep working," Tom whispered.

She set her jaw and resumed her task. Tom jumped from rock to rock noiselessly to get ahead of her. Then he bent a knee and took the bow to his face.

Alex heard the hiss of the arrow released from the bow. One of Markus' runts showed up among the trees and let out a suffocated groan and Tom's arrow sank in his chest. Two more runts followed the first one and ended up squirming in pain on the ground around him. Four men ran out of the shadows at the same time. Tom got to shoot two of them down before the other two reached his position. Tom jumped onto them from the rock, trading bow for hunting knife.

Alex forbade herself to watch Tom fight and kept her focus on what she was doing, because one wrong line might made the whole seal useless, and the sooner she finished her part of the line, the sooner she could join Tom against them. She was sneaking to the next rock when she heard a shot behind the runts, followed by some shouts. Her heart crept up her throat. Was Claire okay?

Up the slope, Aidan emptied his shotgun on a bunch of runts running toward the lake. He had to let Claire cover him while he reloaded. The runts split in two groups, and half of them changed course and spread out to try to surround Aidan and Claire. For some weird reason, none of them carried firearms. They only had assorted blades, from kitchen knives to machetes, so they needed to get close to try to hurt or kill their opponents.

Claire aimed for their legs, and she took two runts down before Aidan was ready to shoot again. But then they heard echoes of gunshots from the other side of the house.

"That's Bass and Sean," Claire cried.

Aidan took two heartbeats to assess the situation. One to acknowledge that if the runts didn't kill him, Alex would. Another to shrug because he had no time to worry about that.

"You go. I got this," he said.

They traded a mischievous smirk. Yeah, Alex would kill them both for this. But what the hell.

Aidan shot an incoming runt down, giving Claire time to retreat and disappear in the shadows. And may the force be with her, he thought, aware that he'd pay in teeth for every scratch the girl got. For starters.