Lauren dug her feet into the ground and forced her body back into the man, placing an elbow deep into his abdomen, followed by a hard strike to his groin. A split second later, with every ounce of energy she had, Lauren latched onto him and dropped low, beyond his center of gravity, and pulled him over her, causing both their bodies to roll, one over top of the other, through the leaves and underbrush and down the steep embankment.
Their bodies tumbled, accelerating to near terminal velocity before dropping several feet into a ravine and halting not long after within the shale, clay, and sandstone lining of a dry creek bed.
Lauren was dazed and dizzy, but quickly regained her composure while the man lay squirming beside her, holding his head. She took advantage of the sudden rush of adrenaline and shook off the vertigo while scanning the ground for her M4, which was nowhere in sight.
Seeing that the man was starting to come around, Lauren gave up the search and picked up a heavy, water-smoothed rock about the size of both her fists held together. She threw one of her legs over the man’s chest to straddle him and looked him dead in the eyes as hers narrowed. “I told you that you were going to find out soon,” she hissed. “This is for my friends, by the way.”
Lauren angrily drove the stone downward with ferocious force into the man’s face. His eyes crossed and started to roll back into his head just as she struck him again and then repeated the motion.
The man’s nose was crushed, and his face, now covered in blood, began caving in after multiple impacts with the stone. His body convulsed and spasmed itself into a near-epileptic fit while Lauren continued to bludgeon him, stopping only when his body went motionless.
One down.
Lauren tossed the blood-covered stone to the side and wiped her hand on the man’s pants while listening for the footsteps she could hear coming closer to her. She felt around along the deceased leader’s body and found a knife sheath attached to his belt. She reached for the handle and extricated the knife, bringing it in close to examine it.
Lauren shifted, sliding her body backward to lean into the wall of the ravine. There, she waited for the next man to approach. She heard the crackle of the leaves above, then she heard the man’s wheezing. Moments after, he was right above her, unable to see her.
The man owning the high-pitched, nerve-racking voice shrieked at the sight of his dead leader, his face disfigured, his body splayed out amongst a wide spattering of blood on the rocks below. As he went to turn his body around and make the announcement to the rest of his team, a young woman, knife in hand, emerged from underneath him.
Just before breaking cover, Lauren recalled one of Woo Tang’s teachings. “If you slice a man’s Achilles tendon, he will fall to the ground like a sack of potatoes, unable to run, walk, or use his leg for anything other than an anchor. But perforate his femoral artery, that same man will die of massive blood loss in under five minutes.”
Lauren forced the knife blade upward into the man’s thigh, continuing the thrust until she could feel the tip of the blade make contact with his femur. Then she twisted the knife, opening the wound, and bursts of blood began expelling from the gash amidst the man’s gruesome screams of agony and cries for help. Lauren let go of the knife and grabbed hold of the man’s belt, pulling him down into the ravine, where his body rolled to a stop at the feet of his former leader, a steady stream of red blood pouring from the severed artery in his leg.
The man pleaded with her in soprano, but Lauren discounted him. She pulled the knife from his leg, callously slashed his throat with it, then crawled away, her attention focused only on the next approaching threat.
Two down.
Lauren took off in a sprint upon seeing another man’s face and hearing his crusty voice, recognizing him as the man who had been holding her on the left side. The report of a gunshot rang out behind her, as did another, followed by the man’s surly instructions to stop running and give herself up.
While she continued running harder and increasing speed, Lauren looked over her shoulder, gauging the distance between herself and the man pursuing her. When she lost sight of him, she knew he had also lost sight of her, and she scanned the woods for a suitable tree to climb.
Lauren came across a unique white oak that had branches jutting out from its trunk at about chest level. She jumped onto the tree and ascended it as quickly as she could, all the while recalling something that another highly trained acquaintance of hers had instilled within her.
“It’s a funny thing, you know. Most of us, myself included, walk around every day with our eyes looking either directly down at our feet or straight ahead—but we never think to look up at what could be looming above us.”
Lauren smiled. This wasn’t the first time that Dave Graham’s voice had revealed itself when she’d needed to hear it most.
“Japanese shinobis, better known as ninja, were experts at espionage, infiltration, and sabotage. They were also thought to be magical—disappearing and even reappearing before their enemy’s eyes. Truth is, though, there was no magic to help them along. It was simple misdirection, Janey. They functioned against their enemy by playing into what they paid the least attention to. Needless to say, those ninjas killed quite a lot of people by simply being above them—where they knew they wouldn’t look.”
When Lauren had reached a point in the tree limbs fifteen feet or so above the ground, she moved to conceal herself behind the trunk. A moment later, a solitary man approached, the owner of the perverted, wayward tongue. The man who had said things that had made her skin crawl.
Lauren looked around for a moment to see if he was alone, and didn’t spot any of the remaining men nearby. With one eye exposed, she regarded her target, knowing he would be the next one to die, deservedly so.
The gruff-voiced man walked steadily to a point near the tree that Lauren was perched in, looking in every direction for her while refraining from looking up. When he moved underneath, Lauren leapt from the tree and onto his shoulders. She put one hand on the man’s forehead and slid the knife across his neck, pulling it inward with enough force for the blade to slice into his vocal cords, eliminating his ability to call for help.
While the man flailed and reached instinctively to his injured neck, Lauren flipped the knife over in her hand and rammed the blade into his ear. The man went stiff at first, shuddered, staggered, and dropped to the ground silently and lifelessly under her weight. Lauren simply rode him down until her feet met with the ground.
Three down.
Lauren pulled hard on the knife’s handle, withdrawing it from his head. She wiped the blood, brain matter, and skull fragments from the blade on his shirt and turned her attention to the trees.
Seconds later, the fourth man emerged from behind cover in the woods. He darted toward her, his expression infuriated. Without a conscious thought, Lauren evaluated the distance, flipped the knife over in her hand, and with the blade clutched between her thumb and fingers, she flung it at him. The knife soared through the air and struck the man in his rib cage, embedding itself into an upper chamber of his heart. He dropped like a hot brick, landing in a pile of leaves only yards away from where Lauren stood. He lay there, struggling for a moment, his body trembling for several hellish seconds while he fought for what remained of his life.
Lauren exhaled. “Four down,” she said, her thoughts now becoming audible. She looked high and low and side to side for either one of the remaining men. She knew it would either be the man with the antiquated shotgun and wool coat, or Gus the wordless, grunting goon.
She shuffled over to the man she’d most recently canceled, emotionlessly separated the knife from his body, and then studied the landscape, elevating her body so she could see around without being seen. About twenty yards away and uphill from where she now stood was the bearded man in the wool coat. With his side-by-side shotgun in one hand, he used the other to drag Austin’s lifeless body by the ankle down the hilly terrain.
Lauren made a prompt judgment call and bo
lted in the direction of the thicker forest, estimating she could use the foliage to better conceal herself from the approaching threat.
After gaining some distance, something hard and heavy thumped into her shoulder on her left side. The mass of the object caused her to lose her footing, and she tumbled, losing the knife amongst the leaves and vegetation.
Lauren tried to make sense of what had happened as she searched frantically for the knife. Just as she identified the blemished sheen of the blade, the man in the wool coat launched himself from the elevated ground above and landed on top of her, pinning her face forward on the ground under his weight. She tried crawling away, but he grabbed her by the hair and twisted her head sideways, bonding it to the ground and burying Lauren’s face in the leaves. She grunted and groaned while wrestling and struggling with him to no avail. The man simply overpowered her with his size and strength as he waited for the fight within her to subside.
When she grew tired of squirming, he grabbed her arms one at a time and pulled them to her sides, trapping them under the knees of his filth-plagued jeans. Lauren was in a position now where she couldn’t move a muscle.
“You ain’t getting away, sugar britches. Not from this ol’ boy,” he said, breathing heavily. “You see, I got a long history of this…behavior. Little frail things like you never stood a chance. You might as well quit fighting.”
Lauren pushed out what little air she had left in her nearly deflated lungs to knock the leaves away from her face. She didn’t have the strength to do much else.
“Nice job you did on the other boys, by the way,” the man’s gravelly voice said. “I didn’t like them much anyway—always bickering about stupid shit.” He put one of his hands on Lauren’s head, this time gently, and ran his fingers through the knots in her hair. “You sure are a tough little bitch. I had a feeling about you—saw it in your eyes when you opened them.”
Lauren shuddered upon feeling his touch. It was loathsome, and the sound of his voice disgusted her. She could almost hear Dave Graham’s voice yelling into her ear, chastising her for failing to remain focused and for not being on constant alert to her surroundings.
Situational awareness was an attribute her dad had instilled within her, and the training she had received in supplement had served to finely hone her acuity. Still, Lauren was coming to the realization that no matter how much training a person receives, errors in judgment were bound to happen. It was just a fact of life. This particular error had occurred at the worst possible time and had put her into a position of profound disadvantage.
Although she recognized these truths as evident, and the odds had never before been stacked so high against her, Lauren Russell had no intention whatsoever of going quietly.
“Please don’t kill me,” she whimpered, making sure to remain still and calm despite the rage mounting inside her.
“Oh, I don’t aim to kill you. My orders are to bring you back alive. Not so sure ol’ Gus will agree, though. Once he sees all his buddies dead and puts all this together, he’ll likely be a bit perturbed. Man’s got a violent history, too. He’s been known to rip grown men apart with his bare hands. If he gets those meat hooks on your tiny frame, you won’t last two seconds. We have to make the most of our time together.”
“Can you…protect me?”
“Protect you?” He laughed. “Did I hear you right?”
“Please…I’ll do anything you want. Protect me from the big man.”
“Little miss, you’re going to do whatever I want. I don’t need your say in it.”
The man unbuttoned his coat and elevated his body enough to roll Lauren over to face him. He then licked his thumb and rubbed some of the dirt from her cheek.
Lauren couldn’t help but feel nauseated at the gesture. His saliva smelled like a cross between vinegar, rotted teeth, and cow manure. She tried desperately not to breathe through her nose as stinging bile ascended her throat.
“Damn. You are pretty.”
When he went to remove his coat, Lauren noticed he was no longer holding the shotgun. Where was it? It had to be nearby. Maybe he’d dropped it when he pounced on her or laid it to the side so that he could free up his hands to hold her down.
The man tossed his jacket aside and leaned in. “Now, don’t do anything stupid like bite me or anything. You’ll regret it if you do.”
As he bent over, his weight shifted forward, and Lauren felt his mass give way over her previously pinned-down arms and waist. With a sudden burst of force, she pulled her legs inward and, using them for leverage, shoved her midsection skyward, her arms following alongside, providing her the added extension to complete the movement. Her abruptness caught the man off guard and forced him off balance, sending him somersaulting forward and onto his back.
Lauren rolled over, rose, and backed away while surveying the ground below for the shotgun. Her attacker cursed aloud in frustration as he slowly started to gather himself. As he got to his feet, Lauren looked up at him, not yet having spotted the weapon.
It was the heel of her right boot that serendipitously located the shotgun mere seconds later.
The bearded man’s hands fell limply to his sides. His face went pale, his eyes widening at the sight of the young girl hoisting his shotgun.
Lauren pointed it at him and snapped the hammer back on each barrel. “You know, for a second there, I was worried this thing wasn’t loaded,” she growled, her eyes sharp enough to cut the man in half. “The look on your face rectified that.”
“Easy there, sugar britches,” the man said, holding up a finger. “Don’t get all crazy on me. We can work this out.”
“Do me a favor—call me ‘sugar britches’ another time. So I can cancel your stay of execution.”
The man hung his head and slowly backed away several steps. “What do you know about stays of execution, there, love doll?”
Lauren dismissed him. “What’s this antique of yours loaded with?”
“Why?”
Lauren shrugged innocently.
He faked a smile. “I put number eight in both barrels.”
“You look more like a rock-salt guy to me,” Lauren quipped. “I prefer stainless buckshot, flechette, or sabot slugs myself, but lead number eight will do. Anything will at this range.”
“Are you going to wisecrack me to death or shoot me?” the man griped. “You better make up your mind soon. Ol’ Gus will be here before long.”
“By my count, there’s a barrel here for you and ol’ Gus. Besides, I’m just making conversation. I assumed you liked that sort of thing, or maybe it’s only when you have a helpless girl under you.”
“You freckle-faced bitch—if you don’t go on and pull that trigger, I’m going t—”
Lauren snapped the trigger on the shotgun and it lurched backward as the barrel exploded, sending more than one hundred seventy lead pellets into the bearded man’s lower abdomen, drilling a hole in him the size of a soda can. He fell immediately silent and dropped to his knees, falling face forward onto the ground.
Five down.
Lauren exhaled a deep breath and cautiously climbed out of the creek bed, soon finding where the man had let Austin loose just before he’d dropped in on her. While keeping the shotgun aimed into the trees, she went down on one knee and used one hand to untie the rope binding his wrists together.
When Austin got his hands free, he rolled his body over and began tugging on the duct tape wrapped tightly over his mouth.
Lauren started to help him along, but stopped short. “Maybe we should just leave this here. It’s the quietest you’ve been in days.”
Austin’s eyebrows lowered. He mumbled something inaudible from underneath the tape and through whatever had been placed in his mouth.
Lauren smiled. “I’m only joking. Sort of.” She set the shotgun down in her lap to help Austin get free from the multiple layers of tape.
When she saw his eyes grow vastly wide and dart to the side, she reached for the weapon, ready to rotate, r
oll, and fire, but it was too late. In that moment, something struck her between the base of her head and her neck—something hard and unforgiving. Her vision eclipsed, and her eyes rolled into the back of her head against her will. Lauren’s body went limp, she collapsed to the ground, and everything around her went black.
Chapter 26
“I see the world being slowly transformed into a wilderness; I hear the approaching thunder that, one day, will destroy us too, I feel the suffering of millions. And yet, when I look up at the sky, I somehow feel that everything will change for the better, that this cruelty too shall end, that peace and tranquility will return once more.”
—Annelies Marie “Anne” Frank
Exact location unknown
Alleghany County, Maryland
Friday, December 3rd. Present day
Initially unable to recall what had happened to her, Lauren could feel herself regaining consciousness. As her lucidity gradually increased, she noticed a jolting pain stemming from the back of her head. It throbbed fiercely and seemed to pulsate along in sync with her heartbeat. She could feel tremendous pressure behind her eyes, and along with a severe case of cottonmouth, she felt incredibly queasy.
Lauren felt disoriented and confused, and she didn’t know where she was, but she could hear strange noises all around her. At one point, she thought she could discern a familiar voice amidst the abundance of foreign ones.
As the mental fog began to disperse and the numbness in her arms faded, Lauren placed a hand to the painful spot on her head and discovered a lump half the circumference of an apricot. It was tender, everything in its proximity hurt like hell, and her head was pounding with more ferocity than any headache she could recall having had in her life.
Lauren forced her eyes open, but couldn’t focus on anything. Everything around her appeared blurry and obscure, and she blinked rapidly to summon extra tears that she hoped would overcome the dryness in her eyes. When that wasn’t enough, she tried rubbing them, and the efforts proved fruitful. As the distortion gave way and Lauren started to see clearly, a man’s face materialized above her. She blinked a few times, and her heart warmed when she found that she recognized him.
What's Left of My World (Book 3): We Won't Go Quietly Page 31
