Her eyes went wide when she saw Randy right on top of her, and he fired three shots in rapid order before she could get her weapon up. His rounds hit her arm, shoulder, and visor. Blood sprayed across the brush as the woman staggered backward and hit the ground.
Withering gunfire flew his way, and Randy dropped to the ground. He covered his head with his arms as foliage exploded all around him. A second layer of gunfire entered the fray, new guns dwarfing the others.
Someone cried out with a muffled sound to his left. Someone else screamed, and they must have taken off their mask because the sound was loud and clear in the dense forest.
Randy grunted and winced with every snap of a shot, every burst of rounds, until the gunfire reached a crescendo and promptly died.
Panting in the sudden silence, Randy listened and waited. He felt no pain, and he hadn’t been shot. He rolled over, looking up at the black dust spores and forest detritus floating through the air.
Behind him came footsteps, the crunching of boots on dry twigs and leaves. He turned his body and started to rise when a figure stepped into view.
Dressed in mixed military fatigues, a man with pale green eyes stared back at him. They were the eyes of the intruder from the other day, and he was pointing his rifle at Randy’s chest.
Randy lowered his pistol and held out an open hand. The man switched his grip on his rifle and gave him a thumbs up sign, tilting it to the side. Randy mimicked the gesture, raising his thumb up before tilting it to the side.
The man lowered his weapon, and he released the breath he’d been holding. Jenny emerged from the brush with a slight limp in her step. She held her rifle and wore a wide grin on her face.
“Sis,” Randy said. He climbed to his feet and rushed to his sister, giving her a strong hug. “I thought we were goners for a minute there.”
“Me, too,” Jenny replied, returning the hug with one arm.
“Tricia?”
Jenny turned and nodded back in the direction she’d come. Tricia limped through the brush with a pained expression, her arm thrown over the shoulder of another one of the militia folks. They’d wrapped a thick white bandage around her leg. His heart skipped a beat at the sight of her alive, but she needed more serious medical attention.
Randy glanced around to see a hodgepodge of military-type people surrounding them, none of whom looked the same. They carried a variety of weaponry, and they wore unique styles of air filtration masks, some of them homemade.
He faced the leader with a new sense of anxiety. The twins and Tricia were safe from Odom and his soldiers, though they faced a new threat. Who were these people, and what would they do with them?
“I’m Randy,” he ventured in good faith. “This is my sister, Jenny, and Corporal Tricia Ames. We just escaped from the Colony.”
The blue-eyed man studied his face, then he glanced back toward the street. His words came in a forceful yet easy tone from behind his visor. “C’mon. Let’s bolt before more of Jergensen’s people show up.”
“Yeah, about that,” Randy said, scratching his head and shifting to his other leg. “Jergensen’s dead.”
SPORE Book 3
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Spore Series | Book 2 | Choke Page 25
