Sticks & Stones

  Ty flinched and turned to look at Zane questioningly, but Zane was watching Deuce. Deuce rolled his eyes and looked away. “Dysfunctional” was an understatement.

  “Look, can this wait until we’re not all freezing our balls off?” Ty asked sedately as he continued to eat slowly. They’d taken all the MREs they could carry from the ATV, and that was all the food they had unless they wanted to forage. “Thought I was done with these damn things,” Ty muttered as he poked at the food.

  “Here,” Zane murmured, handing over the little mini-package of M&Ms out of his meal.

  Ty glanced at it and then up at Zane with a small, tired smile. “Keep your damn chocolate,” he muttered gruffly.

  Deuce put his chin in his hand and watched them silently. He couldn’t read Zane, but he thought the man’s projected emotions were fairly straightforward. When they were visible at all. Right now, Zane was focused on Ty, and that anger appeared to be totally gone, replaced by something milder. Warmer.

  But Ty? Deuce snorted. Not in love, his ass. Ty could fool Zane, maybe. He could even fool himself for a while longer. But Ty couldn’t fool Deuce, not anymore.

  Chapter 14

  “I GOTTA take a leak,” Earflaps said petulantly.

  Ty jerked and gasped, yanked from his doze by the man’s voice. He shook his head and rubbed at his eyes, leaning forward to pile more sticks into the stuttering fire before looking over at the prisoner hatefully. “I should let you just piss yourself,” he told the man irritably.

  “Too bad you’re a Fed,” Earflaps observed.

  Ty narrowed his eyes and sighed. Unfortunately, the asshole was right. No cruel and unusual punishment. He muttered to himself as he unfolded his stiff limbs and stood. He gave Zane’s foot a gentle nudge. Zane’s eyes opened immediately. Ty should have known he wasn’t asleep. Maybe he should make Zane take the guy out in the woods.

  “Playing escort,” he told Zane softly instead as he fished out a flashlight from the nearest pack. It was one of only two left. “If we’re not back in five, come shoot him,” he joked.

  “Sure,” Zane said, a small smile curving his lips. “I’ve still got more than half a magazine.”

  “Good boy,” Ty said with a patronizing pat of Zane’s head. He moved to untie the ropes from Earflaps’ ankles. He grabbed the man’s coat and hefted him to his feet, bringing them nose to nose. “Any funny business, I’ll leave you tied up out there, got it?” he threatened. Earflaps sneered at him, but then he thought better of his response and merely nodded. “Move,” Ty ordered as he picked up the shotgun and pushed the man in front of him. He left the flashlight off, conserving the battery while the moon was actually peeking through the clouds to give them light.

  He gave the man some leeway in his wandering, partly because he knew no one back at the fire wanted to hear this guy do his business any more than he did. But also because his mind was struggling to keep up; he was tired, cold, sore, and having more and more trouble giving a shit. The only thing he did care about at this point was getting home. These mountains could make unsuspecting victims out of even the most experienced of travelers, and Ty found that he couldn’t stop worrying about Zane out here. It probably hadn’t been the greatest idea, dragging him up here for his first hike. But Ty was sure he’d been enjoying himself before they were almost killed. Repeatedly.

  He sighed heavily and slid his hands into his pockets, carrying the shotgun in the crook of his arm against his hip. He shivered slightly in the cold air. Hell. He was probably getting sick after that damn cold water. That would be his luck. Avoid the traps and the bullets and drowning and then die of pneumonia before they could get back.

  The thought actually made him smile crookedly in the darkness.

  He realized they’d been trekking into the forest for almost five minutes before he snapped out of it. “Hey,” he said sharply. Earflaps took a few more slow steps before stopping. “This’ll do fine,” Ty told him.

  Earflaps looked around. “Turn around,” he told Ty.

  “Go to hell,” Ty replied easily.

  “Well, can I go behind a tree?” the man asked irritably.

  Ty glared at him. He glanced around the small clearing the man had found. If he did make a run for it, Ty could easily catch him. And if he somehow escaped, there was really nowhere for him to go that didn’t involve freezing to death, being eaten by an animal, or getting lost and starving. He was about to tell the man to be quick about it when a noise that was out of place caught his attention and stopped him in his verbal tracks. He tensed, cursing himself for not paying more attention and allowing Earflaps to lead him so far from the fire.

  “Come on, man!” Earflaps whined.

  “Shut up,” Ty hissed. He raised his shotgun slightly. “Do you hear that?” he whispered.

  “You ain’t gonna scare me, hillbilly,” Earlfaps declared stubbornly.

  Ty shook his head, hushing the man again and pressing the butt of the gun against his shoulder, at the ready. A twig broke somewhere to his left, then another.

  “I heard that,” Earflaps said, suddenly quiet and serious, looking off into the dark woods.

  Ty tensed and remained motionless, a chill crawling up his spine. He instinctively felt they were being stalked, and by something with far more skill than the three treasure hunters they’d been dealing with.

  “Come over here,” Ty whispered, and Earflaps didn’t argue as he began to move. “Slowly!” Ty hissed. Earflaps froze and glanced around nervously. Ty could relate. He resisted the urge to call out for help, knowing it might just trigger an attack. And whoever came to their aid would be in danger too. Ty couldn’t have that. Even as he thought it, there was a rustling sound in the underbrush to his right. Jesus, it moved fast. That or there was more than one. A strange sound, almost like a purr, emitted from the darkness.

  Ty’s entire body went cold, and he began to shake almost uncontrollably as he gripped the shotgun. They were rare, but there was only one thing in these mountains that purred.

  He tried to keep from breathing too heavily as he went over what little he knew about cougars. They were supposed to be endangered in these mountains, a population so sparse they were more of a myth than a fact. Ty supposed it was just his shitty luck to stumble over one. At least he now knew why there were no small animals in the area and what had been driving the snakes to lower climates.

  A large cat emerged from the undergrowth, appearing suddenly and without further warning, its tan fur almost silver in the moonlight. It growled at them both, circling them warily.

  “Oh Christ,” Ty breathed as he watched it, not quite believing what he was seeing. The cat was almost two feet high at the shoulders and at least six feet long from nose to tail. When it moved its shoulders rolled and its tail swished sinuously behind it.

  It was the most terrifying thing Ty had ever seen.

  “Oh shit,” Earflaps echoed.

  “Don’t move,” Ty told him. He knew that to run or play dead would just trigger the chase and kill instincts in the cat, and he forced himself to stand there and stare at it. He hoped it couldn’t smell fear, or they were both dead men.

  Ty knew one thing: if it had wanted to kill them, they never would have seen it coming. They’d probably just stumbled too close to its babies and it was trying to warn them off. Cougars were ambush predators. He had studied the way they and other animals killed when he’d been on the Recon team, curious to see if he could learn anything from them. He had learned quite a lot. He knew that cougars were solitary hunters, so he didn’t have to worry about a second one anywhere. But they could leap over twenty feet in one go and run up to thirty-five miles an hour; they had a vertical of nearly fifteen feet, and when they struck, they did so from the side or rear, severing the spinal cord and then either eating their prey alive or letting it bleed out to save for later.

  The fact that he was staring at this one in the eyes was actually a good thing. It meant the cat wasn’t sure if they were food. Yet. Not tha
t the idea offered him a shred of comfort.

  “You’re, uh… you’re supposed to stand tall,” he told Earflaps breathlessly. “Stretch your arms out and make yourself appear as large as possible.”

  “Bullshit,” Earflaps whispered back at him. “You first.”

  Ty shook his head minutely. He knew what you were supposed to do. But he just couldn’t force himself to move as the cat stalked back into the underbrush and disappeared. Ty had never seen anything so big that was so adept at hiding itself, even if it was dark. A part of him, the part that may or may not have been suicidal and wasn’t terrified into stupidity, took a moment to admire the ability.

  “Oh God,” Earflaps mumbled softly. Ty could see his breath misting in the cold air. He trembled with the urge to flee from the danger. Ty could understand the impulse.

  “Don’t move,” Ty told him again. The man didn’t respond, but Ty could see his body coiling in the moonlight. He knew he was fighting the same instinct to run that Ty was. He was losing the fight, though. “Don’t move, man,” Ty practically pleaded. He raised the shotgun, more for comfort than actually thinking it would do much good if the cat came at him from behind.

  Earflaps jerked suddenly and broke into a run. Ty shouted at him, but the man either didn’t hear him or didn’t care. He hadn’t gone four steps before there was a loud screech. The underbrush whispered with the movement, and the cougar yowled again as it pounced on Earflaps’ back and knocked him to the ground. Earflaps gave a horrible scream as Ty brought the shotgun around and fired. The cougar flinched, giving another keening cry as it leapt away, disappearing silently into the darkness.

  Ty stood breathing hard and staring, straining his eyes as he moved forward cautiously. He didn’t think he’d hit the cougar, but the sound of the shot had at least scared it off. For now. After a brief moment, he rushed toward the fallen man and laid the gun to the side, yanking off his coat to press it to the gaping wound on the man’s neck. Flashes of the past assaulted him, holding his camouflaged clothing to the wound of a dear friend as he died in Ty’s arms, so far from home.

  Ty gasped as the warm blood flowed through his fingers. The man grabbed at his wrists, looking up at him with terrified eyes, unnaturally white in the moonlight that filtered into the clearing.

  “Hold on,” Ty told him breathlessly. “It’s not that bad,” he told him, knowing the man wouldn’t make it long enough to call him a liar. Even as he tried to stem the bleeding, the life drained from his prisoner’s eyes, and Earflaps fell limp, the blood still gushing from the rips in his throat.

  ZANE’S head jerked up and a shiver ran down his spine as the scream echoed through the trees. He was on his feet, gun in hand, without even thinking about it, turning toward where he thought the scream might have originated. Then his brain kicked into gear. That wasn’t Ty screaming. It couldn’t be. It was Earflaps. Shit. Had Ty actually lost it and shot him? Or did Earflaps rush Ty in the dark?

  It all added up to him needing to be there, now, and see what was happening. See if Ty was okay. And if he wasn’t, Zane would deal with it. They were both getting off this damn mountain alive.

  “What happened?” Deuce demanded dazedly as he rolled to his hands and knees.

  “Sounds like he shot him,” Earl guessed roughly as he stumbled over the fire and grabbed for the second shotgun. “Garrett?” he barked as he stood and peered out into the pitch-black woods.

  “I’m going, Earl,” Zane answered flatly as he checked his gun. “Stay with Deuce.”

  “Garrett,” Earl said again sharply. When Zane looked up at him, Earl was staring at him determinedly. “You bring him back,” Earl told him quietly.

  Zane stared at him for just a moment, surprised at the lack of argument, but then he nodded curtly and turned to lope into the darkness in what he hoped was the right direction. If Ty had killed the man, he might not be in the most stable state of mind. Zane hoped Ty seeing his partner would be enough to snap him out of it.

  TY CLOSED his eyes as he moved his bloody hands away from the dead man, but then his eyes were on the underbrush once more as his hand groped blindly for the shotgun. If he was going to be eaten, he wanted to see it coming. And he would damn sure to put up a fight. He knew the others would have heard the shot and probably the screaming. But that didn’t mean they would find him in the dark woods. Not in time, anyway. He even thought maybe he could hear them calling out, but he didn’t dare call back.

  His hand landed on a decent-sized rock. Ty palmed it, still feeling around with the other hand for the gun. What the hell had he done with it? He tore his eyes away from the trees to search the ground. The barrel shone dully in the moonlight, roughly six feet away. As he crawled slowly toward it, he found a thick tree branch that was still fairly green and hefted it. The more weapons he had on him until he made it to the gun, the less he felt like kibble.

  Ty felt the movement at his side rather than saw it, and he turned and tried to rise to face it, striking out with the stick as the cougar came at him with horrifying speed. He didn’t make it to his feet, though. The impact knocked him to the ground, the big cat landing on him and knocking the breath from his lungs. He saw stars as his head banged against the hard ground. The cat caught the stick between its sharp teeth, and it snapped in half like a desiccated twig, showering Ty’s face with bits of wood. The cougar’s claws scraped across his shoulder and tore into the skin.

  Ty screamed in agony even as he held what remained of the stick in front of his throat, trying to protect himself. He cried out again as teeth sank into his hand. He dropped the stick as he lost feeling in the hand but rounded with the stone in his other hand, smacking the cat in the side of the head with it. It made a dull thud when it hit, and the cat leaped away and hissed at him angrily, lashing out with one giant paw. Ty rolled out of its reach, narrowly missing being lacerated by the impressive claws. He found himself on top of his shotgun, and he grabbed it gratefully, rolling again and coming to sit with it clutched to his chest.

  The cat shook its head, pawing at its ear where Ty had landed the blow, tail twitching as it sized him up again. Ty pushed up onto his knees and threw the rock at it, sending it scampering backward a few feet with a low growl. He gripped the gun and struggled to his feet unsteadily, surprised when he weaved a little, wielding the shotgun almost like a baseball bat with both hands until he could grip it correctly and aim it.

  The cougar continued to watch him warily, obviously deciding that he might not be an easy kill after all. Ty could feel blood dripping down his fingers as he gripped the gun, and he didn’t know if it was his blood or the other man’s. The cougar made a grumbling, growling sound in its throat as it slinked toward the body lying in the brush. Ty realized belatedly that the big cat must have thought he was after its meal.

  “Take him,” Ty told the cat breathlessly. “Eat him. He won’t care now,” he said as he began backing away.

  The cat hissed one more time, bared its impressive teeth, and then took Earflaps by his ruined neck and began dragging him into the forest. It locked eyes with Ty, neither looking away until the cat dematerialized into the woods.

  Ty listened intently, holding his breath as he waited for the telltale breaking of twigs that signified the cougar making a hasty retreat. He heard none, though. It was still out there. Watching him. He lowered the shotgun as his entire body began to tremble. He’d just been attacked by a fucking mountain lion.

  And he was not handling it well.

  “Ty!” It was Zane’s voice, somewhere close, coming out of the darkness. Ty could hear rustling approaching from behind him.

  Ty held his breath a moment, weighing the benefit of calling out versus being eaten. “Garrett!” he called back after a few seconds. His voice was filled with panic and near-terror. He backed away another step. The shotgun shook in his trembling hands.

  There was an immediate shift of direction in the movement behind him, and he could hear Zane running toward him, amazingly sure-footed in the
darkness, he thought distantly. Time dragged as Ty tried to watch all around him, listening hard, but it couldn’t have been more than thirty seconds before Zane skidded to a stop not too far away and called his name again.

  “Slowly, Garrett,” Ty managed to call back, though his voice was still shaking with fear and adrenaline.

  Zane went still for a long moment before he started moving, one step at a time. Then he appeared out of the darkness at Ty’s side, his gun held ready. “What the hell?” Zane said under his breath, surprise and something darker in his voice. “I heard gunfire and screaming.”

  “It ate him,” Ty answered without moving. Somewhere in his mind, he knew it sounded astoundingly stupid. But it was the best he could articulate.

  Zane, for some reason, didn’t act like it was odd at all. Maybe it was the stunned look on Ty’s face, or the fact that his entire body trembled, or that he was covered in blood.

  “Can you get back to camp?” Zane asked, turning so his back was to Ty’s as he looked at the darkness around them.

  Ty nodded jerkily, backing up until his back was pressed against Zane’s. “Count of three,” he said shakily. “We run.” He remembered the last time they’d counted to three, cornered by kids with paintball guns. Ty had used Zane as a distraction, as a human shield. Ty gritted his teeth as the shaking in his hands subsided suddenly. He’d take on that mountain lion with his bare hands before it touched Zane; he knew that much for certain.

  “I’m facing twelve,” Zane said to him quietly. “We’re going to three o’clock.” Ty nodded in acknowledgment. “Count,” Zane said.

  The brush shivered in the moonlight as Ty watched it. He swallowed hard and said a shaky, “One.”

  Zane shifted his weight in preparation to move. “Two.”