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"Up there." Her arm lifted, finger pointing, as her eyes locked onto the water tower. Old, weathered, it stood sentinel over the nothingness. But that flash...
"Someone's watching," she murmured more to herself than to Ethan. Instinct screamed inside her—this was no abandoned post, no harmless structure. It was an eye. An aim.
"Get down," Ethan started, but she shook her head, cutting him off.
"Too obvious." Her mind raced, thoughts bullet-fast and sharp. They were exposed, two figures dancing on the edge of a knife. Any move could slice through the tension, spill blood into the parched earth.
"Back to the car. Slow." Her command was steel, but Ethan hesitated, a statue against the metal backdrop.
"Rachel..." His protest was a whisper, one she silenced with a look.
"Trust me." Two words, a lifetime of shared dangers and narrow escapes compressed into a plea. She didn't wait to see if he complied, her focus riveted on the water tower, where death perched, waiting for its moment to dive.
Her heartbeat hammered against her ribs, a frenetic drum calling to the grim reaper on the tower. Rachel's gaze flicked to Ethan, his silhouette stark against the trailer's rusted flank. The glint—sharp, foreboding—was a harbinger of violence poised to strike.
And suddenly, the glint moved.
Too late.
"Down!" she barked, voice slicing through the heavy air.
In one fluid motion, Rachel launched herself toward Ethan. Her shoulder collided with his midsection, a tackle born of desperation. Metal shrieked, punctuating the stillness as sniper fire sang its deadly hymn.
Boom!
The world erupted into chaos. A hellish roar swallowed their cries as the hauling trailer disintegrated in a maelstrom of fire and force. Heat seared her skin, a cruel caress that left no room for thought. The trailer had exploded, triggered by the bullet. She'd found the bombs.
But this thought was hardly comforting as heat washed over her spine, and she ate dirt.
She scrambled to her feet, grimacing as she did, glancing around desperately.
"Ethan! Eth--no!"
Ethan lay crumpled against the charred earth, a trail of crimson seeping from his arm.
"Stay with me, partner," she muttered, feeling his pulse flutter under her fingertips. His eyelids flickered, a silent battle between consciousness and the encroaching dark.
"Rachel..." His voice was a threadbare whisper, barely carrying over the crackle of residual flames.
"Shh, save your strength." She cast a wary glance at their surroundings, every shadow a potential harbinger of another bullet. For now, the smoke was obscuring them, but the wind was picking up. He'd have another clear shot.
Shit. Shit... she had to drag him to safety.
She cursed, snatching at his arm, digging her heels into the sand on the side of the road.
Dragging Ethan by the shoulders, she moved towards the dubious shelter of a skeletal tree. Leaves had long abandoned these branches, scorched away by the relentless Texan sun. Her muscles screamed in protest, the weight of Ethan's frame no easy burden.
"Almost there," she panted, teeth gritted.
A whistling sliced the air, a sniper's calling card. Rachel threw herself flat against the dirt as a bullet burrowed into the ground where her head had been moments before. Dust plumed up, coating her tongue with the taste of mortality.
"Damn it!"
She managed to pull Ethan into the shadow of the tree, hidden from sight.
But it wasn't enough...
No. They were pinned.
