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She peered out from behind the dry, wooden trunk.
Heart hammering against her ribcage, Rachel Blackwood crouched behind the charred remains of the exploded hauling trailer. Her breaths came in short, controlled bursts, pluming dust from the scorched earth with each exhale. Eyes narrowed, she scanned the horizon—a shimmering dance of heat mirages distorting the landscape.
"Got to be Bardem," she whispered to herself.
"Come on," she muttered, flexing her fingers around the grip of her sidearm. The metal felt like an extension of her own resolve. She sprang from cover, boots biting into the gravel as she zigzagged across the open road.
Another shot cracked, a thunderclap in the clear sky. She leaped behind an outcrop of rocks, fragments spraying up as the bullet struck mere inches from her last foothold.
"Can't stay here long," she thought, glimpsing the water tower standing sentinel in the distance. Bardem would be perched there, surveying his domain of death. She had to close the gap.
"Come on, you bastard," she growled under her breath, adrenaline spurring her forward. Another dash, another dive; her world reduced to breath and bullet.
Gunfire answered like a scornful laugh, the whip-crack snaps peppering the ground around her.
"Damn!" Rachel cursed. She rolled behind a rusted-out pickup, the echo of bullets ringing against its hollow frame. She peeked over the edge, sighting down the barrel of her gun, and squeezed off two shots in quick succession.
And with that, Ranger Blackwood bolted once more, a blur of motion amidst the stark Texas landscape. Another gunshot, and another miss, but he was getting close. Damn--he was a good shot.
Now, though, she'd reached the base of the water tower.
She flung herself against a rusted protrusion.
Crouched behind the twisted metal of what once was a highway guardrail, Rachel wiped the sweat from her brow, her breaths coming in short, ragged gasps. She squinted against the harsh Texas sun, its unforgiving glare casting long shadows that crawled across the barren stretch of road like reaching fingers.
"Blackwood to base," she said into the radio, keeping her voice low, "I need backup at my twenty, over."
Static crackled before Sheriff Dawes' drawl filtered through, "Rachel, you are to hang back. We heard that explosion. Do not engage, I repeat, do not engage until—"
"Can't wait," she interrupted, her thumb releasing the talk button as if it were a trigger.
"Rachel!" snapped Dawes' voice. "We already have officers en route."
"What? How?"
"We had a call of an abandoned vehicle."
She hesitated and cursed, realizing now that the trap had been set for Dawes' deputies. They'd sprung it early.
Dawes was still prattling, but she was no longer listening.
Rachel's head craned back, gaze locked onto the water tower, its metal frame a skeleton against the sky. Bardem was up there, she could feel it in her marrow. The thought surged through her veins with the force of a riptide, propelling her forward.
"Damn orders," she muttered under her breath.
The broken asphalt bit into her palms as she pushed off, legs pumping, every muscle coiled and ready. Dust plumes erupted with each determined step.
"Too slow," she chided herself, even as her boots ate the ground beneath them.
As the ladder leading up the tower drew closer, she caught the silhouette of her adversary—a wraith perched high above, waiting. Her heart thudded in her chest, a drumbeat of war in the silence of the open plain.
"See me coming, Bardem?" she thought, her lips peeling back in a snarl.
"Rachel!" Dawes' voice barked through the radio clipped to her belt, a distant storm on the horizon. "Stand down, that’s an order!"
"Almost..." Her breath came out in hard puffs, each rung of the ladder a victory and a promise. The heat of the metal seared through her gloves, a reminder of the Texas sun's unforgiving watch.
At the summit, Rachel's hand instinctively went for her gun as she caught sight of the bomb strapped menacingly to the last few rungs. It was crude but no less deadly—a mess of wires and plastic explosive.
