AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Azir doesn’t have any snipers and I doubt the Matawa do. But Jafar would have them. ”
“Would he give the order to fire?” Paige’s voice trembled, not as much in fear this time, but in rage.
If she survived this then she would kill Jafar herself.
“I don’t know. ” They were forced to slow the horses to a hard trot rather than a gallop.
“We’ll take the next turn to the longer trail up the mountains,” Abram told them. “And this, boys and girls, is what sucks about these mountains. We have no trails for the mountain wheels. ”
“Wouldn’t need them if we didn’t have to deal with the assholes in our family,” Tariq grunted.
“Lucked out there, didn’t we?” Abram agreed as he turned his horse to another trail.
“I wouldn’t call it luck. ” Paige interjected, a morbid sense of black humor overtaking her. “I think you managed to get on God’s bad side that week, boys. ”
Silence met her observation for a second before Tariq gave a mocking chuckle echoed by Abram.
“We manage to stay on someone’s bad side all the time,” Abram agreed. “It only began there. ”
It was a brief sense of lightness in the tension that grew from the battle just to stay alive. They moved farther up the face of the mountain along a curve that placed the jagged, sharp peaks of the huge boulders between them and their previous position.
Abram was trying to block any sight of a sniper’s rifle, Paige thought.
“Jafar has joined them,” Tariq announced, his voice suddenly heavy. “He’s moving along a trail that will catch up with us before the Matawa and Azir’s soldiers. He’s riding in with a dozen men. ”
Abram picked up the pace despite the danger to the horses and to them.
“Extraction ETA is coming up,” Tariq assured him. “We’ll be cutting it close. ”
“I didn’t necessarily want to simply cut it close,” Abram growled.
Damn, this was going to hell in a handbasket, he thought, just as Azir had planned. This had been what he was working for all along. Not necessarily Abram’s escape, but definitely ensuring that both Tariq and Paige were made aware that Azir held his fate in the palm of his hand.
He would kill himself first, Abram decided. And he would be damned if he left that land for Jafar to take over with his terrorists. He had recourse if he was forced to make that vow. Azir and Jafar would find out just how far he was willing to go to ensure they were destroyed if Paige and Tariq didn’t make it out of here alive tonight.
“Yassir has made contactxtraction,” Tariq reported. “Their ETA is on time and they’re moving into the area. They’re coming in opposite the Matawa but Jafar’s men will have a view. ”
“Tell him to proceed, lights black, night sensor engaged,” Abram ordered. “We’re the smallest team on the mountain and we’re starting to get nervous. ”
Tariq relayed the information as Abram glanced back at Paige, her face so pale it was easily seen in the darkness.
“We’ll make it,” he promised her, even as he prayed he could keep that promise.
“We’re coming up on the clearing,” Tariq stated. “Yassir has lost sight of Jafar and his men. ”
“They’re close then, aren’t they?” Paige guessed, her gaze tracking the darkness as the first, weak rays of dawn began moving in.
“I have a feeling they’ve been close from the beginning,” Abram stated as he watched the shadows closely.
Dawn wasn’t far away. Extraction should arrive within minutes of the gathering legate, revealing the presence.
“Ten minutes,” Tariq stated quietly. “We’re almost home free. ”
“Almost only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. Is that not your American saying?” Jafar stepped from the shadows as Abram brought his horse slowly to a stop.
“Let it go, Jafar,” Abram warned him. “Look at it this way, with me gone, you can control the province. ”
Jafar hooked his fingers in the leather belt he wore over his tunic and watched Abram carefully.
