The man’s head snaps sideways and his body goes still.
Silence settles over the forest again.
Krueger stands beside the body with his shoulders tense and his blue eyes locked on the corpse as though he will gladly tear into it again if Seth allows it.
Seth nudges the fallen rifle with his boot.
“Rafe,” he mutters.
Beau crouches beside the body and searches the sniper’s vest while Seth pulls a phone from the man’s pocket and unlocks it using the man’s thumb.
One message thread is still open.
Confirm the kill. Footage preferred.
The contact photo fills the top corner of the screen.
Kristie.
She has sent someone into the woods to kill me.
Krueger leans against my leg, solid and breathing hard with lingering aggression.
I straighten.
“I'm not giving this bitch another chance to try and kill me.”
Seth looks at me instead of the body.
“She wants to take me out,” I continue. “I’ll get her first.”
Somewhere far from this clearing Kristie Talbert is probably shaking hands and promising safety to voters who have no idea she has just tried to have me executed in the woods.
She won't get another attempt.
“Got something,” Travis says without looking up.
Seth crosses the room and stops beside him while Beau leans against the wall near the weapons locker with his arms folded.
I move to Travis’s other side and watch as he pulls up the data feed.
Names and face matches scroll across the screen along with heat signatures, IP locations, and drone footage from the hotel that is still circulating across different servers.
Then the killer pool appears.
A list of aliases. Status updates. Bounty notes.
“Jesus,” I mutter.
Five names remain on the screen.
Five hunters still in play.
Travis taps the header.
“She upped the price. Five million each.”
My stomach drops.
