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She put her hand over her sister’s mouth to make sure an involuntary gasp didn’t come out as she awakened. Sarah jerked but said nothing. Annie pressed her cheek to Sarah’s in reassurance. So far the men didn’t know they were up here.
“Looks like the dog slept here,” one of the other men said from farther away.
“Any sign of where they went?” Max asked.
The silence below stretched out as their feet crunched in the dirt and rocks. “There’s a path here in the vegetation. Maybe they passed us on our way here. Not sure where they were headed.”
They were falling for the fake trail Annie had laid. If she hadn’t been holding Sarah, she would have attempted a silent fist pump. Her sore muscles were worth it if it fooled them even for a while.
A slight tickle started in her nose. She clamped her nostrils shut and tried to take deep breaths through her mouth. She couldn’t sneeze, not now. The sensation grew, and she swallowed several times. Clearing her throat gently and noiselessly didn’t help. Her eyes watered with the effort to hold it in. She put her sleeves to her nose and softly blew. The desire to sneeze only grew.
Go, go now!
If only they would leave the area, but they continued to tramp around the tiny clearing. They were right under them. One sound and one of them would fire a volley of shots into the tree.
“We’ve rested long enough,” Max said from right below her. “Let’s get going.”
Finally. Annie held on with every bit of her strength as the sounds below moved away. When she couldn’t hear any more tromping, she held her arm to her face and sneezed as gently as she could. It sounded to her ears like a bomb, but she knew it couldn’t be that loud. She sneezed again, and the tickle was gone.
The minutes ticked by, and dawn began to soften the edges of the darkness. How far had the men gone?
“I have to go to the bathroom,” Sarah whispered.
And there was nothing to use up here. They’d have to climb down. Sarah had probably held it in like Annie had tried to hold back the sneeze and was probably just as miserable. She could ask her to relieve herself up here and let it trickle down, but they needed to get going anyway. The men might circle back.
Annie released her and threw back the blankets. “I’ll go first and help you down.”
She stuffed her belongings back into the backpack, then leaned over and let it drop to the ground. Sarah did the same with hers. Annie swung her legs over onto a lower branch and began to climb down. She let go a few feet above the ground and landed on her feet, then reached up to help Sarah.
Light was beginning to pour into the forest, and she could see Sarah’s frightened face. “It’s okay. I’ve got you. Hold on to the brace of the deer blind and drop your legs over the edge. I’ll stand on the backpack and you’ll be able to reach my shoulders with your feet.”
“I’ll try.”
Sarah’s face disappeared, and her legs came over the side. Annie stepped onto both backpacks to hoist her height up. Sarah’s feet were almost to her shoulders. “Stretch down just a bit. You’ll be able to feel my shoulders with your toes.”
Sarah’s foot grazed Annie’s shoulder, then the other one landed too. Annie braced herself against the tree trunk to take her sister’s weight. “Grab the tree to steady yourself.”
Sarah reached out for the bark and clung to it while Annie steadied her sister’s legs and managed to lower her to the ground. They were both breathless when Sarah was safely standing on her own two feet.
Annie pointed to a thickly forested area. “Go over there. I’ll scout around and make sure they aren’t doubling back.”
She waited until her sister nodded and headed toward the seclusion of the forest before she found a pine branch and followed the tracks left by the men. There was a niggling sensation in her back, a warning that something wasn’t quite right, but she wasn’t sure if it was fear or an internal warning she couldn’t place.
The tracks split into two, one going forward and one to theright. She stood and stared as she pondered what that meant. Did they think their quarries were up ahead and they sought to ambush them, or was it something else? Adrenaline shot through her at the possibility they’d seen something in the small clearing that had given away their location. Maybe the hunters had split up to ambush them in the clearing.
She whipped around to run back and warn Sarah and found a rifle aimed at her head. Max’s grim face peered down the length of the scope.
She took a step back. “Max, I never expected you to be in on this. I trusted you. How could you do this?”
His brown eyes flickered with a hint of regret. “I didn’t want to, but you wouldn’t listen, Annie. Nothing dissuaded you from investigating. You left me with no choice.”
“Why, Max? How did a good man like you get sucked into something so heinous? Was it Sean?”
He barked out a laugh. “You think Sean corrupted me? It was the other way around. I was searching for hunting grounds like this when I had him build my house. You’ll never understand it.” He lowered the rifle. “I find it difficult to shoot you while you’re staring at me, and it’s too soon to end the game. My men will want in on the final kill.”
“I-I can go?”
“For now. The other guys are catnapping. We’ll be right behind you when they wake.”
