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He lunged, bringing the bat up over his head. It was one of those ridiculously overblown moves, so dramatic that it felt, for a moment, choreographed. His brain made the instant connection to every fight scene ofBuffy, which was easy since Jem had made him watch all seven seasons. Then he realized that, overblown and dramatic and choreographed or not, the bat was probably going to break his shoulder when it connected.
Colin swung the bat, and it came down with that hiss of displaced air. Tean backpedaled, stumbled as he stepped on a branch, and caught himself. The bat missed him, but that rush of displaced air licked the side of Tean’s face, hot and damp, and his body unleashed another flood of adrenaline. His vision narrowed to Colin and the bat. Tean readied himself to run, to lose his attacker in the trees as he made his way back to the resort. Then John-Henry let out a shout, and Tean realized, with the dark pull of despair, that he couldn’t run.
Still moving backward, Tean caught sight of what had tripped him a moment before: a branch that had fallen across the trail. If Colin had noticed, he gave no sign of it; he advanced toward Tean, giving big, warm-up swings with the bat, like he was stepping up to home plate. He was still smiling. Tean wondered if Colin Rangel knew how to hit someone with a bat and not kill them. He had the feeling, as he looked at the nasty streak of a grin breaking up the darkness, that Colin might have a habit of getting carried away.
What Tean needed right then was Jem. Not because Jem would have thrown himself between Tean and Colin—although Jem would have done it, and without even thinking about it. Tean needed Jem because Jem would know what to do. All Tean could think about was how to scare off a mountain lion, or what to do if you stumbled across a bear. The problem was that Colin wasn’t a mountain lion or a bear. If he was any kind of animal, he might have been a feral dog, only brave enough to attack something defenseless, or when he was with his pack. If Tean had a gun, or maybe even a knife, Colin would have run. Of course, Jem never carried a gun or a knife, and he still managed to take care of himself.
The plan crystallized in that instant. Tean dug into his pockets and came up with loose change and a hotel keycard. Colin brought the bat back again, putting his whole body into the swing. As Colin stepped forward, Tean threw the handful of change at his face. Colin closed his eyes instinctively and caught the stick with his foot.
The stumble was nothing, really. A moment when Colin was off balance. The bat whiffed harmlessly through the air, and Colin swayed. Then he steadied himself, planting his foot on the concrete again, his body compensating automatically for the disruption.
It was enough. Tean charged into the younger man, planted both hands on Colin’s chest, and shoved. Colin rocked backward, arms windmilling as he tried to keep his balance. The bat clipped Tean’s arm—bad luck more than anything else, Colin whipping the bat around as he tried to keep his balance. And then Colin passed the tipping point, and he fell. The lake seemed bright and open under the starlight, but the embankment was a steep drop into darkness, and Colin screamed as he fell. The scream went on for what felt like a long time, interspersed with thuds and the crack of breaking branches. Then the screaming stopped, but the sounds of his fall continued. Silence punctuated the end of the fall. No splash, a part of Tean’s brain registered. No cries for help.
Then John-Henry shouted again, and Tean dragged his attention back to the fight. Quinn Rangel, with his slicked-back hair and his dead eyes, darted forward again. The stun gun in his good hand crackled, and he kept his bandaged hand tight against his chest. John-Henry dodged the attack. The blond man made it look easy, but frustration showed in his face as his gaze cut back toward Tean. It was clear that Quinn, now lacking the advantage of surprise, wasn’t having any luck getting John-Henry with the stun gun. It was also clear that John-Henry wasn’t willing to abandon Tean, but he couldn’t get past Quinn.
Tean raised an arm to signal that he’d head for the trees, hoping that John-Henry would understand and withdraw, but before he could do so, Emery emerged from the trees. He came out from a stand of pines, moving quickly but without any apparent sense of hurry, and he was carrying a three-foot section of fallen branch. It looked, to Tean’s newly acquired first-hand experience, about the same size as a baseball bat.
Quinn’s head snapped sideways, his attention settling on Emery. For a moment, Quinn seemed indecisive. He shot a look at Tean, but if he was surprised not to see his brother, he didn’t show it. Then he whipped his attention back to Emery again. By then, Emery had closed the distance between them to a few yards. The big man hadn’t said anything. His face was pale, almost luminous in the starlight, and when he glanced at Tean, his eyes glinted like chips of amber fire.
The remaining Rangel brother broke and ran. Emery took two sprinting strides after him and hurled the branch straight at Quinn’s back, like he was throwing a javelin. The blow caught Quinn between the shoulder blades—or that’s what it looked like, anyway. Quinn stumbled. And then he went right off the embankment, just like his brother.
He screamed. Then there was a sound like a body striking stone, and the scream ended. For what felt like a long time, they listened to Quinn fall into darkness.
“Jesus,” John-Henry said, his breathing fast, his face flushed. “Good timing, babe.”
Emery grunted as he moved to the edge of the embankment and looked down. Tean hurried down the path, and by the time he reached them, Emery was stepping back, shaking his head.
“I’m not going down there,” he said. “It probably wouldn’t be too bad in the daylight, but I’m not breaking my fucking neck for those two brainfucks.”
“That’s a bad fall,” Tean said. “They’re injured, perhaps seriously. They might even have gone into the lake.”
John-Henry gave him a strange look, but all he said was, “Ree’s right. I don’t want any of us risking ourselves going down there in the dark. I’ll call from the resort, say I heard something while I was out for a walk. They’ll send somebody to check.”
Tean bit the inside of his mouth. After a few seconds, he nodded.
“What are you fucking doing when I’m not looking?” Emery asked Tean. “Sending up a signal flare for those pieces of shit?”
Tean let out a weird breath that he realized was kind of a laugh. “He said they were supposed to bring us back alive.” And then the rest of what Colin had said came through. “I think he thought—I think he thought John-Henry was Jem.”
Emery grunted again. “I always thought Colin needed glasses. Too fucking vain.”
That weird laugh escaped Tean again, and he pressed his hand to his mouth to stop it.
“It’s not that I’m not grateful,” John-Henry said, “but what are you doing out here? I thought you were watching Jem?”
“I left Heckle and Jeckle in charge,” Emery said. Then, settling himself to face Tean, he said, “I understand the argument that people in developing countries may choose to participate in animal trafficking because it seems necessary, but that willfully ignores the fact that many other people in those same countries choose not to participate in trafficking and find other sources of income. In fact, that kind of behavior is, over the long term, counterproductive to a nation’s wealth and natural resources, and under no circumstances could it be considered ethical behavior from a Kantian framework.”
Tean stared at him. Finally, he managed to say, “What?”
“You came out here,” John-Henry said, voice taut, “to argue with him?”
“I came out here to finish a conversation using logic, reason, and hard evidence—”
John-Henry took Tean’s arm and started him walking back to the resort.
“John, hold on.”
“Keep walking,” John-Henry said.
