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I turned back to JD. “No.”
The sound behind me became a deafening, clattering rattle. Then there were two sharp blasts on an air horn. I checked over my shoulder and saw the freight train thundering towards the crossing.
“Don’t!” JD’s voice went tight with worry. “Colton, please! You run, we gotta take you down!”
“Sorry, JD,” I muttered. And then I turned and bolted, pulling Tanya along with me. We ran towards the rail crossing and the train that was hurtling towards it at fifty miles an hour.
I heard JD’s voice behind me as he spoke into his earpiece. “Cal! Take the shot!”
I was full-on sprinting, now, arms pumping. We were ten feet from the crossing and I could see the driver of the train staring at us through his windshield, terrified. He gave another long blast on his air horn. If we pushed ourselves, we could make it across.
But I knew in my gut that it was pointless. Any second, Cal’s shot was going to hit me in the calf or the thigh and I’d go down. I gritted my teeth, trying to brace myself.
A shot rang out and—-
Concrete chips and dirt sprayed my leg as the bullet hit the ground a foot to my right.
I ran on, unable to believe my luck. We sprinted onto the crossing, passing so close in front of the locomotive I could feel the heat from its engine. Then we were across, the slipstream tugging at our clothes as the train blasted past.
We staggered to a stop and looked back. We could see glimpses of JD’s furious face between the boxcars. The train looked to be a mile long. It would be minutes before the team could come after us and by then, we’d be gone.
Tanya looked at me, worried. A shoot-to-kill order. Things were different, now. I felt her hand loosen on mine and she looked towards JD. I got her meaning: she could run and I could stay here, rejoin the team and be safe.
I squeezed her hand hard. No fucking way. We were in this together. “C’mon,” I said.
And we ran.
45
JD
I marched over to the barn and stood there waiting, chest rising and falling in anger, while Cal climbed down into the hayloft, then down to the floor. His nearly seven foot frame made him an intimidating sight: back in the Marines, they’d called him Bigfoot. But right now, he was hanging his head like a child. “Sorry, JD. I missed.”
I growled and planted my finger in the middle of his chest. “You never missed a goddamn shot in your life!” I yelled. “You let him go!”
Cal stared at his feet for another few seconds. Then he lifted his head and looked me sullenly in the eye. I could feel the rest of the team staring at me, too. I didn’t often yell and I didn’t like doing it. But I was worried about Colton and it was making me crazy.
Bradan spoke up from behind me. “This doesn’t feel right.”
I turned to him, sighed and rubbed the bridge of my nose. “Look, I get it. I really do. I know you and Cal have bad history with the CIA—”
“What if their story’s true?” asked Cal. “What if there is something going on?”
“Then we can figure it out when they’re safely in custody.” I turned back to Cal. “But that was our one chance to bring him in alive! Now they’re going to be going after him with everything they’ve got!”
I stormed away from him. But the person I was really mad with was myself. I couldn’t blame Cal or Bradan for not wanting to go against their buddy. It was my job to make the shitty calls, no one else’s. And it was my fault we were in this mess. I should never have let an evil, manipulative liar like Yeshevskaya anywhere near a sweet guy like Colton. Thanks to my mistake, there was a good chance that the next time we saw him, he’d be lying in a ditch with his throat cut, or gunned down by our own side. I kicked a pebble and it dinged off the side of one of the freight cars that were still trundling past. Fuck!
A hand gently patted my back. I turned, expecting to see Danny. But it was Gabriel. “This is a fucking mess,” I muttered. “I’m just trying to get him back alive!”
“I know,” said Gabriel.
Something in his tone made me frown. Since this thing started, he’d been firmly on my side along with Danny. But now…I raised a questioning eyebrow.
Gabriel looked at the ground, his hands in his pockets. Then he lifted his gaze and looked me in the eye. “Thing is, I know about manipulating people. Seducing people. But when I looked at Tanya and Colton: the way they held hands, the looks she gave him, their body language…”—he chewed his lip then shook his head—“it didn’t feel fake to me.”
