Page 8 of Raven's Hunt
Tierney stayed right, weaving through the dense forest until they reached a flat, basalt shelf veiled in fog. She skidded to a halt, then reached for her cell, cursing the lack of a signal. She’d hoped once they’d gained some elevation, they’d be able to call for backup. “I still can’t get any bars.”
Buck checked their six, then shucked off his pack, rummaging through the contents until he found the sat phone he’d brought for emergencies. “I’ll try Bodie.”
He tapped out the number, waited, nothing but static coming over the speaker.
She nudged his shoulder. “Can you send out a text?”
“No guarantees it’ll get through but…”
He started typing — under heavy fire. Coordinates attached. Organized hit team.
He pressed send, shaking his head as he shoved the phone in his pants’ pocket. “I sent it to Raven’s Watch, too. Let’s hope Foster’s got someone manning that damn relay machine.”
Foster Beckett. One of Raven’s Watch’s chopper pilots, and someone Buck considered a friend. Brother, really, along with the other members of the SAR unit, and Buck’s teammates — Nick Colter, former-Delta Force soldier and CIA operative, someone she’d once considered a colleague if not a friend, and Eric Dalton, former-Green Beret. Men who’d more than rallied around Buck’s efforts to start fresh.
Tierney envied that, not that they hadn’t rallied around her, too. But being in confined spaces with people still challenged her, and it seemed that anywhere other than out here with Buck qualified as such.
Buck shrugged into his pack, urging her forward just as footsteps pounded through the forest behind them, the men quickly gaining ground. She took off, vaulting some deadfall, before driving straight into the thickest part of the underbrush.
Branches slapped her face, vines and bramble clawing at her clothes, but she kept moving, finally breaking through onto a massive cliff. Buck followed her to the edge, looking down at the ocean seething below. Black rocks rose out of the water, relentlessly pounded by the white, violent surf. Salt spray misted up the crag, stinging her eyes as she scanned the face – looked for anything that offered a way down.
Muffled voices sounded behind them, lights flashing through the dense thicket as the men closed in.
Buck swung the rifle off his back. “Go. I’ll cover you.”
Tierney snorted. “Go, where? I don’t see a way down.”
He stepped in close, slipped one hand along her cheek and kissed her, breaking apart far too soon. “You will, because you’re the only chance we have.”
He was serious.
The narrowed eyes and firm lips. The way his brow drew together over the bridge of his nose. He had complete faith in her.
She pushed out a calming breath, then turned, walking the edge until she found a hint of a line. Not a path, more like a layered crevice cutting through the basalt sea-stack. She glanced back at Buck, nodded, then dropped to her ass.
A quick turn, and she had her legs dangling over the edge, her hands wrapped around some questionable handholds. Another breath, and she moved, slowly lowering herself as she scrambled to find protruding rocks and narrow cracks — anything she could grasp or wedge her fingers and boots in.
The ocean roared below, white froth surging along the waves as it crashed into the column before rolling out. A reminder that the water wasn’t a refuge, just another instrument of death.
Sweat beaded her brow, every move testing her nerves as she descended the face, boots slipping on the slick surface, fingers cramping from the cold. She’d dropped about fifty feet when shots cracked above her.
Buck. Forever guarding her ass.
She half considered climbing back up, facing the men head on, until he appeared above her, scaling down the face as if he’d been handed a mission from God. He’d covered half her distance when lights brightened the edge, a few rocks bouncing down the slope.
She picked up her pace, using roots and brush, leaping from one side to the other in an effort to make up time. She closed in on a slight overhang, nearly falling when the small shelf beneath her boots gave way, sloughing down the cliff with a loud crack. She slipped, hanging by one hand, scrambling to find a hold, her fingers slowly sliding off the rock.
Waves crashed below, the spray kissing her boots as she flailed against the stone, every hold breaking off the moment she touched it. She hugged the cliff, smoothing her hand across the surface, searching for even a hint of a lip when her fingers slipped.
There was a second of hang time. Of her palms sliding over the wet surface as she kicked at the air before Buck grabbed her wrist, stopped her from splattering onto the jagged rocks below.
She didn’t know how he’d reached her in time. If he’d jumped twenty feet or just materialized beside her. Didn’t care as he lowered her a few feet — held tight until she’d wedged her boots into a large crack.
Her arms shook, her heart pounding against her ribs, muscles screaming, but she regained her balance, started moving just as bullets pierced the darkness, sparking off rocks, whizzing past her head. Buck managed to return a few trigger pulls, sent the assholes scrambling back from the edge. It wasn’t much, but enough that she found a better line, descended the next section in half the time.
Voices rose above them, lights searching the face. The beams skipped over them, the protruding rock providing some cover as she hit a tidal ledge several feet above the shoreline. Buck dropped in beside her, blood staining his shirt, cuts scratched down his face. He curled over her when more brass ticked off the shelf beside them, a few rocks tumbling down from above.
They waited for another lull, then followed the shelf until it ended at a shallow sea cave not far off. Not deep, more of a massive gaping hollow scooped out of the stone, but it beat the alternative — a long, winding finger of a trail that followed the cliff until it disappeared into the night.
