Trouble on Reserve

Part 5

I let it spill over and suffuse me until I spindled enough in my head to blow the top of my church. Heart pounding, I backed off before I accidently fried someone. “Trent!” I hissed. “Get back here!”

Thirty feet down the road, he turned to me, a black shadow among the gray. “I told you to stay in the car.”

Why in hell is he acting like this? My eyes widened, and I jerked my arms up, gun pointed at the form rising up behind Trent. The faint moonlight caught a glint of light. Turn take it—gun!

“Down!” I shouted.                     

Trent dove to the right and into the scrub. There was a flash of light and a pop of a silencer. My heart pounded, and a spike of satisfaction went through me even as Trent’s muffled cry came from the nearby ditch. He’d listened to me. The stupid billionaire had finally listened to me. I think it had just saved him a ton of hurt if not his life.

Stance firm, I stood in the middle of the road. The puff of air from my splat gun iced through me. But he was just out of my weapon’s range, and the splat ball hit and bounced off. It had the desired reaction, though, and the man ran into the woods.

Crap on toast, I was a sitting duck out here. “Trent!” I shouted so he wouldn’t hit me with anything nasty. “You okay?” Frantic, I slid into the ditch and out of the sniper’s sights.  Hard rocks pinched the soles of my shoes, and I put a hand out to slow my slide. Stones bit into my knuckles as I slid down, but I refused to let go of my gun. From above came the sound of someone shooting the tires out. It wasn’t a Glock, but that didn’t negate the possibility of Amos being responsible for this. But why kill the golden goose keeping your kid alive? Unless there is a bigger nasty holding a knife to your throat.

My heart caught as I found Trent sitting at the bottom of the ditch. His eyes were pinched and he was holding his shoulder. Shit, what if I got him killed? “My God, are you okay?” I rushed as I crawled to him, trying to stay below the edge of the road. I jerked at the zing thud of another bullet imbedding itself into the dirt.

“I’m fine,” he said sourly, letting go of his shoulder to show me it was unmarked. “I landed wrong is all.”

Not believing him, I reached for his shoulder only to jerk back when a jump of energy flashed between us. My eyes darted to his, and I tightened my control. It hadn’t felt like our energies balancing, and my thoughts darted back to that static shock at the gate.

Oh, shit. Feeling as if I’d been kicked, I sat back, stones jabbing into my butt. That hadn’t been a static shock from the keypad. Someone had tagged him. Not only had someone tagged him, but Trent knew it. That’s why this stupid, windy road. He had been trying to outrun them and get in a public place where they couldn’t act.

Trent grabbed my wrist, jerking my attention to him. “I’m fine,” he snapped, unaware I’d figured it out, but then he hesitated at my horrified expression. “What?

The pop of gunfire brought us both up. He was tagged all right. Every shot was going to the same patch of dirt, guided by whatever he picked up at the keypad. If we hadn’t been in a ditch, Trent would be dead.

“Stay down,” I said tightly. This was exactly why I didn’t do illegal stuff. Not being able to call on the I.S. or FIB for help sucked. “I thought you said you had some driving courses.  Why in hell did you get out of the car!”

“Because there’s no roof and it stalled?” Trent said, refreshingly sarcastic. Crouching, he made a motion to look up out of the ditch. “Let go of the ley line. No magic.”

I looked at my splat gun. What did he want me to do? Talk them to death? “Beg pardon?”

The moonlight shown on his face, and he winced. “No magic. I can’t risk being placed here with Amos. The man I talked to tonight?”

“Are you kidding me?” I blurted, thinking back to the camera at the gatehouse. But knowing Trent, he’d already arranged to destroy the tapes if the camera had even been working at the time. “Damn it, Trent!” I shouted as another bullet buried itself in the dirt, the angle a little higher. “This is exactly why I don’t do illegal stuff!”