In Her Sights (23 page)

“No good on my local contact.” She eased back from the ledge.
“Got anything yet?”

“Just now. By the emergency calls I’ve hacked into, there’s
a lot of gang activity. Beware of that.”

She patted the belt around her hips holding her staff, gun,
and knife. A quick double check. “If they find me, I’ll be ready.”

She looked back at the cops sweeping as they moved closer to
her car. So that direction was off, putting her on foot. She hurried to another
corner of a rooftop and saw some of those gang members crawling the streets.
Always in packs. Cowards.

She checked the North corner, the area she needed to be
heading toward, and saw cops on one street, gangs on another. She lifted her
binoculars from the pack attached to the belt at her lower back and scanned
streets farther up. The odds of her not running into anyone would be slim, but
she wouldn’t have problems knocking a gang member unconscious compared to a
police officer. She zoomed a little closer and caught sight of a fight on
another corner. “There’s already fighting.”

She clicked her focus in closer and cleared the shot. Seven
men looked to be beating on one guy. She twisted the rims of the binoculars to
see better. Faces came into focus and her breath caught. Cuts across his strong
cheek bones leaked blood. Nose was busted. For a moment, feeling drained from
her, but an instant later, her heart raced. She looked to the street signs. “Corner
of Markham and Palace. Get me a route there ASAP.”

“What’s going on?” Ticking from a keyboard sounded through
the line. She didn’t wait. She ran for the ladder, jumping off the last few
feet, and stuck to shadows.

“You want me to take you to this gang beating up a man?”

“Ye—” her voice caught and she cleared her throat. “Yes. I
know him.”

“Artemis, you can’t do this.”

“I can, and I will.” Because she couldn’t leave Clayton on
his own. Not against seven. Since they were already taking him, she could only
assume he had no weapon either. “Help me or I’ll disconnect and do it on my
own.”

“Shit. There’s a lot of heat, and it’s dark as fuck. Be
prepared for what I can’t see. Go west, down Madison.”

She checked around corners as she moved. Took a right and
then sprinted to the street ahead. She had to hurry. Be quick. Get there in
time. He just had to hold on until she could make it there. He shouldn’t be
here at all. What was he doing here anyway?

“Move faster. Blue lights moments from crossing the
intersection two blocks behind you.”

Lights flickered off cracked windows. Streaks touched the
sky. The whine of a police engine sounding near had her sprinting and ducking
into a dark alley, smacking right into the chest of a cop.

Shit.

Another officer came from behind him.

Oh hell. With no time to spare, she threw an uppercut, grabbed
him by the head and kneed him in the chest, pushing him back. The cops tripped
over each other and went down.

She turned back to the street and sprinted.

“Another block and make a right. Move, move!” Kyle called out instructions.

She ran hard. Even with training, the years of building
stamina, her lungs burned. Fear crawled over her. Not for herself. For Clayton
currently taking on seven to one, and he hadn’t looked so good. The siren
called louder.

“Get down!”

A trash bin was just feet away, and she dove behind it as
headlights off the cop car turned down her street.

“I’m moving. I have a few objects to stay behind.” Because
she couldn’t just stay there and waste seconds. She stayed low and moved swiftly beside the building and down the street. When a car stopped where she had left the
officers, she kept her head down, squatted as she moved around the corner, into
the next alley, and ran.

She didn’t stop.

Sirens whined in the distance behind her.

Her throat closed a little tighter. Breath down to short
pants. If she could just see him as she moved to know if he was okay. She was
running blind and hoping. She rounded the last turn and found Clayton had been taken
down. One man stood with his foot on his chest. Two other men had his arms
pinned out while the others took turns kicking him in the ribs.

Anger seethed hot through her. She reached for her gun but
didn’t want to draw the attention of the cops with the noise, and she hadn’t
come equipped with a silencer. With one arrow to spare, she strung it as she
moved, stopped seconds away, took aim, and fired the metal arrow into the heart
of the man with a foot on Clayton’s chest.

The arrow was swift. The speeding sound cut through the air
and thudded through the center of the bastard’s chest. He rocked back on his
heels and fell. The men turned, but she didn’t give them a second to escape.
She wanted all of them she could get. She took the last steps, extended her
staff, and swung. One took a satisfying crack to his face. The one at her back got
one in the gut. He heaved, and she snapped the end of the staff straight up to
catch him under the chin and toss him back. She spun and kicked a third. He
started off, and she turned with her staff and jabbed the end as hard as she could
to his back until he grunted and fell to the pavement. She spun in a circle,
ready for the next one, but they were gone.

She dropped to Clayton’s side and immediately put her hands
to his pulse and felt the strong beat. Relief hit her so hard, she had to blink
back unexpected emotion. She cupped his cheek and faced him to her. “Clayton?”

Blood steadily seeped from a cut on his eye and coated his
face. Head wounds. It could be serious, it could be minor. They all bled. He
grunted in response and rolled to his side. More blood trickled from his nose.

“Clayton? Can you hear me?” She pulled his shirt from his
pants and examined his ribs along the side. She didn’t have a lot of time, but
she swiped her fingers over the bones. They could be fractured, but there weren’t
any snapped in half. “Come on, I need you to get up.”

He got on his hands and knees and she reached around him,
checking his ribs on that side, too. Again, nothing was jutting from the skin,
and the bones seemed intact as she traced them around. It was the best she
could do on the spot.

He shook his head. Blood splattered across her chest and the
ground. She pulled one of his arms over her shoulders and got her feet under
her. “Come on. On your feet. We have to get out of here.”

“Lexie?”

“Yes. Walk. Help me.” She glanced at her surroundings and
found the rest of the men who’d escaped across the street and watching. If they
thought to rush her and take her by surprise while she helped Clayton, they had
another round waiting for them. “We have to go. Now.”

Clayton stumbled upright and lost his balance. Weighing more
than her, he tugged her along as he tripped over his feet. She grabbed him by
the shirt as they crashed into the wall. The brick was unforgiving against her
shoulder and Clayton just as hard as he smacked into her. She wrapped her arms
around his stomach and tried to hold his balance.

“Ah, fuck, my ribs.” His hand flattened to the wall over her
head, and they finally stilled.

“I got to you as fast as I could.” She fit her staff in his
other hand. “Use it as a walking stick until you get your balance.”

His steps stumbled next to her, and she moved against the
wall for leverage as he lightly swayed. “What are you doing here?”

“We’ll talk later.” Because she couldn’t help him, have that
conversation, and keep watch on the cowards watching them from across the
street. “Come on, I can’t leave you here, and we have to go. Did you drive?”

“My truck is parked on Madison Street.”

Thank God. A way out of here if they hurried. Only, Madison
was back where the cops were circling. She clicked on her ear piece. “Kyle, I’m
looking for a truck on Madison.”

“You need to leave him and go.”

She glanced across the street, where the men who’d beaten
him were keeping pace with them. How’d she’d like to sit Clayton down and
finish that. It’d be a night they’d never forget. With the cops this close, it
was too much of a risk. “I can’t.”

“When you come out of that alley, there’s a truck parked
there.”

“Lexie?” Clayton’s moan rumbled from his chest. His face was
swollen, but his speech was stronger. “I need to call Reid. I drove him here,
too.”

“Reid’s here?” That was an option. Maybe. She could hand him
off to Reid. Or, at least, leave Clayton and watch over him until Reid got
there, then get out. Time was ticking.

“His number is on my phone.”

In the alley, she leaned him against the wall and searched
his hip to find his phone cracked and broken. That wasn’t going to work. She
took his weight back on her shoulders. That was it. He was coming with her. “We’ll
call him later. We have to get out of here.”

He grunted with each step but still managed to walk. Each
step was better than the last until they were nearly walking a straight line.
He wasn’t crashing her into the wall anymore.

At the end of the alley, she glanced back to see those few men
had followed and were getting closer. She looked ahead at a black truck parked
at the curb. “That yours?”

Clayton lifted his head. One eye good, the other cut and blood
flowed down half his face. “Keys in my pocket by you. We can’t leave Reid.”

“We don’t have a choice.” Metal scraped behind her, and she
looked back to see those idiots coming at them with trash they had found on the
ground to defend themselves with. Hell no. She drew her gun and fired. From the
angle under Clayton’s arm with half her view blocked by his shoulder, she
couldn’t take solid aim. The screams and cursing sounded like she hadn’t done
too bad, and she hobbled the last step to his truck.

“Who are you shooting at?”

“The people who just beat your ass were coming up behind us.”

“Why do you have a gun on you?” He looked down her and
blinked. “Why do you have a bow across your chest?”

She rested him against the passenger door and dug his keys
out. “We can talk about that later.”

She got him in and ran to the other side. Sirens were
getting closer again, no doubt drawn by her gunfire. If she hit any of them,
that would at least slow the police down a few moments while they called for an
ambulance. She hurried into the truck and sped through the neighborhood. She
clicked on her earpiece. “Get me out of here.”

After three quick turns, Kyle had her headed down a dirt
road that looked fitted for four-wheelers. “You’ll come to a T at the bypass.
Hang a right and you’ll head directly to Melville.”

“Thanks.”

“Just don’t go home. Your house is being watched by the
police.”

Her grip loosened on the steering wheel a moment as she
processed that. “For what?”

“That fucking dagger you won’t get rid of. For some reason,
they’re watching your house now.”

Probably because the idiots who’d been arrested claimed she
had it. Though why they were watching didn’t make a lot of sense. They were
cops. They could just ring her doorbell and ask. “All right. Thanks.”

“Where are you going?”

She looked at the seat next to her. Clayton was bloodied,
but okay. He leaned against the door, and the pounding in her chest began to
slow. “I’ll be safe.”

She clicked the connection off and shut her phone down. It
was a temporary phone for the night. A burner. With the connection made to the
phone left for Joe, she couldn’t use it again. They’d be on her location in a
heartbeat. Clayton’s breath rasped in and out of him. She glanced at him again.
His nose was still bleeding. “Do you have any napkins? Your nose is bleeding.”

He stared at her a moment, then reached in the glove box and
came out with napkins. “It’ll stop in a bit.”

His speech pattern was completely back to normal. No more
slurred, dazed-sounding words. Hopefully they had just knocked him for a loop
and there was no serious injury. “I need directions to your house.”

“Take the third exit.” He was quiet again. From the corner
of her eye, she could see him just watching her.

“Do you feel light-headed, woozy? Are you about to pass out?”
Judging by his motor skills as he plugged up and pinched his nose, she would
guess no, but talking about anything was better than falling into silence.

“I’m fine.” He tipped his head back. “Who was on the phone?”

“A…friend who helps me out sometimes.”

“Why are you wearing a mask?”

Questions. That would keep him awake. And fill the silence. “So
nobody sees me.”

She grabbed the mask at her neck and peeled it off. Clayton’s
truck didn’t have the upgrades like her car did. Have a photo of them going
through an intersection, and cops would be asking him why there was a masked
driver in his truck. At least from the distance and angle, it would appear she
just had on a black shirt.

“I need to call Reid and send someone to pick him up. Or see
if he can get a ride.”

“Your phone is busted.”

He pulled it off his hip and cursed. “Let me use yours.”

Shit
. “You can’t.”

“You won’t let me use your phone.”

She winced. “It’s a secure line.”

“Why do you have a secure line?”

Driving down the road was not where she wanted to have this
conversation. These kinds of questions were coming, regardless. She’d killed a
man with an arrow right in front of him. Clayton might be dazed and still
piecing things together for the moment, but he would remember that soon. Plus,
she’d sent that warning arrow to Joe. Clayton had to have been in the area for
the meeting. They no doubt had gotten wind of it. He would put it all together
because there weren’t a lot of people running around the streets carrying a
bow. She blew out a breath. “If you call Reid on this phone, you’re going to be
connecting this number to his phone. This number has made connections to other
people in the past. People Reid isn’t going to want that connection to on his
record.”