Beware

eyes. She felt weary and sick, but not sleepy. Taking a deep breath, she was nearly overcome by nausea. Her mind whirled with images of Nancy’s shocked face, the face of the man she had shot, the screams as Hoffman chopped through the crowd at the elevators, little Hamlin Alexander leaping into the packed elevator, the knife plunging into Carl’s throat. She snapped open her eyes. “Oh God,” she muttered.“It’ll soon be over.” Scott patted her leg.“All this death…”“I know.”And then she saw a dark car ahead of them on the road, its doors open, men crouched behind the doors with guns.“Down!” Scott yelled, and hit the brakes.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Lacey flung herself sideways as the night exploded. Scott dropped in front of her, his back striking her nose, shoving at her breasts. Dazed, she wondered if he’d been hit. But she felt him moving. Then the truck lurched backward. It gained speed. The rear end swerved and she felt the truck bound off the smoothness of the road. It rose. It pounded down. Through the gunfire and roar of the engine, she heard rapid thunks like a dozen hammers pounding metal. The tail of the truck swung back. She felt the smoothness again.Raising her head, she saw the blasted windshield and Scott’s hand gripping the side of the steering wheel. As she looked, a bullet blasted through the top of the wheel. She ducked again.The truck sped wildly, bumped off the other side of the road, swerved back, stayed on the pavement for a while, then lurched off again.The shooting stopped. She felt Scott raise himself slightly, perhaps enough to peer out. Then he moved higher. He sat up. Lacey lifted her head. The road had turned. The other car was out of sight.Scott floored the gas pedal.“You okay?” he asked.“Yeah.” Sitting up, she realized her nose was bleeding. She licked the blood from her upper lip, wiped it with the back of her hand.The truck skidded to a stop. They were in front of the house again. Looking down the road, Lacey saw no sign of the car. She jumped from the cab and followed Scott to the house. He unlocked the door. Stepping inside, she scanned the living room. Deserted.She returned to the truck and grabbed the attache cases while Scott and Dukane hustled Hoffman to the ground. He fell. As Dukane stood over him, Scott climbed into the pickup. Lacey watched him drive the smoking vehicle along the front of the house and through the cactus garden. At the edge of the slope, he jumped clear. The pickup plunged down. She heard it bang and slam. She expected it to explode, but it didn’t.“Why’d he do that?” she asked Dukane.“The truck’s no good. Too shot up. No point giving the bastards any extra cover.”“At least we don’t have the ladies to contend with,” Scott said as he returned. “They high tailed it. I saw’em out there, running like a couple of jackrabbits.”“They’re best out of it,” Dukane said.He and Dukane grabbed Hoffman and dragged him into the house. Lacey shut the door, locked it.“Get the lights,” Dukane said.Lacey switched off the outside light, then stepped to the near end of the couch and turned off the remaining lamp. Darkness filled the room.“Watch out the window, Lacey. Scott, give me a hand. We’d better secure our friend.”They pulled Hoffman to his feet and led him out of the living room.Moving a rocker away, Lacey knelt at a front window. The road was deserted. In the east, the sky was a pale blue. She took a deep, shaky breath, and touched the skin beneath her nostrils. The bleeding had stopped. She folded her arms on the windowsill, and rested her chin on her hands.She thought of Jan and Nancy running through the desert, and wished she were with them. Running. Leaving all this behind. But she couldn’t leave Scott. She would stick this out with him, see it through to the end.She thought of the old movie, Bonnie and Clyde—the ambush, bullets ripping into Warren Beattie and Faye Dunaway, making their bodies dance and writhe as if in a horrible orgasm.Maybe it wouldn’t hurt so much. You must go into shock right away. And then it’s over.The glow of the sun reached over the horizon, casting gold across the desert. She lay her forehead down on her folded hands, and wept.“It’s all right,” said a voice behind her. Scott’s voice. His hands slipped under her armpits, and he lifted her. He turned her around to face him. “It’s all right,” he said, more softly. His fingertips brushed tears from her cheeks.“I don’t want us to die.”“ ‘We owe God a death, ’ as Falstaff says.” He kissed her. “But it’s not due yet.”She put her arms around him, and held him tightly. She pressed her face to the warm curve of his neck. He rubbed her back, her shoulders. Then he eased her away and led her past Dukane.“I’ll tuck her in,” he said.Dukane nodded.Scott guided her to a bed of cushions and blankets prepared in a short hallway. The nearby doors were closed.“Where’s Hoffman?” Lacey whispered.“The bathroom. We cuffed him to the base of the sink. He can’t get loose.”“Can we use the bedroom?”“Safer here. No windows.”He lay down beside her, and held her gently.Closing her eyes, Lacey felt his mouth on her open lips. His hand stroked her belly and slowly, so slowly, inched upward. Fingers glided over her breast as if seeking out its shape and texture through the fabric of her shirt. She lifted the shirt, and moaned as he touched her bare skin. His fingertips moved lightly, teasing like feathers, making her squirm with pleasure as they brushed circles around one nipple, then the other.His mouth went away briefly. Then it took a breast, sucking gently, the tongue probing and flicking.This is how it should be, she thought. Gentle and slow and loving, the desire almost painful, wanting him so badly that nothing else matters. For an instant, she thought of Hoffman cuffed inside the bathroom, only a few yards away, but the image was washed away with a thrilled tremor as Scott’s hand slipped under the waistband of her shorts. A finger traced her pan ties’ elastic strip, moving slowly from side to side, lightly scraping her skin, toying with the band.Lacey pushed a trembling hand down the front of his pants. Sliding it inside his shorts, she felt his hot erection. As she curled her fingers around it, she felt Scott’s hand slip into her pan ties. She gasped as he found her opening. While she stroked his thick shaft, his fingers glided against her, slipped into her, probing and pushing. Her own hand explored Scott, wanting his penis inside her. He eased away. Kneeling beside her, he tugged her pants down. She kicked them off, reached out for him, and opened his trousers. She pulled them down, freed his erection, fondled it, held its burning flesh as he climbed onto her, then guided it between her spread legs.It sunk into her, filling her, gently pushing deeper and deeper.“Oh dear God,” she sighed. “Dear Scott.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Dukane knelt alone at the window, staring through its open louvers at the area in front of the house. The low, morning sun made his eyes burn. An effect of going too long without sleep. He closed them. The lids shut out the sunlight, felt soothing on the raw tissue.He saw Nancy. She winked at him, and lifted her pink nightgown. He expected bare skin, a thatch of pubic hair, perky breasts with upthrust nipples. But no. Not yet. Under the nightgown were red gym shorts and a tank top. She pulled the top over her head, and there they were, her breasts, firm creamy mounds with nipples erect. She began to dance, whirling, waving the shirt like a flag as her other hand lowered to her gym shorts. But now they were faded blue cutoff jeans. She opened them, continuing to dance, and they slowly slid down her legs. She skipped out of them.She lay on her back, knees up, thighs apart, rubbing herself with both hands, then beckoning him. But as he approached, he saw jagged shards of glass embedded in her skin. They protruded from her breasts, belly, thighs—glistening, clear blades waiting to rip him up. With a grin, she opened her mouth. Her tongue slid out, weighted with a jagged triangle of glass. Reaching between her legs, she spread her flesh. Powdered glass spilled like salt from her vagina.“Fuck me,” she said.“Not till you take the glass out,” he told her.She spat the chunk from her mouth. It shot out like shrapnel, flipping and twisting toward him. He flinched away. His forehead struck the windowsill.He awoke with a gasp.“Christ,” he muttered, angry at himself for dozing off, and shaken by the dream.He scanned the area in front of the house. Still no sign of the car or any people. Getting to his feet, he crossed the room. He knelt on the couch and parted the curtains behind it. Fifty feet away stood a garage of white stone. Nobody at its corners or visible on its roof. But off to the left, a hundred yards away, a figure was lying prone on a rise among balls of cacti. Dukane saw a rifle in his arms. He ducked away, and hurried into the kitchen. From its window, he saw another distant sniper.He filled a glass with water. As he sipped it, he entered the hallway. Scott and Lacey were asleep on the floor, holding each other. He carefully stepped around them, and entered the bedroom. From its window, he spotted another man with a rifle.At least they’re not assaulting the place, he thought. Containing us. Maybe waiting for reinforcements. That would explain why the car hadn’t shown up again. One of them must’ve taken it to alert others.If the girls got away all right, they’d go for the authorities. An army of cops might descend on the place any time.Interesting to see