strange shadow?”
Trying not to give in to his own panic, Cole said, “That’s true.”
One glance was all Paige needed to see the layer of sweat that had suddenly appeared upon his chalky skin. “If it makes you feel any better, I’ve never seen Full Bloods and Half Breeds fight together. Half Breeds are too wild to follow a leader, so that should be all we get tonight.”
Cole let out some of the breath he’d been holding and looked out the window. The houses, gas stations, and fast food restaurants that had dotted the road so far gave way to open spaces and low hills stretching out for miles under a blanket of scorched grass. “So, you’ve been able to survive a night like this on your own?”
“Yep,” Paige said with a nod.
“You baited a bunch of Half Breeds and wiped them all out?”
“Sure did.”
“How many were there?”
She crinkled her forehead and twisted her mouth into a thoughtful, crooked line. “Three.”
Feeling as if someone had found the release valve in his chest, he asked, “You think that’s all that’ll be coming?”
“Oh no,” Paige laughed. “Considering all those dens we found, there’ll be a lot more than that. And with all the bait we put out, we may even attract some from the neighboring county.”
Cole’s mouth hung open, but he forced it shut before he asked another question. Any more encouragement from Paige and he might just throw up.
The nature preserve outside of Kansas City was a strip of open land about two miles long. There were a few campers set up here and there, but Paige drove until she spotted a place that suited her needs. It was flat, away from the road, and had a minimum of trees on the side facing the city.
Cole spotted two campsites that were situated a bit too close for comfort and wondered what Paige would do about them. She took the easy route by passing out enough money to pay for hotels all around plus a little more. It was a hot enough night for the campers to gladly accept the bribe and agree to eat their s’mores under the stars some other time. While they were packing up, Paige scooped out some spots in the dirt to set up a little camp of her own. She removed a few heavy packages from her trunk and buried them under a shallow layer of dirt. “Watch out for these spots here,” she told him.
Sitting hunched over a metal bowl and mixing up another batch of bait using a powdered mixture that didn’t smell quite as bad as the fresh stuff they’d spread all over town, Cole looked up and asked, “Why?”
“Bear traps,” she replied while pointing to all five mounds of dirt. “Hopefully, we can hobble a few of the Half Breeds before they get to us.”
“Can you mark the traps with little flags or sticks or something?”
“Can’t you remember where they are?”
“I’ve got a lot on my mind here,” Cole snapped. “Just put some damn sticks in the ground. It’s not like a bunch of rampaging, wild animals are going to sidestep a few suspicious twigs.”
Paige marked the buried traps with sticks, and by the time she was done a wispy cloud of putrid steam drifted up from Cole’s bowl. After that the only thing left to do was gather their ammunition, divvy out enough to fill their pockets, and scatter the rest in strategic locations they could get to in a rush. Cole took the shotgun and Paige took the revolver. Even though he wound up with his preferred weapon for most of the games he’d created, he wasn’t feeling any better. Not even the metallic clack of the shotgun’s pump could light a fire in him.
The sun lingered like an oblivious houseguest before finally dipping out of sight. He and Paige sat just outside of the campfire’s glow. Her pistol was tucked away and his shotgun was strapped across his back. The thorns of Cole’s weapon pressed against his palm without breaking the skin, feeling oddly comfortable and familiar. Paige had her knees bent and pulled in close to her chest. One baton was propped against the toe of her boot and she tossed the other casually in the air to catch it on the end without the thorns.
The fire crackled.
A slow wind blew.
Every so often a car or truck engine rumbled in the distance.
Cole craned his neck to look at the stars directly overhead. “It’s nice out here,” he said, doing his best to avoid looking at the moon.
She didn’t take her eyes off the urban glow illuminating the sky to the west. Tossing her baton into the air created a subtle whooshing sound as the weapon turned end over end. The varnished wood slapped against her palm and she tossed it up again.
“I never camped much,” Cole continued. “It seemed fun, but I didn’t want to go through all the trouble. You know…bugs. Rain.”
“No outlets,” Paige added.
“Yeah,” Cole said. “That too.” He sighed and tried to pick out a few constellations, but was inevitably drawn to the moon. That pale light steered his eyes to the yellowed electric glow being sent up by Kansas City to wash out the stars in that section of sky. His next inhalation was tainted by the bait stewing over the fire. It smelled like exhaust and garbage.
“I think we’re downwind of that stuff,” he said.
Paige slowly shook her head and caught her baton with another loud slap. “That won’t matter. Half Breeds aren’t dogs. They can smell it just fine no matter which way the wind blows.”
“And you think they’ll follow it here all the way from the middle of KC?”
When he thought about the Half Breeds he’d seen, his weapon felt a lot lighter than it had a few seconds ago. He swung the front end down to draw a few shapes in the dirt near his feet using the newly modified tip. “What did you want to be when you were a kid?”
“What?”
“You know. When you were growing up? I wanted to be a pilot. Then I wanted to be in the Navy. Then I wanted to be a Navy pilot. When I got to be recruiting age, I realized I’d just watched too many movies and didn’t seriously want to go through all of that stuff.”
“All right, then. Let me guess.” Cole snapped his fingers and said, “You wanted to be a short order cook. That’s why you live in a restaurant.”
“Are you even listening to me anymore?”
After another
“Seriously?”
“Yep. That was before, though.”
“Before,” Cole muttered. That word reminded him of days spent at a keyboard when his biggest worry was hitting deadlines for new game concepts or level ideas. His nights might not have been full of parties and wild sex, but he hadn’t spent them crouched on a patch of dirt surrounded by bear traps and spare shotgun shells. Suddenly, he started to laugh. “You know what? Maybe this isn’t too far off from how it was before. Instead of watching a guy in a game hide somewhere in the dark with boxes of bullets scattered all over the place, I’m actually living it.”
Paige tossed her baton one more time, caught it, and stood up. “Come here.”
He went to her and couldn’t help but notice how the moonlight caressed the curves of her body as she reached back with one hand to gather her hair and clip it behind her head. The pale glow coming from above worked nicely to make the lines of her neck stand out. Even the crooked shape of her broken nose looked cute when bathed in that light.
“Close your eyes,” she whispered.
Cole did as he was told.
“Hear that?”
He listened for a few seconds but couldn’t pick up on any sounds that hadn’t been there before. Finally, he asked, “Hear what?”
Just as he was losing hope, he felt her hand press firmly against his chest. Despite the roughness of her palm
