“Don’t do it, Dallas.”
The man let the safety off the gun. Now the gun was pressed to the window. It would blast right through the glass, Dallas had no doubt. And if she managed to duck then it would hit Colton. She had no choice. She reached for the door handle. Without taking her eyes off the man, she said, “Colton, as soon as I’m out, start the car and get the hell out of here. Go get help. I’ll distract them.”
Without waiting for an answer, she opened the door and slid out.
As she did, one of the men knocked the thermos out of her hand and it clattered noisily on the pavement and then rolled under the car. She’d been a fool to think she could use it as a weapon.
Behind her, the car remained still and quiet. She scowled. Colton needed to get out of there.
Instead, she heard him getting out the other side.
“My hands are up. Take me. Let her go. She knows nothing.”
“We just want to talk to you,” the man in front of Dallas said. He spoke English but had a slight accent Dallas couldn’t place. “But first we want to look around.”
The man then said something in Arabic and two more men with guns stepped forward. He turned back to Dallas and Colton. “My men will escort you to our vehicle. You will wait there until we are done looking around.”
With guns pressed to their lower spines, Dallas and Colton walked toward the first of two large, black SUV’s parked behind their car. The gunmen indicated they should get into the backseat of the one parked the furthest back.
After they crawled in, Dallas saw there was a glass partition between the back seat and the front. The gunmen positioned themselves, one on each side of the car and kept their guns pointed toward the doors.
“This isn’t good,” Dallas said.
“Could be worse,” Colton answered.
“Yeah?”
“We’re still alive.”
“Until they ‘question’ us or whatever,” Dallas said. “We have to get out of here before then. Let’s think.”
“I hate to say it, but I think we’re screwed, Dallas.”
“Then don’t say it.” She hated that she snapped at him, but there was no time for that kind of thinking. “Let me think. Let me think. Let me think.” She tugged at her hair as she said this, looking around frantically. There had to be some way out. Some way to get away.
Colton was leaning back on her and bending his knees with his feet aimed toward the window between them and the front seat. A thump from a very large gun striking the window stopped him. He put his feet down and swore.
Dallas reached for the door handle to see what the goon on her side would do. The gun was instantly pointed at her window. Okay. Got it. She searched the back seat for something that might trigger the partition to slide open but no matter how many buttons she jabbed, it remained closed. What now?
At that moment, there was a loud roaring noise and both of the gunmen turned and looked behind the vehicle. A second later, they ran. Before Dallas and Colton could turn around to look out the back window, there was a near-deafening volley of gunfire that sent them both cowering to the floorboards in front of their seats. Colton was somehow on top of Dallas. She looked over his shoulder at the back window. While the glass still appeared intact, it was splattered with red. Blood.
“Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God!” Colton crawled off her and put his head in his hands.
“Are you okay?” Dallas asked, suddenly filled with terror. Had Colton been hit? She hadn’t seen the glass break or any bullets come into the car, but it all happened so fast with the window obscured with blood she couldn’t say for sure.
Colton took a deep breath. “I’m not hurt. Are you?”
He had thrown himself across her body, which Dallas found sweet in a really screwed up way.
“I’m fine.”
They both were startled by a loud knock at the window at the same time the front door was yanked open. A woman in a dark burqa dipped her head into the car for a few seconds. Dallas head the click of the back doors unlocking and immediately threw herself toward the door handle. She and Colton nearly fell out of the vehicle and then stood there looking around wildly, unsure where to go or what to do.
The bodies of the two gunmen were behind the black SUV. Beyond the bodies was a row of ragtag vehicles. A rusty truck. A dented white van. A massive four-door sedan and a small compact vehicle. The windshield was shot out of the van, which was closest. The doors of all four vehicles were thrown open.
Dallas whipped her head to the front of the car. Off near the temple, she saw a flurry of movement. It looked like women in burqas holding submachine guns chasing after the men who had captured them.
And then closer, Dallas noticed her.
A woman standing with her arms crossed, watching Dallas and Colton.
For a second Dallas tensed, ready to run, but the woman smiled and walked over.
“I’m Kyra.” The woman said, moving gracefully in the long skirt. Only her eyes glittered through the slit in the burqa. “Safra sent me.”
In one fluid movement, she wriggled out of the burqa, slinging it over one arm.
Dallas was astonished to see Kyra had curly red hair and ivory skin sprinkled with freckles.
“You’re with the Daughters of Isis?”
Kyra nodded. Her small, compact body bulged with muscles that showed through her tight green fatigue pants and long-sleeve camouflage T-shirt. Her pants were tucked into dusty, well-worn combat boots.
“I’m sorry we didn’t make it here sooner. We left as soon as we got word.”
She was Irish. Her accent wasn’t thick, but it was there, Dallas noticed.
“You came in time.” Dallas said smiling. “But how did you know?”
Another woman ran up, panting. Kyra nodded at her and
