A Bleacke Wind (Bleacke Shifters Book 3) (28 page)

Jose couldn’t blame someone for taking blood. He knew he damn sure would.

What he
could
do was silently blame his boss for letting his rage drag them into a situation they were ill-prepared for. Yet if they returned to the car now, without answers, it might enrage Manuel further.

On the chance it didn’t, Jose and his men might find themselves in the losing end of a battle with armed locals that they likely couldn’t win, no matter what Manuel thought to the contrary. Yes, the Segura cartel was feared—at
home
.

This
wasn’t
home.

And Americans were batcrap crazy.

“We need to keep looking,” Jose said. “They can’t be too far ahead of us, and they’re probably injured.” He paused for effect. “Do any of you want to be the ones to admit to Manuel that you called off the search before we were absolutely
sure
we couldn’t find them? What if this is the only lead we have? You want to tell him we gave up?”

His words were met by sullen, uneasy glares. Tomas, then Aldo, followed by Miguel, slowly shook their heads.

“Good. Then we keep looking.”
And you’re welcome, because I might have just saved our lives.

He headed up the slope. “I’ll take the high position. The rest of you spread out and let’s keep going.”

A few minutes later, he thought he spotted something in the woods ahead, but when he raced toward it he got a glimpse of fur before it faded into the shadows.

A fox, maybe. Coyote. Or a wolf.

But not a human. Not the prey they were after, and as long as it didn’t bother them, he’d let it go about its business as long as it let them go about theirs.

It also felt like they were now being watched but he wasn’t about to admit that to the other men. He didn’t need to give them a reason to revolt and overrule him.

* * * *

Ken and Nami stumbled across a small spring trickling from the mountainside around two o’clock. Ken warily stood guard as Nami greedily cupped her hands and drank from it first.

“Take it slow,” Ken warned her. “Don’t make yourself sick.” For over an hour it felt like their shadow hadn’t been spying on them. He hadn’t spotted any sign of it.

Now he sensed…something.

Not the men, because whatever it was had plenty of experience remaining stealthy and silent. Maybe their shadow had returned.

The wind had picked up and the temperature dropped further as the clouds deepened and the sky started turning a steely grey Ken knew didn’t bode well.

Once Nami finished, Ken stepped around her and knelt on the other side of the spring so he could still keep an eye out behind them and down the slope. They were heading more south and east now, the mountainside they were on apparently curving.

He didn’t know if they were still downslope of the road or not, if it’d taken a different route at this point, but he hadn’t heard any vehicles at all. In fact, now all he could hear was the wind and the sound of trees creaking and groaning, the occasional deadfall breaking free in the distance and crashing to the ground.

Spooky, but not dangerous as long as Ken kept a sharp lookout and steered clear of deadfalls and widowmakers that might come down on them.

He thought about trying to go farther uphill when he caught sight of their shadow again.

Dammit.

“Still no service,” Nami said, sounding dejected as she returned her phone to her purse. “I don’t think I’ve ever been anywhere that there wasn’t cell service.” She sadly laughed. “How sad am I that I haven’t traveled much and I probably drove well over a million miles as a bus driver?”

“You’re not the only one,” Ken said, his gaze focusing on where he’d last seen the shadow. “The not traveling, I mean.” The feeling of being watched had definitely returned with a vengeance, although that tingly ball of nerves at the base of his spine seemed more concerned about where the men were than whatever was following them.

Instincts.

I need to let Dewi and Beck work with me when we get home.

* * * *

Manuel had put Saul in charge of the group going in on foot. As Saul led the way, silently cursing his boss for their ill-prepared cross-country hike through the woods, he tried to tamp down on the bad feeling congealing in his gut.

No, he couldn’t speak it aloud for fear of reprisal from the others, or of any of them telling Manuel later, but he secretly hoped they wouldn’t find anything.

Correction, any
one
.

Good with maps, he’d memorized how to get to the large, central building that almost looked like some sort of meeting hall adjacent to several campground areas. There were homes scattered around to the west and north of that, which was where Manuel, Guillermo, and Carlos had headed.

The plan was to meet up in that area. Manuel didn’t want both vehicles there, both as a backup plan, and to try to mislead the residents as to how many of them there were.

But now that Saul checked his phone, he realized he had no signal, even though they’d had one in town.

Dammit.

With Jose and three other men sent after the man and woman from the gas station, their numbers were spread too thin. He didn’t like the odds of seven against an unknown number of locals who were out there.

Technically four, since Manuel and two other men were out there, somewhere, and not
with
them.

Not to mention they’d heard the eerie howls of wolves several times, some of them sounding fairly close.

This entire operation was flawed from the start, from its hasty inception. They weren’t prepared for any of this. At least while chasing Carlomarles to Colombia, they’d known what they were doing, were prepared for it, had locals on their side.

He was all for going back to Spokane to regroup, or even getting rooms at the hotel in town here and laying low for a couple of days and seeing what happened. Play tourist so they weren’t blatantly obvious. Not to mention getting some damn clothes that didn’t make him feel like he was standing out.

Saul shivered as the breeze stiffened. It felt like a storm coming. Yet another reason to postpone this for another day.

But he’d been given orders. If they didn’t meet up with Manuel where he expected them to be, there’d be hell to pay.

Risking that man’s ire far outweighed his personal reservations.

Ricardo tugged on Saul’s arm to get his attention. The man had his gun drawn and pointed behind them.

Now Saul drew his weapon and they all froze, listening.

After a moment, he couldn’t deny it felt like they were being watched.

Studied.

Saul paired Ricardo with him, and Victor with Roberto. They split up with the other two men dropping back to follow them off to the side. He pulled out his phone and used the compass to verify his course. They should only be about a mile, if that, south of the target they were heading for. They had paralleled the main road for a while before it curved away to the north.

He knew from the maps and satellite photos he’d studied that it meant they were getting close.

Ricardo grabbed his arm again, pointing ahead of them.

Three small wolves stood there, staring at them for a minute before they bolted at a dead run to the north.

Must be young ones.

But wolves weren’t the kind of animal they were hunting.

Saul breathed a sigh of relief. “They must have been what we were feeling,” he said.

Ricardo nodded but didn’t look completely convinced of that.

Saul softly whistled to get Victor and Roberto’s attention and bring them in again.

But the men didn’t approach.

The woods they were traversing weren’t so dense you couldn’t see a couple of yards around you, and yet there were no sign of the other two men.

Saul whistled again, a little louder this time.

Ricardo held his gun ready but Saul made him point it at the ground. “Don’t shoot them. Don’t shoot
anyone
yet. We don’t need people hearing that and investigating.”

“Where the fuck are they?”

“I don’t know.” He walked a couple of feet away and tried to listen.

Nothing.

“Victor, Roberto,” he softly called.

Nothing.

“Where did they go?” Ricardo asked.

Saul turned. “If I knew, do you think I’d be looking for them?”

“This isn’t right, man,” Ricardo said. “There is something really fucked up, here, and I’m not afraid to say it.”

“Don’t say it around Manuel,” Saul counseled. “He’ll gut you for cowardice.”

“I didn’t say I was going to tell him. And I didn’t say I’m running. But you have to admit there’s something wrong here.”

“Shh.” Saul headed back toward the last place he’d heard the men, trying to find their tracks, but there was too much ground cover to really see anything.

“Man, how the hell did they just fucking
vanish
?” Ricardo asked.

“They didn’t,” Saul said. “They ran. Like cowards. Come on.” Saul started leading them back toward the car.

“Where we going?”

“We’re going to find them.”

What Saul didn’t want to tell Ricardo was the real reason for backtracking, because Saul didn’t honestly believe they had run. Maybe they had, but there had to be a damn good reason, and it wasn’t because of the young wolves they’d seen.

He had a strong suspicion they might stumble across the men’s bodies. Just like every goddamned horror movie he’d ever seen, which now ran through his fucking mind.

Saul wanted to get the hell out of there, and Victor, the numb fuck, had the car keys.

He could no longer deny there was something fucked up about this whole thing. He wasn’t going to hang around, Manuel Segura or not, and get killed.

And he
damn
sure wasn’t getting left behind.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Ken was torn between wanting to urge Nami along faster, and anger at himself for not being armed with a gun, or at least a snarky, kick-ass attitude.

If he was a wolf, he knew he could shift and take their pursuers by surprise.

But he was a geek with a tire iron, something which he wasn’t entirely sure how to use for its manufacturer’s indicated purpose, much less how to brandish it as an improvised weapon.

Now they were lost in the wilderness, with vengeful killers on their trail. Yes his instincts, so far, had kept them alive.

The question remained for how much longer?

Dammit, I wish I’d listened to Dewi and let her teach me more stuff!

At least the small trickle of water they got from the tiny spring was enough to slake their thirst and keep them going. Neither of them were used to higher elevations or drier air. While he was in better physical condition than Nami due to age and from all the biking he’d done before meeting Dewi, he wasn’t exactly equipped to survive out here long-term without supplies or shelter.

And the temperature kept dropping, the cloud cover thickening.

Ken still avoided going downhill, terrified that when they hit the valley or stream bed or whatever was down there, the landscape might open up and leave them exposed to discovery by their pursuers.

At least here in the thick of the woods they had a slight advantage. He frequently scanned the ground behind them, making sure they weren’t leaving tracks or other obvious signs of their passing.

He also glanced at his phone, praying for a signal. At least the compass function still worked.

Around three o’clock, Nami needed another rest break. Ken stood keeping careful watch with neither of them talking.

Then, in the distance, he heard voices. Male voices, faint, but definitely speaking Spanish. He studied the way they’d come, but no one was visible behind them. It sounded like the men were farther downhill on the slope than Ken and Nami.

Nami’s eyes widened in fear and she grabbed Ken’s arm, holding on tight.

Pressing a finger to his lips, he closed his eyes and listened.

Yes, definitely going away from them, growing even fainter.

So much for hoping they thought we’d head toward town.

If they were hearing the men, the men were traveling in the same direction they were. Obviously unaware of where they were, exactly, or they’d likely be dead already.

As the voices slowly faded to the south and west, Ken leaned in close, his lips against her ear. “We need to keep moving.”

“Can’t we head back the other way?” she whispered in his ear when she pulled him close. Her hands felt cold against his arm.

He shook his head. “If they double back, they might find us. Right now, they don’t know where we are.”

She nodded, tightly holding onto his arm as he led the way through the trees again.

After another half hour or so, that’s when they hit their first roadblock that Ken couldn’t find an easy way past. A ravine about fifteen feet deep on their side cut east to west downhill through the slope, and there was no going around it.

Ken left Nami safely sheltered behind a large boulder and dropped onto his belly to creep out and stare down the slope. The ravine, lined with trees on either side, held a small trickle of water in its bottom and looked like maybe it was a snow runoff path. He couldn’t see any farther than about thirty yards downhill before trees obscured the way.

That likely meant anyone looking up couldn’t see them, either.

He hoped.

If they got down into it without killing themselves, they should be able to climb up and out more easily on the other side. The southern slope of the ravine looked shorter, maybe only eight feet deep at a point about ten yards uphill, and with a slightly gentler grade.

Ken contemplated his options when two things happened. He looked back and spotted the shape of what was unmistakably a wolf fading into the shadows about twenty yards to the north of them, where they’d just come from. And somewhere in the distance downhill he heard another crack of gunfire, quickly followed by the faint sound of male voices screaming at each other. He couldn’t tell what language for sure, but it didn’t sound like English.

Nami clapped a hand over her mouth, eyes wide with terror, as she obviously heard it.

The wolf darted away, downhill and toward the source of the gunfire and voices.