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“Then we’ll have to carry her.”
“We need to come back for her.”
“I’m not leaving her in this living hell, Sam. Look at the poor thing. She’s skin and bones.” Remi thought briefly. “I’ll ask Lazlo to help me, if you think you can make it on your own.”
Sam winced as he nodded. “I can try.” He glanced back at the shackle. “How do you plan to free her?”
“One of the guards must have keys. Stay with her while I go check.”
Remi returned several long moments later with a key ring. She tried two keys before finding one that worked. The manacle opened with a metallic click and Lilly’s arm fell across her thin body. Sam moved aside as Lazlo approached the bed and, together with Remi, lifted her frail form.
“Will you be able to manage her?” Sam asked.
“She’s light as a feather. Between us, we’ll do it,” Lazlo said, his voice confident.
Lazlo carried Lilly in his arms as Remi walked beside him, helping Sam. Leonid brought up the rear, weapon in hand. As they emerged from the chamber of horrors, Remi moved into the lead, but then stopped short at the passage that connected the chamber with the medical equipment to the entry cave, pausing to glance at the dead islander lying on the ground with a machete buried in his chest before continuing past—evidence of Leonid’s resilience even when injured.
When they reached the entry cave, a blur of motion flew at them from the shadows. Gunfire exploded as Remi and Sam fired at the attackers. Seconds later, four islanders lay dying, machetes and axes no match for quick reflexes and bullets. Remi stood, sweeping the space with her pistol, wary of another attempt—just because these islanders hadn’t had guns didn’t mean there weren’t more gunmen nearby, waiting for their chance.
Sam pointed to the entry, a gap in the stone, with five yards of passageway leading to the outside. Light streamed through the curtain of vegetation that covered it. Remi nodded and moved to the side of the opening, gun at the ready, while Sam crept to the opposite side of the entry and listened for any hint of ambush, his ears still ringing from the gunfire. Lazlo hung back with Lilly as Leonid eyed Sam and Remi, who gestured for him to move into the passage while they covered him.
At the opening, sensing nothing, Sam whispered to them. “There could be more out there, waiting for us to show ourselves. Anyone have any ideas about how to keep from being sitting ducks?”
Remi regarded the vegetation that hid the opening. “We wait them out.”
“We can’t wait here all day,” Leonid said.
“Why not?” Remi asked. “Let time work against them. Assuming there are any of them left.”
They settled in near the entrance, guns clenched in tired hands. Soon they heard the thump of footsteps on stone approaching—faint, but clear. Remi squeezed her body into a depression along one side of the entry, her pistol trained on the gap, as Sam and Leonid took cover behind rocks deeper in the passageway.
The vines rustled and Remi cocked the hammer back on the Beretta, willing her breathing to slow as her pulse pounded in her ears. She relaxed and lowered the gun when Greg’s head poked through the vines and smiled as she called out to him.
“You scared the—”
Sam’s gun bucked in his hand twice, deafening in the confined space. The gunman who had been holding his pistol in the small of Greg’s back fell backward, his skull obliterated as the first shot caught him in the forehead, and Greg dove to the side. Leonid’s pistol barked once and a round tore through the man’s torso and he dropped, dead before he hit the ground.
Remi’s voice had a tremor in it as she regarded Greg. “Was that it?”
“No. One more by the car, but he only has a machete. Might be long gone by now, with all the shooting,” Greg answered, struggling to his feet. She eyed the gash on his head and the dried blood in his hair and nodded. “They ambushed me.”
“Can you make it back?”
“Sure.”
She turned to Sam and Leonid. “Nice shooting.”
“I only have one bullet left,” Leonid complained.
“Hopefully, you won’t need to use it,” Sam said, rising unsteadily.
They moved to the entrance and pushed through the vines into a clearing. A dead islander lay sprawled a few feet from the opening. Greg knelt and retrieved the man’s gun—another revolver easily as old as he was—and then pointed to a trail. “We’re about five minutes south of the logging road.”
“Did you see a woman there?” Remi asked.
Greg nodded. “She’s gone. Left before the fireworks started.”
“Damn,” Sam said.