Page 24 of The Last True Hero

"Okay," McClain murmured. "I'm heading in with Jake. Are you ready?"

Ready to get my sister back.She nodded firmly, pushing aside all her doubts. There'd be time to think over everything later. Right now, she needed to focus.

"Then go."

Mia crept across the pitted asphalt, and slipped in next to Jenny. They both squatted behind a rusted out car.

"You know what you're doing, girl?" Jenny pumped a pair of shotgun pellets into the chamber.

"Yes."No. Her hands were wet with sweat.

"Just remember: they ain't men or women. They're scum. Scavengers. This is just like picking off the coyotes near Salvation Creek."

Mia nodded. "I know."

It didn't make this any easier. She wasn't shooting to warn someone off, the way she had in the past. This was killing, plain and simple.

Jenny had it easier. Once upon a time, she'd ridden on the back of a Nomads bike, one of the bikie gangs that owned the coastlands. Susan—Mia's mother—told stories of her when Mia was a little girl. It wasn't until Susan and Greg were killed that Jenny returned home, and when she came she said little about her life out West. Mia knew she'd left her man, but she never spoke of him. Instead, she'd settled into their home and finished raising both Mia and Sage.

Jenny wasn't mother material. Nothing like Susan. She'd been hard and fair, but she wasn't the sort you went to when you wanted a hug. She usually preferred her own company, and when Sage moved out with Jake, and Mia moved into the bar, she had the run of the house.

But when it came to protecting her own, Jenny had your back.

"There they go," Jenny whispered, watching Jake and McClain slip through the shadows of the evening.

Two guards on rotation meant two targets. McClain had laid out the entire plan with military precision back at their camp. Where she'd spent time trying to see her sister through the binoculars, he'd been making ruthless calculations.

Mia stilled, almost holding her breath.

A scrape sounded to her left. Then a hushed noise, as if someone lowered a body to the asphalt.

Another sound—louder this time. A startled "mmph" that was swiftly cut off with a quick hand over the mouth, she imagined. A boot lashed out, scraping along the ground. She caught a glimpse of it through the dusty windowpane of the car they sheltered behind.

Jake.

Shadows rippled behind her and Jenny. Thwaites and his men running low across the ground to take cover behind the cars near them.

Jenny made a quick slashing movement with her hand, and Thwaites nodded, pressing his back to a jeep.

Silence. Stillness.

A faint bird cry whistled. A mountain bluebird. That was the sign.

Go, go, go. Mia followed Jenny, bending low as they scuttled around the cars and the crumpled statue.

A scream suddenly echoed. It cut off abruptly, but it was clear they'd lost the element of surprise.

And it also meant Jake and McClain were in the reiver camp with no backup.

"Move out!" Jenny bellowed.

She went left. Mia went right. The plan was for the pair of them to circle the camp and hit the reivers from the sides. It also meant that the women and men trapped in the pit were protected, in case the reivers realized they were losing the fight and decided to go down bloody.

Bullets ricocheted as Thwaites and his group hit the camp. Mia caught flashes of the fight as she ran. Reivers swarmed out of their blankets, laying hand to sawn-off shotguns, knives, and on one occasion, a chain.

Flames flared as someone threw something on the campfire. Suddenly the whole world flared bright, and she lost her night vision even as the fire died down just as suddenly.

Shit. She was blind. Mia caught a shadow out of the corner of her vision and ducked. The chain rippled through the air an inch above her head. She spun around and fired the shotgun.