Bloodshot - Cherie Priest [55]
The big barn, then. That’s where I’d try next.
I poked my head out of the window, looked both ways like a first-grader crossing the street, and started wiggling back outside again. I was about two-thirds out—hanging at my hips, working up the momentum to flip myself forward with enough leverage for a smooth landing—when I heard it.
Somewhere nearby.
The crunch-crunch, crunch-crunch, of someone walking briskly through the snow. Nay, not walking briskly. More like … sneaking. Or marching. Sneak-marching. And absolutely nothing about that sound warmed my heart in any fashion whatsoever.
I didn’t quite manage the landing I’d wanted—I toppled forward out the window and fell with more of a “splat” than with tidy cat feet en pointe—but it got me to the ground. Funny, I didn’t remember the snow under the window being quite so deep on the way in. I sank into snow that came up over my knees, and I tramped around in it, both trying to be quiet and trying to figure out which direction to run, if any.
I held still for a few seconds and listened hard, hoping to better pinpoint the noise, which had now been joined by more crunch-crunches and seemed to be coming from everywhere at once.
Stupid woods. Stupid snow. Stupid silent night.
It was coming from the left—no, the right. No, both.
Shit.
I didn’t panic. Yet.
Perhaps forty yards of open snow stood between me and the big barn, and the side I faced, but I didn’t see any easy point of entry. I could make a run for it, but I’d only be running straight at a blank wall—with no way up it, through it, or inside it. Obviously the thing had to have a door somewhere. I fought to remember: When I’d approached under the fence, down into the main compound … had I seen it?
Yes. It was around on the left side, I remembered now.
But someone was closing in on me by the moment. The crunch-crunch was close enough that I could hear the faint, low buzz of electronic communication. It was probably moving through earbuds or very small radios; the sound wasn’t perfectly clear, but it was distinct.
I’d been spotted. And I had nowhere to go.
Across the yard—around the right side of the barn—something glinted quickly and vanished. It could’ve been anything. Probably moonlight off a button, or a pair of glasses.
I was not frozen, not paralyzed. Just pinned by indecision. I looked up and saw the shed’s gutter above me, and I thought: What the hell? Might as well try going up. They already knew where I was; I could sense that much from the way they were closing in. They weren’t hunting, they were coming right for me.
I didn’t see them yet, so they had a leg up on me. They’d see me if I jumped up on top of the shed, maybe; and more likely than not, they’d hear me regardless.
I stretched to reach the overhang, but couldn’t quite make it. The snow felt like quicksand, and even though it wasn’t, I couldn’t help but feel that it was holding me down. I picked up my left leg, covered in snow as it was, and braced it against the side of the building, using it to give myself a boost. I hoisted myself up out of the snow and latched both hands around the gutter. The damn thing squealed as if it’d been shot.
Too late to double-think. With a pop of my arms and a fling to toss my weight up onto the gently peaked surface, I was up.
No time for a false sense of security, either. As I scrambled to find a good foothold that wouldn’t leave me sliding right back into the snowdrifts, somebody below opened fire.
Bullets sprayed toward me and I ducked, flattening myself on the roof—which had a good foot of snow on it, thank you very much. I wondered if they could see me, if I just went facedown in it, wearing my white suit and everything. It would’ve been nice if I could hide there, smushed into the snow. I’d freeze my tits off, but if they couldn’t see me, they couldn’t shoot at me, right?
Boy, howdy. The bullshit I’ll tell myself when I’m completely out of ideas.
Then somebody below barked an order and all bets were off. Two more people were shooting from the other side of the shed. They didn’t know