 Mason heard Riece’s garbled cry at almost the same time he heard an odd cracking noise reverberate through the air. Nets strung between at least a dozen trees in either direction flung up, creating a barrier. The bag dropped. Riece tried to catch it, but it knocked him backward on his ass. The tops of the nets were several feet above Mason’s head and were between Riece and him. They were cut off from each other. Riece scrambled to his feet and stood staring at the net. Then his gaze shifted to meet Mason’s. He shook his head ever so slightly. Mason clamped his fingers into tight fists for a moment to stop their shaking. Sweat trickled down his spine. Riece’s expression was closed off. He’d shut down. Mason had another reaction: he got pissed. Riece was no more than five feet from him. Alone and unprotected. Their base camp had been found. It made sense to Mason now why they’d only seen two or three of the hunters. The other bastards must’ve spent the day before getting the nets laid and covered with dirt and leaves. Another trap. This one spanned enough distance that running around would be problematic. Their positioning was planned to purposely separate them. Mason had to consider the fact they’d been stalked since leaving base camp. Mason backed up as far as possible and got a running start. He shouted, throwing himself at the net. The tricky thing about scaling nets was that they were strong enough not to snap under the weight of a man, but shifted and bent if you tried to climb them. The spacing between the nylon strands woven to create the net weren’t large enough to get a good foothold. It was more like climbing a rope. He jumped high enough to get a good start. The sounds of footsteps through the woods and hushed voices spurred him faster. They weren’t hiding the fact they were there, at least not from Mason. Riece probably wouldn’t tune into those noises until it was too late. “Riece, run!” Mason ordered. He kept his voice as low as possible, but it likely wouldn’t matter. Riece rolled to the side, grabbed the bag’s strap and at the same time, began to shove off the ground. A bolt whizzed through the air, hitting the ground inches from Riece. He stared at it wide-eyed for a few seconds before stumbling forward. Mason reached the top of the net. He grabbed the wire across the top and flung himself over. Not bothering to try to climb down, Mason hung from the top for a second before letting go and dropping to the ground. A bolt hit the tree right in front of Mason. Both shots were very near misses. Riece was a big target, Mason an even bigger target, yet neither shot hit them. He had a hard time believing these guys had such bad aim, which meant they were missing on purpose. The only reason he could come up with was that Riece and he were being driven in the direction the hunters wanted them to go.     Comments are closed.
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