A man was coming through the trees, heading right for the deer stand. Dressed in a black, military-style uniform, he had a black ball cap that was pulled down low to hide his face, and all kinds of weapons holstered on his hips and strapped to his back.
“Oh … God,” she whispered.
Next to her, Daniel had noticed as well and was rolling to the side so he could look out another knothole.
Closer. Closer. So that now, she could hear the soft footfalls on the damp ground. As Lydia’s nose started to itch, she rubbed it. Rubbed it again. If she sneezed—
The man was thirty feet away. Twenty. Ten.
And he stopped.
Squeezing her eyes shut, she trembled and clamped a hand on her mouth. Questions like who he was and who he worked for were so much less important than whether or not he was going to take one of those guns he had on and fill the stand full of lead.
Her heart pounded so hard that it was a roar in her ears, and she prayed, prayed that—
The footfalls started up again … and began to fade.
She couldn’t help it. She had to see. Hoping like hell she didn’t hit the one loose board on the base or the sides, she turned herself around and watched the man, soldier, whatever, march away from them.
“Stay here,” Daniel whispered.
With a quick hand, she fisted his jacket. “Where are you going—”
“He’s looking for your car.”
Lydia shook her head. “There’s no way he knows we’re here. This acreage doesn’t have cameras—”
“Stay here.” He pegged her with hard eyes. “I will come back for you.”
“Daniel—”
“Watch the barn. Stay here.”
In spite of his size, Daniel made no noise as he stood up and threw a leg over the stand’s wall. Instead of going down the ladder, he hung off the side and then dropped down to the ground, staying hidden by the oak’s thick trunk. With absolutely no sound at all, he stalked off, falling into the path of the other man.
She lasted … maybe a minute and a half.
Yes, Daniel was big and strong. But maybe she could help or … she didn’t know.
Surveying the forest, she made sure there was no one else coming. Then she extricated herself out of the stand and descended the trunk ladder. As she stepped off onto the pine needles and leaves, she didn’t follow the men. She triangulated an approach to where Daniel was going to intersect the soldier, weaving her way through the pines, a light jog taking her forward—
Through the trees, she saw the soldier still striding through the forest.
But his forward progress didn’t last long.
The attack was so fast, so overpowering, that she gasped. Daniel Joseph somehow stole up behind the uniformed figure and leaped on the other man’s back as if he were spring-loaded. With his body nearly parallel to the ground, his heavy arms shot around and locked into place—then he wrenched his target off the ground, using momentum to his advantage to slam the other man facedown. There wasn’t a second of recovery time. Before the other guy could react, Daniel put his knee at the lower back and his forearm on the nape, and the soldier—or whatever the hell he was—became completely incapacitated.
Daniel leaned down and said something in the man’s ear—
And then he ripped off the hat, grabbed a fistful of hair, and yanked the skull up. Wrapping his free arm around the man’s neck, he gripped his own wrist—and began to pull back. Pull back hard.
So that the crook of Daniel’s elbow locked in like a vise on the soldier’s windpipe.
“What are you doing?” Lydia said as she jumped forward.
Running across to him, she didn’t care who else heard her. “Stop—stop!”
Daniel didn’t look over. Didn’t appear to have even heard her. He stared straight ahead, the veins popping out in his neck, his forehead, no doubt his whole body. He wasn’t even breathing.
Just like his victim.
The soldier underneath him was gaping, his face ruddy as he strained for air, his black-gloved fingers clawing at the iron bar that was crushing his airway.
“Stop it,” Lydia hollered. “You’re going to kill him!”
She grabbed for Daniel’s arm and started yanking. But it was like trying to disengage something that was bolted on. Nothing moved.
Digging her heels in, she leaned back and grunted. “Let him go—”
The clicking noise the other man made was terrible. So was the flapping as he beat with decreasing strength against his killer.
“No, no!”
Lydia’s feet slipped out from under her and she dropped to her knees, even though it gave her less leverage, especially as she slid on the pine needles. As she strained, tears squeezed out onto her cheeks, and she had a detached thought along the lines of how could this be happening? How had she gone from meeting with C.P. Phalen to fighting against Daniel’s superhuman strength as he killed—