“No,” Riley said.
Where the heck are the National Guard troops? she thought. Why weren’t they here? Why were they taking so long?
“I’m losing patience,” Tin Man said. “I have a mission. A destiny.”
He threw a hatchet at Riley, she jumped away just in time, and the hatchet sailed past her.
She wasn’t sure if he’d tried to sink the hatchet into her or the Penning trap. Not that it mattered. The result would have been equally deadly. Her heart flipped around a little, and she felt a shot of adrenaline get pumped into her system. It burned in her chest and took her breath away.
Tin Man ran at Riley and the trap, and Emerson tackled him, sending the hatchet flying into space. He struck Emerson several times with quick jabs to his head. Emerson’s head snapped back, and a trickle of blood rolled down his lip. They locked on to each other, rolling on the ground, doing a lot of punching and attempted eye gouging before ending up near the land’s end. Tin Man disengaged from Emerson and kicked him toward the cliff and the crashing waves a hundred feet below.
“Falling to your death isn’t the fate I imagined for you, but it will have to do,” Tin Man said, continuing to kick Emerson.
There were no thoughts in Riley’s head. Just instinct and adrenaline. She scooped the hatchet off the ground, charged Tin Man, and with as much strength as she could muster rammed the hatchet into his back.
Tin Man suddenly paused, hands in the air, shock registering on his face. “No,” he said. “This isn’t right. This isn’t the way it’s supposed to end.” He reached around, pulled the hatchet out of his back, and turned to face Riley. “You could have had a spectacular death, but now you’re just going to die.”
Tin Man raised the hatchet above his head and lunged at Riley.
Emerson pulled himself up, grabbed Tin Man’s arm from behind, and yanked him off his feet with enough force that Tin Man sailed off, hatchet and all.
Tin Man flew over the cliff like a giant Frisbee, plunging a hundred feet onto the rocks below. Emerson and Riley peered over the edge as a wave rolled in and washed the mangled body out to sea.
“Oops,” Emerson said. “I didn’t mean to do that.”
“He had bad karma,” Riley said.
Emerson nodded agreement and looked back at the Penning traps. Multiple military trucks, police cars, and an assortment of emergency vehicles were streaming down the driveway.
“They’re our guys, right?” Riley asked.
“Right,” Emerson said. “They’re our guys. The bad guys are the ones walking out of the woods with their hands up.”
“We should get back to the guest house and secure the Penning traps,” Riley said. “The police will want to talk with us.”
Emerson looked at the cliff and then back at Riley. “You saved my life.”
She grinned. “And you saved the world.”
“We saved the world,” Emerson said. “Now there’s only one thing left to accomplish.” He put his hands on her waist and drew her closer. “You need to knock my socks off.”
“Not until I see you naked,” Riley said.
“Deal,” Emerson said. “I was planning on getting naked anyway.”