Still the beam did not move. The guards on the roof might have stopped to pick their noses, to sip chocolate, to talk, to take a piss off the side of the building. They might have radioed for a patrol to investigate the bench. On the other hand, their superior might have ordered them to check thermal imaging.
Lila breathed heavily in the darkness, hoping for the latter. She would be invisible over thermal, and the searchlight would move on.
After several moments, the light whipped back to the grounds, crossing with another beam over the statuary.
Thanking her luck, Lila crawled across the soggy ground and progressed deeper into the trees. When she thought she had gone far enough, she hopped to her feet and slipped from trunk to trunk, coming closer to the stone wall that enclosed Bullstow.
A boot squelched in the mud behind her.
A flashlight beam lit up the area.
Lila spun behind a tree.
“Told you it was a snoop,” came a triumphant, nasal shout. The shorter guard sprinted toward her, cocked his gun, and aimed a flashlight at the tree. Nic huffed along behind him, clutching his side.
Lila’s hand flew to her hip with a practiced movement. She drew her gun and crouched low to the ground, wincing at the metal in her grip and the thoughts in her mind. Firing her gun would complicate matters significantly, but she had no other choice.
She was no fighter.
Swinging from behind the tree, she aimed her Colt at the rookie’s neck.
His flashlight swung up at the same time, blinding her.
The tranq dart hit the rookie’s forehead instead.
“Son of a…” The blackcoat lurched stiffly. His flashlight slipped from his grasp and struck a rock as he tumbled to the ground, struggling to brush away the dart.
The bulb shattered.
The rookie landed beside it with a fart-like splat.
“Rookie?” Nic called out, wheezing beside his partner.
The guard peered into the trees. Lila didn’t have time for her eyes to adjust to the dark, but neither did he. Groping wildly, she sprinted deeper into the park, shoulders smacking into limbs, face smarting from the occasional whack of a branch. She could only hope that her eyes would recover first.
She heard a whoosh of air.
Something grazed her sleeve.
Lila whipped behind a tree and brushed her arm where the phantom touch had landed. Her cheap woolen peacoat had caught Nic’s dart, and she flicked it away with gloved fingers.
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Then she gripped her Colt and fell onto the soggy grass with a thud.
The blackcoat advanced slowly, his outline coming into clearer focus with every step. Towering over her, he nudged her with his boot. When she did not move, he turned his head toward a radio perched on his shoulder. “Nichols to base. I’m in quadrant two. Send a med team. I caught the snoop, and my rookie is down, over.”
Static erupted from the radio.
Nic winced and turned his head away, rubbing his ear.
With the blackcoat distracted, Lila drew her Colt and fired in one quiet, crisp movement.
This time the dart hit its mark perfectly.
The tranq overwhelmed Nic more quickly than his partner. He fell atop her, pinning her shoulder and her Colt to the ground. The man’s heavy chest crushed her fingers inside the trigger guard, and she barely kept herself from crying out.
Digging her arm into the man’s side, she worked herself free and gingerly stretched her fingers. Nothing seemed broken.