Ty knew one thing: if it had wanted to kill them, they never would have seen it coming. They’d probably just stumbled too close to its babies and it was trying to warn them off. Cougars were ambush predators. He had studied the way they and other animals killed when he’d been on the Recon team, curious to see if he could learn anything from them. He had learned quite a lot. He knew that cougars were solitary hunters, so he didn’t have to worry about a second one anywhere. But they could leap over twenty feet in one go and run up to thirty-five miles an hour; they had a vertical of nearly fifteen feet, and when they struck, they did so from the side or rear, severing the spinal cord and then either eating their prey alive or letting it bleed out to save for later.
The fact that he was staring at this one in the eyes was actually a good thing. It meant the cat wasn’t sure if they were food. Yet. Not that the idea offered him a shred of comfort.
“You’re, uh… you’re supposed to stand tall,” he told Earflaps breathlessly. “Stretch your arms out and make yourself appear as large as possible.”
“Bullshit,” Earflaps whispered back at him. “You first.”
Ty shook his head minutely. He knew what you were supposed to do. But he just couldn’t force himself to move as the cat stalked back into the underbrush and disappeared. Ty had never seen anything so big that was so adept at hiding itself, even if it was dark. A part of him, the part that may or may not have been suicidal and wasn’t terrified into stupidity, took a moment to admire the ability.
“Oh God,” Earflaps mumbled softly. Ty could see his breath misting in the cold air. He trembled with the urge to flee from the danger. Ty could understand the impulse.
“Don’t move,” Ty told him again. The man didn’t respond, but Ty could see his body coiling in the moonlight. He knew he was fighting the same instinct to run that Ty was. He was losing the fight, though. “Don’t move, man,” Ty practically pleaded. He raised the shotgun, more for comfort than actually thinking it would do much good if the cat came at him from behind.
Earflaps jerked suddenly and broke into a run. Ty shouted at him, but the man either didn’t hear him or didn’t care. He hadn’t gone four steps before there was a loud screech. The underbrush whispered with the movement, and the cougar yowled again as it pounced on Earflaps’ back and knocked him to the ground. Earflaps gave a horrible scream as Ty brought the shotgun around and fired. The cougar flinched, giving another keening cry as it leapt away, disappearing silently into the darkness.
Ty stood breathing hard and staring, straining his eyes as he moved forward cautiously. He didn’t think he’d hit the cougar, but the sound of the shot had at least scared it off. For now. After a brief moment, he rushed toward the fallen man and laid the gun to the side, yanking off his coat to press it to the gaping wound on the man’s neck. Flashes of the past assaulted him, holding his camouflaged clothing to the wound of a dear friend as he died in Ty’s arms, so far from home.
Ty gasped as the warm blood flowed through his fingers. The man grabbed at his wrists, looking up at him with terrified eyes, unnaturally white in the moonlight that filtered into the clearing.
“Hold on,” Ty told him breathlessly. “It’s not that bad,” he told him, knowing the man wouldn’t make it long enough to call him a liar. Even as he tried to stem the bleeding, the life drained from his prisoner’s eyes, and Earflaps fell limp, the blood still gushing from the rips in his throat.
ZANE’S head jerked up and a shiver ran down his spine as the scream echoed through the trees. He was on his feet, gun in hand, without even thinking about it, turning toward where he thought the scream might have originated. Then his brain kicked into gear. That wasn’t Ty screaming. It couldn’t be. It was Earflaps. Shit. Had Ty actually lost it and shot him? Or did Earflaps rush Ty in the dark?
It all added up to him needing to be there, now, and see what was happening. See if Ty was okay. And if he wasn’t, Zane would deal with it. They were both getting off this damn mountain alive.
“What happened?” Deuce demanded dazedly as he rolled to his hands and knees.
“Sounds like he shot him,” Earl guessed roughly as he stumbled over the fire and grabbed for the second shotgun. “Garrett?” he barked as he stood and peered out into the pitch-black woods.
“I’m going, Earl,” Zane answered flatly as he checked his gun. “Stay with Deuce.”
“Garrett,” Earl said again sharply. When Zane looked up at him, Earl was staring at him determinedly. “You bring him back,” Earl told him quietly.
Zane stared at him for just a moment, surprised at the lack of argument, but then he nodded curtly and turned to lope into the darkness in what he hoped was the right direction. If Ty had killed the man, he might not be in the most stable state of mind. Zane hoped Ty seeing his partner would be enough to snap him out of it.
TY CLOSED his eyes as he moved his bloody hands away from the dead man, but then his eyes were on the underbrush once more as his hand groped blindly for the shotgun. If he was going to be eaten, he wanted to see it coming. And he would damn sure to put up a fight. He knew the others would have heard the shot and probably the screaming. But that didn’t mean they would find him in the dark woods. Not in time, anyway. He even thought maybe he could hear them calling out, but he didn’t dare call back.
His hand landed on a decent-sized rock. Ty palmed it, still feeling around with the other hand for the gun. What the hell had he done with it? He tore his eyes away from the trees to search the ground. The barrel shone dully in the moonlight, roughly six feet away. As he crawled slowly toward it, he found a thick tree branch that was still fairly green and hefted it. The more weapons he had on him until he made it to the gun, the less he felt like kibble.
Ty felt the movement at his side rather than saw it, and he turned and tried to rise to face it, striking out with the stick as the cougar came at him with horrifying speed. He didn’t make it to his feet, though. The impact knocked him to the ground, the big cat landing on him and knocking the breath from his lungs. He saw stars as his head banged against the hard ground. The cat caught the stick between its sharp teeth, and it snapped in half like a desiccated twig, showering Ty’s face with bits of wood. The cougar’s claws scraped across his shoulder and tore into the skin.
Ty screamed in agony even as he held what remained of the stick in front of his throat, trying to protect himself. He cried out again as teeth sank into his hand. He dropped the stick as he lost feeling in the hand but rounded with the stone in his other hand, smacking the cat in the side of the head with it. It made a dull thud when it hit, and the cat leaped away and hissed at him angrily, lashing out with one giant paw. Ty rolled out of its reach, narrowly missing being lacerated by the impressive claws. He found himself on top of his shotgun, and he grabbed it gratefully, rolling again and coming to sit with it clutched to his chest.