Chapter 15
I looked at the high, broken ridges of the northern canyon. The terrain was a nightmare of loose shale, vertical drop-offs, and deep, shadowed crevices where a squad of trained infiltrators could hide for days. The wind was picking up again, blowing a cold, sharp draft down from the high altitudes, threatening to sweep away the dust tracks within hours.
My right shoulder was a throbbing knot of agony. My hand was bleeding, and my body was trembling from the massive adrenaline crash that was finally starting to settle into my bones.
But I looked down at Lily, who was safe in Miller’s arms because a fifty-caliber bullet had found a three-inch piece of rusted iron in the middle of a desert mirage. I thought about my grandfather, sitting in his cabin in the Montana wilderness, his voice echoing through my head with the absolute certainty of an old warrior.
“A marksman doesn’t stop when the target is down, Annie. You stop when the line is secure.”
I reached down, picking up the heavy McMillan TAC-50 rifle from the seat of the truck. I cleared the jammed, overpressured casing from the breach with a sharp, violent yank of the bolt, letting the ruined brass tumble into the dirt. I slid a fresh, five-round magazine into the well, slamming it home until it locked with a clean, metallic snap.
“I can track them, Master Chief,” I said, my voice entirely steady as I stepped into the shadow of the northern ridge. “Let’s go hunting.”
Miller nodded once, a brief, definitive movement that sealed the pact between the elite Navy SEALs and the teenage sniper who had just rewritten the rules of their world.
We moved out into the canyons, the sun beginning its slow, long descent behind the western mountains, casting long, jagged shadows across the desert floor. The wind continued to howl through the rocks, but for the first time in my life, I didn’t feel like I was fighting it. The desert wasn’t my enemy, and the wind wasn’t an obstacle. They were just variables in an equation that I already knew how to solve.
