Rapid Fire. Jessica Andersen

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      The goats and sheep inside the petting zoo galloped in circles, becoming a bleating, milling mix of hooves and bodies. The lone bison in the far corner stomped, shook his head and reared partway up, as though he might jump out of his enclosure at any moment.

      Maya’s heart rabbited in her chest. “Come on!” She scooped the girl up and ran for the entrance, staggering beneath the weight of the child.

      They were twenty feet from the door when a splintering crash sounded over the mind-blowing rumble that went on and on and on. Maya risked a look back, and nearly tripped and fell at what she saw.

      Bison. Five, maybe ten of them, had broken through the back wall of the livery and were bearing down on her at a full-out gallop. Their small eyes were wide and scared, their nostrils flared with deep, sucking breaths, and their stubby horns cut the air as they charged. The penned animal bellowed and crashed through his fenced enclosure to join the others.

      Maya turned and ran for her life.

      Hannah’s arms were wrapped around her neck in a chokehold that nearly cut off her breath, but Maya didn’t care. She had to get the girl to safety. Had to get herself to safety.

      But where was safe?

      She burst through the petting zoo doors and skidded onto the main road. Thinking that the bison would follow the path of least resistance, she bolted for the ticketing area, hoping the buildings and the turnstiles would deflect them. She could jump over while the bison turned, like some mad reenactment of the running of the bulls.

      She heard shouts and gunshots, saw figures running along the ridges on either side of the ranch, and felt the growing hoofbeats in the trembling of the ground.

      But the noise wasn’t coming from behind her anymore. It was in front of her.

      Suddenly, dust gouted from beyond the snack bar, which was the last building in line before the ticketing area. The noise increased to unbelievable proportions, as though Maya was caught in a tunnel with trains bearing down on her from either side.

      She ran for the turnstiles, legs weak, lungs burning, too aware of the dozen bison bearing down on her from behind.

      Then the dust in front of her thickened to shadows. Legs. Horns. Mad, panicked eyes. Twenty bison burst around the corner and turned down Main Street. Forty more followed them. A hundred. A full, panicked stampede of thousand-pound animals galloping hell-bent—

      Directly at Maya and the little girl.

      Chapter Three

      Heart pounding a panicked rhythm in her ears, Maya bolted across the street, toward the snack bar, which had an ice cream booth on the flat-topped roof. She tightened her grip on Hannah and fixed her eyes on the stairs leading up to the snack area. Up. If she could just get up, she would be—

      A heavy, hairy weight slammed into her from behind, driving her to her knees. Hooves struck her in the side and she curled her body around Hannah in a futile effort to protect the girl.

      Then the pain and the blows were gone. Too quick, Maya thought. That couldn’t have been the whole herd.

      It wasn’t, she realized moments later when she uncurled and looked around. She’d been struck by the offshoot group, the dozen animals who had burst through the livery after her. They had turned and galloped down Main Street.

      The ground shook as the main herd bore down on her, no more than a city block away. The noise increased by the moment, hoofbeats overlaid with snorts and bellows and the sound of gunfire.

      Maya saw white-rimmed eyes, red-flared nostrils and pounding, pulverizing hooves coming closer. Too close.

      Knowing she was too late, that there was no way she was going to make it, Maya dragged herself to her feet, hauled the girl onto her hip and took two stumbling steps toward the stairs, toward safety. Her knee sang with pain. Her legs folded beneath her—

      And strong arms grabbed her, lifted her and half carried her across the road as the air thickened with dust and fear.

      Rough hands shoved her toward the stairs and a man’s voice shouted, “Climb, damn it!”

      Disbelieving, heart pounding, Maya climbed, aware of being crowded, being hustled, being shielded as her feet hit the stairs. She stumbled, needing both arms to hold the girl, and felt strong hands grab her waist and boost her upwards.

      The leading edge of the stampede hit them. A big male bison demolished the lower stairs, blasting through the two-by-four construction as though it was made of matchsticks.

      With nothing holding them off the ground, the upper stairs sagged and began to fall.

      “Go!” Maya’s rescuer shouted. He nearly threw her up over the edge, onto the low roof of the building. Wood splintered and Maya screamed as the stairs peeled away from the building to fall into the sea of hairy bodies below.

      Carrying the man with them.

      She pulled Hannah’s arms from around her neck, set the girl on a safe spot well back from the edge and yelled, “Don’t move!” Then she scrambled back to the place where the stairs had been, lay flat on her belly and poked her head over the precipice.

      She saw a hand. A forearm. The top of a man’s head. Her rescuer was clinging to the edge of the building as the herd passed below in a deadly thunder of hooves and horns.

      “Hang on!” Maya lunged forward and grabbed his arms, his shirt, anything she could get hold of to help him up and over.

      His muscles were hard beneath her hands, his body powerful as he dragged himself over the edge and flopped down beside her, breathing heavily, one forearm thrown across his eyes.

      “You okay?” he asked, voice ragged.

      She took stock. Her body sang with the ache of bruises but not breaks, and when she glanced at Hannah, she saw that the girl was crying softly but appeared otherwise unhurt.

      As the rumble of the stampede faded and human shouts and whistles took over, Maya cleared her throat of the hot, choking dust and the knowledge that without his help, she would have died. She swallowed hard and said, “We’re okay. I can’t thank you enough…” She trailed off, wanting a name for the stranger.

      “Don’t thank me. Let’s just say this makes us even, okay?” He dragged his arm off his face, sat up and turned toward her.

      Without the sunglasses, his eyes were two different shades of hazel, one so light as to border on amber, the other darkening to green, giving his face a skewness that should have been lopsided but instead was arresting. Interesting.

      Familiar.

      “Thorne!” she gasped, voice sharp with shock and memory.

      For an instant, she was back in the High Top Bluff Police Academy. She’d seen him across the cafeteria, where he’d stood out from the others because he’d kept his long, sandy hair tied back in a ponytail, and wore a burnished gold, almost auburn five o’clock shadow at ten in the morning. He’d carried a casual air that was part poet, part surfer dude, and was the center of a growing throng. Maya later learned that people flocked to him, wanting to be included in the friendly, СКАЧАТЬ