Read Online EYESHOT: The most gripping suspense thriller you will ever read by TAYLOR ADAMS - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: TAYLOR ADAMS
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Ash’s sandaled toes, gleaming hot in the sunlight.
“It’s all we have,” James sighed. “Make it last.”
Neither of them reached for it. Fair enough.
James broke the seal on his own bottle and took a half sip. He swished it through his teeth and tried to enjoy it, but there was nothing to enjoy. It tasted like boiled plastic and burned the roof of his mouth. Reluctantly he swallowed and let it disappear forever. The Aquafina bottle held twelve fluid ounces – how much was that sip? A quarter-ounce? He dealt in advertising market shares and percentages at work, so his brain immediately jumped there and estimated that miserable little sip had cost them two percent.
He passed it to Elle and she took a big gulp. Ten percent.
He didn’t want to argue. What difference would it make?
When you’re trapped in an ambush . . . you charge your enemy.
A military thing he’d heard from his father while watching a fuzzy Audie Murphy movie on the brown living room carpet. He was only seven – he didn’t know if it was true or even tactically sound. What had it mattered then? His father only spoke to him when there was another entity in the room, like a chattering radio or television, to fill the quiet spaces. In another year, his father would be slumped against the dishwasher, one eye shut, slain by the walnut-colored squirrel rifle he kept loaded by the front door.
The idea being, if you’re in an ambush, you’re already exactly where the enemy wants you to be. They built this engagement. If you stay where you are, and try to fight on their terms, you will die.
He spoke in circles sometimes, but James listened patiently because his father was undeniably fascinating. He would work his jaw in circular, wolfish motions mid-sentence, like he was trying to yawn but not quite pulling it off. He made violent gestures with his hands, stabbing the air emphatically through curls of smoke. He touched his beard – not a stroke, not an adjustment – just a touch, as if checking on it. Sometimes his friends would come over, ragged men with long hair and loud laughter. Camouflage pants, mullets, and dirty fingernails. The Anti-Weathermen, they called themselves, with sarcasm or pride or maybe a mix of both. His mother would hide James in the bedroom, and the tiny house would rattle with voices and stink of skunk marijuana. James would sleep watching the cracks of light around the door, hearing only fragments. Something about a coming war. A great war. The Tip-over, they called it.
So you charge your enemy. You charge the fucker, close-quarters, and surprise them, and most importantly, you relocate yourself out of their kill zone. And maybe, if you’re lucky, you can swing your odds back to fifty-fifty.
Charge your enemy.
When the Tip-over happens, James, you remember that.
Now James had a crazy-stupid idea. If he could kick the Toyota into neutral, and he and Elle ducked low in the seats, they could roll the car down the sloped road and crash it somewhere in the darkened riverbed at the center of the crater, a half mile away. Anywhere but here. Maybe, just maybe, the arroyo would be defiladed from the sniper’s scope, if they survived the crash. He knew it was a desperate idea (moving toward the armed killer?) and it chilled him to realize that yes, he was indeed this desperate. The situation was that bad. Then he remembered the Rav4’s shift lock release was useless without the keys, which had been jingling in his fingers when Saray took the bullet. In the ensuring blur, he had no idea where he’d dropped them. And Elle’s set, of course, had been lost in the house fire.
She capped the water bottle, set it between her knees and looked at him purposefully. Her tears had smeared her eyeliner, giving her raccoon eyes.
“What?” he asked her.
“I lied.”
“When?”
“I lied when I told you I sold my cameras on Craigslist.” She brushed a flyaway bang from her eyes and grinned, half-embarrassed. “I couldn’t
“It’s all we have,” James sighed. “Make it last.”
Neither of them reached for it. Fair enough.
James broke the seal on his own bottle and took a half sip. He swished it through his teeth and tried to enjoy it, but there was nothing to enjoy. It tasted like boiled plastic and burned the roof of his mouth. Reluctantly he swallowed and let it disappear forever. The Aquafina bottle held twelve fluid ounces – how much was that sip? A quarter-ounce? He dealt in advertising market shares and percentages at work, so his brain immediately jumped there and estimated that miserable little sip had cost them two percent.
He passed it to Elle and she took a big gulp. Ten percent.
He didn’t want to argue. What difference would it make?
When you’re trapped in an ambush . . . you charge your enemy.
A military thing he’d heard from his father while watching a fuzzy Audie Murphy movie on the brown living room carpet. He was only seven – he didn’t know if it was true or even tactically sound. What had it mattered then? His father only spoke to him when there was another entity in the room, like a chattering radio or television, to fill the quiet spaces. In another year, his father would be slumped against the dishwasher, one eye shut, slain by the walnut-colored squirrel rifle he kept loaded by the front door.
The idea being, if you’re in an ambush, you’re already exactly where the enemy wants you to be. They built this engagement. If you stay where you are, and try to fight on their terms, you will die.
He spoke in circles sometimes, but James listened patiently because his father was undeniably fascinating. He would work his jaw in circular, wolfish motions mid-sentence, like he was trying to yawn but not quite pulling it off. He made violent gestures with his hands, stabbing the air emphatically through curls of smoke. He touched his beard – not a stroke, not an adjustment – just a touch, as if checking on it. Sometimes his friends would come over, ragged men with long hair and loud laughter. Camouflage pants, mullets, and dirty fingernails. The Anti-Weathermen, they called themselves, with sarcasm or pride or maybe a mix of both. His mother would hide James in the bedroom, and the tiny house would rattle with voices and stink of skunk marijuana. James would sleep watching the cracks of light around the door, hearing only fragments. Something about a coming war. A great war. The Tip-over, they called it.
So you charge your enemy. You charge the fucker, close-quarters, and surprise them, and most importantly, you relocate yourself out of their kill zone. And maybe, if you’re lucky, you can swing your odds back to fifty-fifty.
Charge your enemy.
When the Tip-over happens, James, you remember that.
Now James had a crazy-stupid idea. If he could kick the Toyota into neutral, and he and Elle ducked low in the seats, they could roll the car down the sloped road and crash it somewhere in the darkened riverbed at the center of the crater, a half mile away. Anywhere but here. Maybe, just maybe, the arroyo would be defiladed from the sniper’s scope, if they survived the crash. He knew it was a desperate idea (moving toward the armed killer?) and it chilled him to realize that yes, he was indeed this desperate. The situation was that bad. Then he remembered the Rav4’s shift lock release was useless without the keys, which had been jingling in his fingers when Saray took the bullet. In the ensuring blur, he had no idea where he’d dropped them. And Elle’s set, of course, had been lost in the house fire.
She capped the water bottle, set it between her knees and looked at him purposefully. Her tears had smeared her eyeliner, giving her raccoon eyes.
“What?” he asked her.
“I lied.”
“When?”
“I lied when I told you I sold my cameras on Craigslist.” She brushed a flyaway bang from her eyes and grinned, half-embarrassed. “I couldn’t
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