Free Hiking for Danger by Capri Montgomery Page A

joke.”
    “We’re serious,” a voice called from the woods. “Today, I’m teaching my boys how to hunt the two legged animal,” he laughed.
    “Do what you need to do Cody, I’ll be fine.”
    “No way…”
    “You can’t protect everybody with me hanging on to you. I’ll be fine.”
    Like hell she would. She couldn’t put weight on that ankle and he knew it.
    “She’s going to slow us down.” Donald Baker said.
    “Oh dad shut up,” Shell said. It wasn’t long before the others were agreeing with his father.
    Parker had said they wouldn’t leave anybody behind. He had even appealed to their sense of humanity and then the outright knowledge that they themselves wouldn’t want to be left behind. What it came down to was they were wasting time—time they couldn’t afford to waste.
    “So leave me here. I’ll be fine. You can send somebody back for me once you’re all safe.”
    “No.” Cody said, but the others were already agreeing.
    “She makes sense,” one had said.
    “We can’t let her slow us down or we'll all die,” came another response.
    “She’ll be okay up here,” was the last reply.
    “Let me remind you,” Cody growled. “She wouldn’t be injured if it weren’t for you and your games, Stacey. We’re not leaving anybody behind.”
    “Cody,” she called to him. What he gave her was a fierce gaze that seemed to scare even her. “Cody, listen to me. He’s not interested in hurting me. If he wanted to hurt me he wouldn’t have told you to get your injured someplace safe. I’ll be okay.”
    “Of course you will, because you’re getting your butt down that mountain.” He said before slipping his arm around her waist and pulling her to her feet. “Now, anybody else want to leave somebody behind and you can stay up here too,” he said. “Kid,” he gestured for him to come.
    “You’re not using my son.”
    “Aw dad, shut up,” he said as he tucked Sahara’s arm around his waist. “I’ve got her.”
    In all his years of working the park ranger job and then adding in this hiking adventure tour job he had never encountered anything like this. The most dangerous situations he had encountered were the occasional idiots who thought it would be fun to sneak up on a bear; or riding the rapids with a person who couldn’t understand why staying secure in the raft was smarter than standing up and trying to “ride the wave,” as the bleached blond with spiky hair had called when he decided to jump up on the back of the raft and then fell off.
    The dangers were stupid situations with stupid people, but they were always containable. This, however, was something he wasn’t prepared for. These were humans hunting humans and his group didn’t even have a weapon. Since the cutbacks, they only had the one communication device that could reach the base from this altitude. That one device was in Parker’s bag and the arrow had taken that out. While they both still had their phones they were going to have to get down and out of the heavy tree coverage before they could call for help. They were outgunned, and they were on their own.
    “We have to move fast, people.” Cody took the lead while Parker took up the rear to make sure they didn’t lose anybody. “We’ll have to take the shortcut down and it’s going to be hard all the way.” Hard was probably an understatement because he knew it was going to be more than hard. He knew the steep trail was hard for an experienced hiker let alone for the novice and an injured hiker. He just didn’t have a choice. The only way to take a moderately less difficult way down was to go up first and going up was just stupid because they wouldn’t be able to get a signal for a call out for help. They had to take one of the rough paths, but once they got low enough for him to get reception he could alert the base, get aerial help and somebody with weapons to come either take these guys out or arrest them. He didn’t care which just so long as