Leopard 04 - Wild Fire

echoing through her room, looking to see if there was blood on her hands. His blood.
    “You ready?”
    She took a breath and nodded. Now she could smell smoke too. A series of shots rang out in the distance. She flinched, her stomach lurching. She’d seen what automatic weapons had done to the Indian village, but she didn’t protest. She knew the thin walls of the cabin weren’t going to protect her. They had a chance in the forest.
    “No hesitation. We don’t know how close they are until I’m out there. Once you go through the door, you have to commit, Isabeau. Straight to the rail and over it.” There was a command in his voice, one that might normally have put her back up, but she found solace in it. He was the kind of man who survived this kind of attack. The safest place in the rain forest was right at his side.
    “No hesitation,” she agreed, and steeled herself.
    He burst through the door, rushing in front of her, shielding her body right up to the rail. Isabeau refused to look down. She leapt and was astonished when she landed adeptly with both feet onto the rail and then she was sailing over it. She was aware of Conner right beside her, keeping his larger frame between her and the narrow path leading to the small clearing. There was a kind of singing in her veins, as if adrenaline had found a symphony and played the crashing notes as it rushed through her body. Strangely, there was a rush in her body, like the flow of the wind, the sound of the trees. She landed in a crouch, utterly astonished.
    The buzz of a bee was loud in her ear. As if at a distance, she heard Conner shout, his hand caught hers and yanked her into motion. She didn’t have time to analyze the shocking way her body reacted, muscles flowing like water. He pulled and she felt the coil of her body, the leap that covered more than half the distance to the tree line. A second leap and she was inside the cover of the broad leaves, running along a narrow rodent path.
    Her sight grew strange, as if she was seeing in bands of color, yet everything was totally clear. Her range of vision seemed enormous, as if she could see, without turning her head, a good two hundred and eighty degrees around her. Her vision was amazing to the front. Isabeau judged her ability to see at least one hundred and twenty degrees straight ahead. Her eyes didn’t blink and detected movement in the underbrush as she ran—small rodents and insects as well as the fluttering of wings overhead. The deeper into the forest they went, the darker it became, but she could see quite clearly.
    Sounds were enhanced, as if someone had turned on a loudspeaker. Her own breath rushing through her lungs sounded like a locomotive. Her heart thundered in her ears, but she could also hear the rustle of movement in the underbrush and knew, as she ran, exactly where other animals were. She caught the scent of a man’s sweat and the arid smell of smoke. She could hear the crackle of flames and the screams of the monkeys and birds as they fled ahead of the blaze.
    Her heart seemed to beat in rhythm with the forest itself, absorbing the frantic energy of the other creatures as she moved fast through the trees, deeper and deeper into the interior. She was acutely Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
    aware of Conner’s hand pressing on her back, urging her to move even faster. She heard the whistle of a bullet and then a thunk as it slammed into a broad tree trunk a few feet to their right.
    “They’re firing blind,” Conner said. “Keep going.”
    She wasn’t about to slow down. She should have been terrified, but she felt absolutely exhilarated instead, almost euphoric, aware of each movement in her body, every separate muscle working smoothly and efficiently to carry her over the uneven terrain. A large fallen tree lay in her path and she didn’t even slow down. Instead, she could feel the wonderful coiling of her body, the spring as she leapt over it, clearing the downed trunk by a good foot.
    She smelled sweat off to her right just as Conner gripped her around the waist and tossed her to the ground, his body covering hers. He pressed his mouth to her ear. “Stay still. Absolutely still no matter what happens and look away.”
    She nodded her acceptance, although she didn’t want him to leave her there alone, but she knew he was going to take care of the threat moving toward them. For one heart-stopping moment she thought he