False Dawn Read Free Page A

have to kill me.”Rossi was so calm no one doubted him.
    The young man wavered for a moment, his hands restlessly fingering the dark metal. His face twitched.
    Without turning, Rossi said to Thea, “Did he hurt you?”
    “Some,” she admitted as she got to her knees. “I’ll be okay.”
    The C. D. man glowered. “She your woman? Is she?”
    Rossi turned slowly, forcing the man with the rifle to move back. “No. She’s nobody’s woman.”
    At that the other man giggled. In that case, I bet she needs it. I bet she’s real hungry for it.”
    He winked at Rossi. “What do you think?”
    Thea closed her eyes to hide the indignation and terror in her: if this was to be rape, being used…She opened her eyes when Rossi’s hand touched her shoulder. “I’m okay,” she muttered, though she wasn’t.
    “You try any more dumb things like that, cunt, and that’s going to be the end. Understand?”
    “Yes,” she mumbled.
    “And what will Cox say when he finds out what you’re doing?” Rossi asked. He still kept himself between Thea and the other man.
    “Cox won’t say nothing!” the C. D. man spat.
    “So you deserted.” Rossi nodded measuredly at the guilt in the man’s face. “That was stupid.”
    “You shut up!” He leaned toward them. “You are going to take me out of here, wherever you’re going. If anybody spots us, or we get trapped, I am going to make both of you look like a butcher shop. You got that?…HUH?”
    “You stink,” said Thea.
    For a moment there was anger in the young, hard eyes, then he grabbed her face with one hand. “Not yet, not yet,” His grip tightened, his fingers bruising her jaw. “You want some of that, you’re gonna have to beg for it, real hard. You’re gonna have to suck it right out of me. Right?” He looked defiantly at Rossi. “Right?” he repeated.
    “Let her go.”
    “You want her?”
    “Leave her alone.”
    “All right,” he said with a little nod. He stepped back from her. “Later, huh? When you’ve thought it over.”
    Thea bit the insides of her cheeks to keep from screaming.
    Rossi looked at the C. D. man. “I’ll be close, Thea. Just call.”
    As the two men stared at each other, Thea was tempted to run from them both, to the protection of the destroyed forest. But she could not escape on the open hillside. She rubbed her shoulder gingerly and went to Rossi’s side.
    “I’m a better choice,” the C. D. man mocked her, “My name’s Lastly. You can call me that, bitch-piece. Don’t call me anything else.”
    She said nothing as she looked up the slope.
    Rossi’s voice was soft. “Don’t try it now. There’s cover up ahead and I’ll get him into a fight. Take your chance when you can.”
    In deep surprise she turned to him, seeing the sincerity in his eyes, She thought of the rifle in Lastly’s hands and Rossi’s one arm. “Truly? You’d do that?”
    He might have said more hut Lastly shoved them apart. “I don’t want none of that. You don’t whisper when I’m around, hear? You got anything to say, you speak up.”
    “I want to piss,” said Rossi.
    Lastly giggled again. “Oh no. You aren’t gonna leave a trail. Not for a while, till we’re in the trees. Hold it in; got that?”
    With a shrug Rossi led the others as they began the long walk toward the rotting line of timber.
    For half an hour they moved in silence, and then a wail like a distant wind halted them in their tracks.
    “What was that?” Lastly turned the barrel of his gun toward the sound that once again surged through the underbrush.
    The ululation rose and fell through the trees for a third time, lonely and terrible.
    “Dogs,” said Rossi bluntly. “They’re hunting?’
    In the deep shadows of dusk the scattered trees seemed to grow together as if to surround the three people who moved through the gloom. The sound came again, closer and sharper.
    “Where are they?”
    Thea looked back at him. “They’re a way off yet. You can’t shoot them until