Matt Archer: Bloodlines (Matt Archer #4) by Kendra C. Highley

devices.
    When we rolled up to the line of Humvees forming a barrier
at the edge of camp, I could tell there’d been trouble overnight. My heart in
my shoes, I handed Elske to Dad.
    Over everyone’s protests, I had my door open and was out
running before the vehicle stopped. The command tent was in shreds and, based
on the footprints dug deep in the dirt, Dingoes had come for a visit. Nothing
else stirred. The team was nowhere to be seen.
     “Chief!” Uncle Mike barked. “Wait!”
    He wanted to me to slow down, to check out the situation
first, but after last night, coming home to find Will, Aunt Julie and the
others dead might just crack me in two.
    “Will!” I ran into the circle of Humvees. “Where are you?”
    Nothing but a few blood stains on the ground.
    I ran to the face of the bluff and clambered to the top. The
back side sloped down in a gentle hill that led to a long, flat plain below.
There, a group of soldiers were gathered, huddled together. I sank to my knees;
they were alive. All of them.
    “Hey!” Johnson called, waving up at me. “You made it back.”
    Will stood in the center of the ragged looking group.
Klimmett had a bloody bandage wrapped around his head. Captain Johnson didn’t
look hurt at first glance, but he was slow to turn and he limped as he walked
up the slope. Will was scratched all to hell on his arms and face and he had an
enormous black eye. Aunt Julie, strangely enough, didn’t have a mark on her.
    By now, Lanningham and Dorland had crested the bluff and
hurried down to help the wounded back to camp. I took a second just to breathe
before standing. Sometimes you had to let your bones go to Jell-O for a while,
even if it made you look weak. Uncle Mike climbed up next to me and let out a
heavy sigh.
    “They’re all here,” he murmured. “Thank God.”
    “We earned a little luck, Major,” I said, pushing myself to
my feet. “Just once.”
    Aunt Julie came to report in. “Sir, we were attacked by
Dingoes overnight.” She spared me a glance. “The four who ran away from
Archer.”
    “Are they eliminated?” Mike asked.
    “Yes, sir. Cruessan took them out before they could cause
too much damage.” She paused. “Blind, sir. He took them out blind. I…” Julie
swallowed—I’d never seen her rattled, so the scene must’ve been a freak show to
end all freak shows. “We didn’t even have to call out directions. He just felt where the monsters were somehow and cut them down.”
    Pride swelled in my chest—probably a mix of both mine and
Tink’s. “Hell yes, he did!” Grinning in relief, I called over to Will, “Dude, you are a badass.”
    He walked slowly our way, Johnson next to him to make sure
he didn’t fall. “Damn straight I am.” When he made it over to me, he leaned in
to whisper, “I have no idea how I did it. Don’t tell the others, though. It’s
good for them to think I’m this monster-killing machine, okay?”
    “Deal.”
    Aunt Julie squinted at the edge of the bluff. “Why do I hear
kids?”
    “We had a long night ourselves,” Mike said. “Any chance you
got in touch with someone from General Richardson’s office? We need
reinforcements, transport, supplies…humanitarian aid.”
    “And you’ll get it.” She checked her watch, then cocked her
ear to the west. “In about three minutes, if I had to guess.”
    Faint, so faint I had to strain to hear it, the sound of
helicopter rotors thumped in the distance.
     

Chapter Ten
     
     
    The helicopters landed in a cloud of red dust and small
rocks. The big, dual-rotor Chinooks were good at stirring up a strong wind.
Will and I went to meet the colonel as he stepped out of the nearest
helicopter.
    Colonel Black took one look at us and frowned. Between the
stitches, the bruises, the dirt, and Will’s blind stare, we probably looked
pretty bad. “You two had a rough few days, huh?”
    “Sir, yes, sir,” we answered.
    “I brought some reinforcements to get your teams up and
running again.