"Kristine Kathryn Rusch - Heroics" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rusch Kristine Kathryn)

He slid under the SUV, wincing as the movement tugged his flannel shirt
tighter around his shoulders. The make-shift sling fell sideways, and he
banged his arm against the ground. The pain made him whimper -- an involuntary
sound that he would have taken back if he could. He lay still for a moment,
feeling the damn dizziness return.
He made himself exhale, then inhale. Slowly. Measuredly. Trying to
control each breath, and get rid of the dizziness. After a moment, it passed.
He found himself looking up at tubes and wires and pipes -- most of which he
had no idea what they were to or from.
So he cut the tubes and stabbed a hole in the flimsiest of the pipes --
the last thing he wanted to do was break off his blade. Fluid dribbled out of
one of the tubes. Then he severed a few wires and froze as a thought hit him.
What if one of the wires went to a security system?
His hand stilled near the underbelly of the SUV. Well, if it did, he
hadn't hit it yet. And who set the security alarm on a car parked in the
middle of nowhere? Paranoid businessmen, maybe, but certainly not crooks.
As if he knew this for a fact. The only crooks he'd ever known were the
ones he'd read about or the ones he'd conjured in his imagination. These were
not imaginary crooks. These were people who had shot his car all to hell,
tossed him over an embankment, and then kicked him to see if he was dead.
They were all too real. And all too ruthless.
With his feet, he eased himself out from under the SUV. He disabled the
other two cars, always working on the side of the cars that hid him from the
cabin itself, careful when he slid underneath not to whack his arm again.
When he finished, he felt as if he had run a marathon. He was dripping
with sweat, covered in some kind of noxious goo from one of the tubes, and he
ached all over. Still no cops. He wondered if they were having trouble finding
him or if he had lost all track of time.
He needed to get back to the road, to tell them where Sarah was, and to
have them get her free. He was in no shape for it. He knew that now.
He knew he should go down immediately, but he couldn't quite bring
himself to it. He had to look inside the cabin. He had to know if she was dead
or alive.
If she was dead -- if she even looked dead -- he would launch himself
inside that building and used his knife to carve up whomever he saw.
The anger propelled him forward.
He stayed to the side of the dirt driveway. It sloped downhill. The
back of the cabin was a mess of ruined furniture, rotted firewood, and
non-compostable trash -- plastic milk containers, beer bottles, and the
remains of plastic garbage bags. He avoided the piles, knowing if he knocked
anything over, someone would come for him.
Then he eased around the side of the cabin.
Overgrown rhododendrons covered the closest window. Calla lilies the
size of children lined this side of the building. There was no way for him to
get close without going on the porch.
He wasn't willing to do that.
He crossed behind the cabin again, hoping the other side was less
overgrown. It wasn't. This side had hydrangeas and some weird evergreen plant
that used to be popular as decoration around houses in the 1960s. Someone had
loved this place once. A long, long, long time ago.