He hesitated a moment longer, weighing the pros and cons of taking her back with them. It wasn't in his nature or training to leave a fallen comrade behind, but the incredibly high stakes in this situation forced him to reconsider. Someone had killed her, and that someone would expect to find her body here. If she didn't remain where she was expected to be

"Shit," he breathed almost without sound, the curse a small cloud of cold mist. "Sorry, kid. I"

It was his instinct to look someone in the eye when delivering a hard truth, and so he looked into Sarah Warren's dead eyes when he began to tell her he would have to leave her body here to be recovered by her murderers.

Her eyes were changing. As he watched, they slowly fogged over, the irises and pupils at first dimmed and finally completely obscured by white. And in the bright moonlight the angles of her face seemed sharper, the planes becoming hollows, as if more than her life had beenwas beingsucked out of her.

Galen had seen many dying and dead over the years, but he had never seen anything like this before. And for one of the very few times in his adult life, he felt suddenly vulnerable. Nakedly vulnerable.

His gun couldn't protect him here. Couldn't even help him.

Nothing could.

He found himself withdrawing his hand from under her shoulder and was conscious of an almost overwhelming urge to leave, now, to get as far away from this place as he could, as fast as he could.

But once again, he wasn't quite fast enough.

He was still rising, just beginning to turn, when he saw the three men only a few yards away, moving swiftly through the woods toward him with a silence that was uncanny.

The one in front, a tall man with wide shoulders and a stone-cold expression, already had his weapon out and raised and offered neither warning nor any chance at all. The big silver gun bucked in his hand.

Galen felt the bullet slam into his chest before he heard the muffled report, felt the frozen ground hard beneath him, and was dimly aware of his own weapon falling from nerveless fingers. He couldn't seem to breathe without a choking sensation, and blood bubbled up into his mouth, sharp and coppery.