3
Angela ducked under his arm, grunting in effort as she spun and dropped, throwing her leg out to trip him. Anticipating her, Marc jumped, but she'd counted on that and immediately spun again, her leg catching his ankle as he landed.
Tripping, he rolled forward. Marc was on his feet in an instant, turning, and knew she was already there, and he was impressed.
Angela used the palms of both hands to shove him, hard, and for the first time since he'd begun to teach her, Marc landed on his ass in the dirt, grunting at the impact. "Very, very good. Now, do it again."
Angela rushed him the second he was upright, eyes going to his right. When he defended the left, she came straight up the middle, hands going to his big arms, leg sweeping him again as she shoved and ducked the fingers that tried to pull her along as he fell.
"That's was great," he praised, starting to get back up.
"Don't move!"
Her tone froze him with his hands splayed out in the dirt. He sensed movement near his fingers as she slowly drew her weapon.
"Roll to your right when I start, and come up firing. Targets at ten, two and three."
Marc heard the soft pad of paws, more than one, and watched her eyes for the moment to react.
"Shit. Two more at 12 o' clock," Angela watched the three lanky, gray-and-white wolves, trying to judge their intentions. When a big black-and-gold animal she hadn't seen lunged toward from the shadows, there was only time to react.
Angela fired, a bit wildly on the first few shots, and one of the rounds caught the wolf in mid-leap, slamming into its chest. It landed on the ground with a hard thud as Marc rolled and hit his feet, began to fire.
"Watch your six!" he warned, immediately sure they were pack-hunting. He put them back to back as the brittle stalks around them swayed with barely seen movement. The sky had begun to darken as they worked out, but neither had worried, used to being in the dark, but this time they had let dangerous predators get close.
Suddenly, they were under attack, moving eyes gleaming at them through the dusk-tinted rows. They fired at the same time, dropping two wolves that had jumped from opposite sides.
A dark shadow appeared at her hip, and Angela stopped herself from shooting as she recognized Dog. Her eyes narrowed on a stocky white wolf running in and out of the distant, yellow stalks. Before she could take aim on the leader, another shadow streaked past her.