Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 75656 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75656 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
“No, I don’t, but I know what it’s like to live with fear. I know how it is to plan for the worst because the worst already happened once.”
Her eyes fill with tears, and though I know she hates to cry, she doesn’t try to hide it. “I can’t keep running from him,” she whispers.
Behind her, Calder’s got his chin up, standing firm.
Elena blinks, and the tears slide down her cheeks.
“Then we make our stand here,” I say, straightening. “No more pretending cameras and lights are enough,” I say. “We treat this like what it is.”
“A hunt.” Calder’s tone is flat.
“We tighten everything. School, house, travel, routines. No solo movement. No assumptions.”
Elena stands taller. “T.J. stays with me.”
“He does.”
“And nobody makes decisions for me.”
I give her a grim smile. “You were never going to allow that.”
“No.” For the first time since she walked in, some of the panic leaves her face, and resolve takes its place.
I slide my hand up to her shoulder and squeeze once. “Then we do this together.”
She closes her eyes briefly. “Together,” she says when she looks at us again.
“Together,” Calder echoes.
I think about T.J.’s desk and the ruined science projects. About the glove hidden behind the shelf and the grainy footage of Anton Kozlov coming into the school like he had a right to be there.
Protective fury is too small a phrase for what lives in me now.
We’re done reacting. He wanted us scared and off balance. Instead, he gave me certainty.
This is war, and he’s not going to get another free shot.
CHAPTER 33
WESTON
By all appearances, I’m volunteering at the school to get the sports fields in shape for spring.
In reality, I’m working a perimeter.
I keep moving, never in a straight line for too long, never settling into a pattern. Trips to the main building for supplies give me a chance to patrol the entrance and the staff lot before I head back past the gym and out to the edges of the property.
All the while, I catalog doors, windows, sightlines, blind corners, fresh tire tracks, and anything out of place.
I circle toward the back of the field and walk along the fenceline, bucket in one hand, rake in the other. Beyond the fence, where scrub and pine clusters provide too many concealment points, I feel something before I see it.
When I get a prickle at the base of my skull, I transfer the rake to my other hand and scratch my neck to make it look like an itch is the reason I’m slowing down. Meanwhile, I’m scanning the terrain without locking in on anything in particular too quickly.
Deep in the brush, where the tree limbs hang low, there’s a shadowy shape that doesn’t fit. It’s too straight in one place and too matte in another. There’s a line that reflects a shard of afternoon sun.
I keep walking a few more steps, then glance down as if I’m checking my footing, and that’s when the shadow moves.
A man in a dark jacket bursts out of the brush. Medium height, solid build, ball cap pulled low. As he grabs for a bag at his feet, I catch sight of the pale skin of his face and trimmed beard. I don’t see enough to identify him with certainty, but he fits.
He bolts in the opposite direction, and I’m after him in the next breath, bucket and rake dropped and forgotten. I vault over the fence and jump clear of the ditch in a spray of loose gravel. My boots hit uneven ground and keep going.
He’s fast, but not panicked. He moves like he’s already mapped escape routes before he ever took the position.
“Hey!” It’s pointless, and I know it as soon as I shout it.
He doesn’t look back and doesn’t miss a step. Instead of going deeper into the trees, he cuts west, a route that’ll put houses and alleys between us. It’s a smart move that’ll give him more options, better cover, and maybe even civilians to complicate the chase.
Adrenaline burning through me, I close some of the distance crossing an open patch, but he’s still about thirty yards ahead when he cuts south, and I lose sight of him.
I sprint with everything in me and lock onto him again on the second side street down.
The backstreets of Moon Ridge are no help. They twist around uneven property lines and switch from cracked pavement to gravel to dirt. Narrow lanes run past garages, old sheds, fences, laundry lines, and trash cans, and he runs like he knows where he’s going anyway.
I gain on him when he hesitates at a chain-link gate, maybe finding it latched when he expected it to be open. He glances back at me, and even with the hat’s brim shadowing his eyes, I catch the sharp assessment in his face. No fear. Calculation.