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She fastened the pack on her back and slipped out the front door Crouching in the darkness, she opened her senses to the environ barked in the distance Two sentriesthe perimeter of the ranch fence, nearly invisible but for their body heat which stood out to her against the chill night air
Thirty, she thought as her internal tied her mother’s unconscious state out to ninety seconds and was closing in fast on zero Tiet away before the alarm went off She masked her psychic presence, slowed her heart so as to decrease her body heat, and set off down the asphalt driveway at a quick stroll Thanks to the wards and runes along the periy
When the heat signature of the sentries faded in the distance to be almost undetectable, she was about halfway down the driveway Still, the alar her curious and very wary Fear destroys logic, she re back to the lessons her Art of War instructor had beaten into her head Panic defies reason Act with reason and logic Easy things to re the heat of battle or the cold fear of discovery during an escape She’d learned the hard hen va their attes had worked out, a when he’d saved her She could almost feel him at times and wondered if she was truly in love with hi to her when he’d pushed life back into her
"Of course I love him," she said aloud She’d loved him even before their first kiss From the way he respected her as an equal to the way he so and did
He could be headstrong, but he’d taught her to stop being so stubborn all the time and to listen to her heart He’d been such a silly boy at first but had grown into a man--one ould stand up to bullies for his friends and never hesitate to protect those he loved Maybe he wasn’t the best planner in the world, but his heart was always in the right place And he had a great ass
A smile touched her lips
Who wouldn’t love ayour heart He almost sacrificed his life’s blood for you Treasure him
She reached the end of the driveway and listened No alar body heat to indicate Leia had finally cohter Worry stabbed Elyssa Had she h she ht now? Elyssa kne to hit properly She could disable a person, completely incapacitate theht, she felt certain of it But the one percent of doubt multiplied in her head
Doubt kills hope Hope is the light that leads to victory against all odds Her Art of War instructor, Victor Mazin, an old one-eyed huain, that crap usually helped her through times like this and filled her with the resolve to o back nearly halted her forward progress but she forced herself onward, reciting mantra in her head She’d set out on this path and noas her duty to cos He should be back at Shelton’s by now She pulled out her smartphone and retrieved the GPS coordinates for his hideaway Listened for afollowed When she heard nothing, she zipped down the road a arage through a broken back door
Vandals had broken lass froh to lift thepit underneath the car lifts or bright enough to find where she’d relocated the button to the hydraulic lift She leapt up to the rafters and reached inside a vent, pressing the "Up" button on the control she’d fastened there One of the lifts ru as the unit ascended, taking a thick metal plate with it Once it was fully up, Elyssa dropped to the floor and entered the pit She picked up the long ten by twelve piece of luainst the lip of the pit
The old Harley she’d hidden here had half a tank of fuel left and started on the first try She’d ridden it aluided it up the wooden rahtest of rue to silence a Harley, but her brother Michael had helped her with it, agreeing one could still ride in perfect style without all the noise
After closing the oil pit, Elyssa hopped on the h the broken down back door on the garage She activated the GPS on her phone and took off for Shelton’s place Soon she’d be back with Justin and the world would feel right again
Chapter 11
I heard screae I saas a wooden-beaht was blurry, like looking through a filthyonlythe vieorse when you try to wipe it clean with a sleeve The roaring grew louder Solass shattered
"My house!" a fes completely iht and resisted, but I finally raised it enough to peer between e ebony paw lashed out at the wolf’s muzzle but it ducked away, its silvery eyes locked onto whatever was assailing it
Ryland That’s Ryland My thoughts churned like dirty water, but I slowly recalled who and what the large as Why was I tied down? A creature yowled Claws scrabbled across a hard surface A thud and another yowl followed, and a sleek black figure appeared, slipping and sliding, before crashing into the fraht