Page 10 of Synnr's Ride

Jori stared at that same spot on her forehead for several long seconds, waiting for her to finish.

Hanna kept her mouth shut.

Eventually he let out a breath. "This is for team building. The covert team is finalizing our backstories right now, but sitting in a room and memorizing files isn't going to do much for selling our... relationship." He had to swallow past something in his throat to get that word out. We're going to run the course as a team."

She nodded and scanned over the parts of the course she could see. "Sounds fun."

He made a sound of frustration. "It's not fun, Miss Karsyn. This is life and death."

"What's the point of life if you don't have a little fun? And the name's Hanna, Jori. You're going to blow our cover if you forget that."

Their gazes met, and it had to be a trick of the light, but Hanna could swear that she saw Jori's spark dancing in his eyes. Could she have riled him up that much just by saying his name?

Deep in the warehouse she heard something slam shut, then the light over the door behind her flicked from blue to yellow.

"Did we just get locked in?"

"It's part of the mission. We're supposed to work together to find the controller for the doors and unlock them. We're stuck here until we do." The lights were starting to come on, still dim, but giving her enough illumination to see the true breadth of the course.

"Obviouslywe're both awesome and will kill this course in no time, but what if we can't find the controls? Or if there's a fire?"

Hanna had to be hallucinating. She could have sworn she saw a smile tug at his cheek, but it was gone in a second. "Obviously the locks disengage if there's an emergency. And the doors will automatically disengage in six hours if we fail."

Six hours stuck in a warehouse alone with Jori. Hanna wasn't sure if that was a fantasy come true or a nightmare.

Jori nodded towards the edge of the course. "Follow me."

4

This was never goingto work.

Hanna pushed herself up from where Jori had pushed her down—to avoid an obstacle, he assured her—and glared at her partner. Sweat dripped down her back and exhaustion made her bones heavy.

How long had they been doing this? Two hours? Four?

She feared that if she had a watch, she'd find out they hadn't been on the course for more than thirty minutes.

Jori was a harsh taskmaster and he didn't want to hear a word from her that wasn'tyessir. Hanna's spark sizzled in her veins, and it had nothing to do with his sultry good looks or strokable hair.

"Do it again," Jori ordered as he watched her slowly push herself to her feet. And, of course, he didn't offer a hand up. At this point, Hanna would have batted it away.

"We've been stuck here for a while. Your way isn't working. We need to double back." They were stuck between two small towers on the course. In front of them, a large pendulum swung back and forth, cutting them off from jumping between one tower and the next. Even more frustrating, if they approached the edge of the tower and hesitated for more than a second, a hovering drone blasted at them.

Thus the tackle.

"This is the way forward," Jori insisted. "I've done this course before."

"And if you don't think that there are multiple ways to complete a course like this, you're crazy." She backed up to the far edge of the tower and eyed the ladder that would lead her back to the ground.

The course was all sharp edges and dark corners. And it was chock full of drones and robots ready to challenge them if they turned the wrong corner or ducked into the wrong alcove.

"The controls are in the box on the next tower," Jori told her, reaching for her but stopping his hand before they actually made contact. He only seemed willing to touch her if he was violently tackling her to the floor.

"Then let's get there another way." Hanna was tired of failing. And, frankly, listening to Jori was going to drive her insane. "You're doing this too... straightforwardly."

"What?" He glared at her before turning back to the pendulum. He rushed the edge and paused, darting back as the drone came into sight. "It's a straightforward challenge."

"Maybe for a soldier, but we're not soldiers right now, Jori. We have to think creatively." Something below them crashed, and Hanna glanced down. "Punt."

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