Page 82 of Wired Justice

Sophie noticed the flutter of a green plastic tie, affixed to a branch. He was navigating through the forest with more than his GPS. Her mind scrambled for a way to even the odds, to slow him down. The longer he took to get her where he was going, the better chance she had for someone to find her.

Jake’s face appeared in her mind, his gray eyes intent with passion as he gazed at her, his hand warm over her cold one. Her chest squeezed. Jake was going to be so frantic to find her. He would blame himself that she had been taken, no matter how illogical it was.

Alika’s dear face flashed to mind next. That kiss at the helicopter had truly been goodbye. At least they’d ended their relationship as friends, and saved a young boy together. Tears of self-pity filled her eyes for the first time. Why couldn’t her life be simpler? Safer? More normal? Alika always made her wish for those things.

Connor’s chiseled features appeared last, lit in the blue-gray glow of a computer. The Ghost was somewhere out there, pulling strings like the puppet master he was. No one knew him or saw the real him but her. It was a privilege, and a curse. She couldn’t help her longing and ambivalence. He was her counterpart.

Each of these men would grieve for her, and she was sorry for that.

A deep, steamy vent appeared beneath her feet, the brink hidden by an overgrowth of grass and ferns. Sophie stumbled, unable to catch herself from falling forward. Chang grabbed her arms and pulled her back from the edge. He stabilized her, his breath tickling the tender hairs at her ear as he chuckled.

“Whoops. Wouldn’t want you to fall in too soon.” He tugged her by one of her arms, wrenching it in its socket and wringing a cry from Sophie’s numb lips. “Right this way.” Chang sounded like he was taking her for a picnic, his voice bright with energy and a fillip of lust, too. He planned to rape her before he threw her into the vent.

Sophie’s resolve hardened.

It didn’t matter if she died in the next half hour; all that mattered was that she took Akane Chang with her.

Sophie kept her focus on monitoring Chang as he steered her through the rough underbrush. She had to be ready when he made his move.

Even as she thought this, Chang kicked the back of her knee and shoved her forward. Without her arms for balance, Sophie went down face first in a patch of soft, springy grass. Chang landed on her back with his full body weight, blasting the air out of her lungs.

She moaned as his weight crushed her bound arms. Chang settled himself on her. He ground his pelvis into her backside. One hand held the knife at the junction of her jaw and throat, and the other hand slid down her body, pressing his fingers into her intimate places through the tight exercise clothes she wore.

Sophie shut her eyes and detached. She relaxed her breathing, going limp beneath him, letting him have his moment of victory.

Chang’s breath rasped in her ear harshly as he tried to work his hand into her tight pants to peel them down. She could feel the revolting hardness of his erection. “May your penis be invaded by flesh eating worms, and fall blackened off your rotting corpse!”

“You’re so sexy when you talk dirty to me.” Chang was not intimidated by her verbal voodoo.

Strategic.She had to think strategic. Face down, with her arms bound, she had no leverage. On the other hand, screwing her in that position was proving to be a bit challenging too, especially with her restrictive clothing. But on her back with her legs free . . .

“Aren’t you man enough to look me in the eye while you rape me?” Sophie’s voice was muffled by the grass, but he must have heard it clearly because his body stiffened.

“I can do whatever I want with you.” Chang shoved himself upright and away up from her body, squeezing the air out of her once again. He flipped her by her shoulder.

Sophie was now on her back, lying on her bound arms, which might have been painful if she had been allowing any pain signals into her awareness. But all she felt was power pumping through her body, and a readiness to kill or die trying.

Chang stood over her, his legs braced wide, exulting in her helpless position—and that was his mistake. Sophie whipped up a knee, and kicked him in the balls with everything she had.

The man gave a choked cry and collapsed, falling to one side and gagging in pain, his hands clutched over his mangled manhood. Sophie pulled in her abs and jumped to her feet.

Chang curled up into the fetal position, gasping. Sophie shoved him onto his back with a foot, and he moaned, bringing his knees close protectively, hands still wrapped around his package.

“I’ve always wanted to really test the effectiveness of a full force kick to a man’s groin. But none of my opponents in the ring were ever stupid enough to give me that kind of opening.” Sophie pushed Chang’s knees aside and knelt on his chest to hold him in place, her fingers scrabbling on the ground for the fallen knife.

Chang gasped for air, his color mottled, his eyes rolling. She got hold of the knife and awkwardly sawed the zip tie while the man writhed and gagged, still completely impaired.

The plastic eventually parted. Sophie shook out her arms, glorying in the tingling of restored circulation. She brought a hand around and put the point of the blade under Chang’s chin, poking the skin hard enough to pierce it. Chang shut his eyes, the color draining from his face.

“One good push, and this knife is in your brain. But I think that’s a little too good and way too easy a death for a man who enjoyed killing as much as you did. I think you need to answer some questions first.” Sophie traced the blade along Chang’s throat, scratching the skin and raising droplets of welling blood. “Where else did you hide bodies?”

“Why should I tell you?” He rasped.

“Because, like you said to me—you can die fast, or you can die slow.” Sophie felt completely detached from the pain she was inflicting as she sliced off a bit of Chang’s ear. He wailed. “Got any last confessions about the locations of other bodies?”

“No!”

Sophie pried Chang’s hands off his groin and pressed the point of the knife into the bulge there. Chang gagged reflexively from the pain, but when he got his breath back he spat the words out. “Don’t cut me there! I’ll tell you.”

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