Page 10 of Code Name: Phoenix

Steps thud along the porch on the side of the house, alerting me to our new urgency. The rest of their team are getting into position. The two men with Jack grow impatient and move toward the door. All the while, Jack is standing eerily still with his eyes on me, and Dana is yelling at me.

How am I not hearing a word she’s saying?

Zeroing in on her lips, I force myself to block out everything else and listen to her as she yells, “THERE’S NO TIME. THEY’RE BLOWING THE DOOR. I’LL DESTROY THE COMPUTERS. YOU CAN’T BE HERE. GO!”

Dana grabs me and attempts to shake me into action.

But I don’t feel it.

I don’t feel anything.

Why won’t my body work? She’s right; I can’t be here. Of all the people. I can’t be near him. I’ve been warned about this.

Then she leans in and yells one word: “RUN!”

Without another thought, I turn, and I run.

“JESSA!” Everything else is turned off, and my focus is heightened on my escape, but he still breaks through my panic.

Jack.

His voice sounds pained as I clear the living room and bolt through the kitchen toward the back door. I can’t afford to stop and analyze anything right now. We’ve already lost too much ground.

“Zane, open exit four.” I yell my command into my phone. As I hit the door, it clicks open, and I’m out of the house and off the porch within seconds as a loud popping sound echoes from the front door.

I hope Dana made it downstairs in time.

Footsteps hammer along the porch around both sides of the house, and voices shout for me to stop, but I won’t.

Dana only has enough time to make it into the basement. She won’t get out, and I need to escape if I want any chance at negotiating her freedom.

Instead, part two of my plan is set into motion as I speak the next command into my phone. “Zane, drop the porch.”

An instant later, wood splinters as the porch breaks away to ground level, taking the men with it.

I glance over my shoulder as I continue my pace to the tree line. I want to confirm neither of them made it off the porch.

Just as I turn back to focus on my escape, a figure catches my attention out of the corner of my eye.

It’s him.

Jack rounds the side of the house at a full-on sprint, and for the first time, I’m not sure if I’m going to make it.

“Stand down. Do not shoot. DO. NOT. SHOOT. She’s mine,” Jack yells, and the determination in his voice sends fear coursing through me.

I steal a second look back. He’s closing the distance between us.

His arms pump methodically, his focus remains trained on me. My only chance of escape is maintaining my lead.

“Please, don’t,” I plead.

Spending my energy on asking the man I haven’t seen for ten years to just stop chasing me is futile. I need to focus. I don’t want to think of the price I’ll pay if he catches me.

I turn my attention back to the tree line in front of me and leave everything else behind.

The countryside slips away, and I fixate on the direct path from me to the trees. Air burns down my throat as I struggle to get enough oxygen into my lungs, and my legs hurt from the pace I’m trying to maintain.

“JESSA. STOP!” His tone is laced with pain, and it devastates me, because I can’t offer him the comfort I desperately want to grant us both.

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