SAGE
I stood in a dark cave, alone. But somewhere far away, there was shouting. The yelling echoed, moving down the cave all the way to my ears.
Then, I could see the mouth of the cave. A small bit of light. Someone was there, calling my name from the opening. But it was too far away. I could barely make out the outline of the person through the darkness.
“Sage!” The voice drew suddenly closer, my body now at the mouth of the cave. But the light was too bright.
“Sage, wake up!” Jack’s voice rang solid in my ears, and when my eyes blinked open again, his face came into focus.
My wrists and ankles had been released from their straps. Beyond that, my mind only registered two things: The pain in my spine, and Jack’s aura—which felt stronger than it ever had before. The desire to get closer, like he pulled me in with some unseen force, felt completely out of my control. What had happened to me? I pushed past the headache and tried to move beyond the pull.
“Your dad’s phone call is only buying us time.” Jack’s face was serious. He wore a gun belt at his waist. If he felt any bit of a matching desire, he masked it well. “C got confirmation. Your dad’s helicopter will be at the other end of the island at 9am.”
Jack helped me sit up. The warmth of his hand on my arm burned my skin, electricity shot through my body.
“We don’t have much time.”
“Beckett?” I said.
“Meeting in the vent in five minutes. You okay?”
I nodded, but the pulse in my head and spine sent me back to the gurney.
Jack wrapped his hand around my arm and looked me in the eyes. “You can do this.”
He gently pulled me to standing, and then stepped away from the bed, revealing unconscious guards lying on the floor near the door.
With only a few strides as a running start, Jack jumped, and then launched his feet off the side wall, sending his body into the air with enough height to grab for the vent opening. Soundlessly, he pulled himself up and into the vent.
Jack’s arm came down in the space of the room. “Wheel the gurney over and climb on.”
I obeyed. Once I stood on the mattress, Jack grabbed for my extended arm just before I felt myself losing my balance. He wrapped my forearm with his hand and pulled me inside. I leaned against the vent tunnel, the world spinning around me.
Jack pressed his hand to his earbud. “We’re in.”
“10-4,” Caesar said.
Jack nodded down the vent. “Four minutes to our drop,” he said to me. “Let’s move.”
We started to crawl.