Chapter 72

 

JESSIE SPRINTED THROUGH the field, ducking the bullets cracking and pinging all around her. Asthma or no asthma, Aeron had made sure she could run when she needed to. Her lungs burned, her throat constricted but she threw herself behind a tin shed.

Footfalls pounded closer. One person. She crouched low. The man hurtled around the corner. She launched at him, gripped his gun, snapped it inward, ripped it free. She hit him in the stomach with her elbow, slammed her foot down onto the back of his knee.

He turned to swipe for her but she smacked him with the butt of the gun, knocking him to the ground. She checked his pulse. Out cold.

She closed her eyes and focused, like Aeron had said to, focused on knowing her mother was the coolest. That Aeron and Renee were heroes, that Miroslav and the others were free. She beamed, that she was free.

She peeked around the shed. Three men were closing in on the boathouse. She looked down at the gun. She hated guns. She aimed at the ground near the first man and fired.

Bam.

He turned. The other two with him. A woman appeared from the side. “There. Get her.”

One of the men turned back to the boathouse. She couldn’t make out their faces in the dark. Jessie fired again.

Bam.

The woman snapped her fingers and two of the men fired. Both of them and the woman gave chase. Jessie sprinted into motion. Her inhaler had run out. Her chest burned. She scoured for another place to hide.

Bam.

Bam.

She rolled away from the gunshots, feeling one whip past her arm. She shuddered out a breath as she hit the ground. Her hands and feet primed, she sprang back up. She spotted some kind of barn and made for it. At least she had lured most of them away. It was up to Aeron now. Aeron and Renee would get there, she knew they would.