AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Rebekah’s mind racedwith plans to delay his departure, to lock down the office without arousing hissuspicions. Could she offer him a glass of water? Suggest they step outside forsome fresh air where she could signal someone for help? The options spunthrough her head, each one fraught with its own set of risks.
But first, she had tostabilize the situation, create a semblance of safety.
‘You're brave to sharethis with me,’ Rebekah said, her voice a practiced calm she didn't feel. ‘Let'stalk about what's been happening with you. We must stay here together and workthrough this.’ She hoped her words were enough to tether him to the room, tobuy her enough time to hitch her plan.
Rebekah's heartbeathammered against her ribcage, the rhythm frantic as she watched the young manrise from his chair and pace before her. The air in the room felt too thick,laced with the acrid scent of fear that clung to the back of her throat. Shadowsplayed across his face, thrown by the muted light filtering through the blinds,casting half his expression in darkness.
‘Please, sit down,’Rebekah implored, her voice barely more than a whisper, but it only seemed tofuel his agitation.
‘No!’ he spat out, hisbody tense, like a coiled spring. ‘You don't get it. I can't... I can't controlit much longer.’
With every twitch ofhis muscles, every clench of his jaw, Rebekah felt an invisible noosetightening around the room. She edged toward her desk, her mind screaming forescape. ‘I... I need to make a call. Just a routine check – in, you understand.’
But her words were metwith a glare that pinned her to the spot, his eyes dark tunnels where reasonhad once resided. ‘No calls.’ Daniel bellowed, the force of his voice slamminginto her like a physical blow.
Rebekah's mouth wentdry, her plans evaporating as she stood frozen, trapped in his gaze. She couldsee it then – the raw, unfiltered intent – and knew with chilling certaintythat her life balanced precariously on the edge of a knife. Her training had preparedher for many things, but nothing quite like the visceral dread that now clawedits way up her spine.
In that split second,her decision was made. Survival instincts kicked in, and she lunged for thephone.
But it was too late.
With a guttural roar,the young man launched himself across the room, propelled by a fury that seemedsuperhuman. The impact was brutal, his weight crashing into her like a wreckingball. Papers fluttered to the floor, the room spun in a kaleidoscope of colorsand shapes.
‘Help me,’ Rebekah triedto scream, but it came out as a choked whisper, lost amid the cacophony ofoverturned chairs and shattering glass. The young man's hands found her throat,squeezing with a desperation that matched the terror in her own heart. As blackspots danced at the edges of her vision, Rebekah's last coherent thought was asilent plea to anyone who might be listening:
Please, let them findme in time.
CHAPTER ONE
The morning chillclung to Ella’s skin like a damp shroud as she approached Mia Ripley's home.The faint hues of dawn painted the horizon in strokes of pastel pink and softblue, casting a surreal glow over the sprawling grounds of Ripley's ruralsanctuary just outside of Washington D.C. The lushness of the landscape was notlost on Ella, who often found solace in nature’s meticulous disorder.
However, this morning,her focus was elsewhere, her mind racing with questions about the unexpectedsummons.
Ella’s leather bootscrunched softly on the gravel driveway; her strides were steady but weary fromthe exhaustion of her last case. The press had already taken to calling theunsub the Suffocator, an unoriginal moniker that did little justice tothe terror he had wrought across Connecticut. She and Ripley had barely managedto catch a few hours of sleep after the grueling capture before the sunrisebeckoned them into consciousness once again.
The silence of theearly hour seemed incongruous with whatever urgency had driven her partner tocall her here when a well–deserved rest was due for both of them.
As Ella reachedRipley’s front door, the electronic glass doors immediately granted her entry.Ripley stood there, her usually impeccable suit disheveled, the shadows underher eyes betraying a night spent far from sleep. Without saying a word,Ripley's grip was firm on Ella's arm, pulling her inside with a hastiness thatset off alarms in Ella's head.
‘Ripley, what's goingon?’ Ella asked, her voice steady despite the new wave of adrenaline.
Her partner – theFBI’s most revered agent – looked a far cry from the woman Ella had foughtbeside for the past year and a half. She pushed back her curly brown locks andsaid, ‘Randall Carter.’
Ella rolled her eyes.‘What’s he done now?’
In the intricate webof FBI relationships, the bond between Ella, Ripley, and Randall Carter was afracture marred by a long – standing grudge, its roots buried deep in a pastincident that neither time nor Carter's recent elevation to director couldheal. Fifteen years prior, Carter had made an egregious attempt to spikeRipley’s drink – an action that Ripley had responded to with a fist.
‘He’s dead,’ Ripleysaid.
The words hit Ellawith the force of a physical blow. Despite the stillness of the room, the worldseemed to tilt on its axis.
‘Come again?’
‘Dead. Shot outsidehis home last night.’
Randall Carter, theman who had been a thorn in their sides since his appointment as FBI director,was gone, murdered, up and vanished like a gambler’s lucky streak.
Ella felt her handsball into fists at her side, her nails digging into her palms as if trying toanchor herself to reality.
