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With every day that passed, she was in more danger—she needed to find something useful to give Jackson. She needed to end this game while she could still win.
That cat was no accident.
She pulled up her security footage using an app on her phone. One figure, likely a man, climbed the fence, pulled the cat from a shopping bag and killed it. Anna squeezed her eyes shut. She couldn’t see his face, but her gut screamed that Dominic had sent this man, just as he’d sent the men who’d followed her into the maze.
Eventually she stood, returned the shovel to the rack—because she hated leaving things untidy— then took Miss Casino inside. She placed her in the laundry sink and quickly washed her bloody fur.
At midnight, she stared at the clock.
She was not going to sit idly by and wait for Diaz, or Dominic, to come for her.
Nor was she going to be threatened.
She grabbed her car keys.
ANNA
It loomed in the night like an otherworldly dome. Though it wasn’t, it had been used to make rockets to go to other worlds. The QARI factory had once been the hub of activity in this deserted corner of the state, but QARI had grown at a rate no one had anticipated—certainly not its founders—and they had built a newer factory more than five times the size of the one Anna was looking at.
The dome was like an omnipresent phantom on the horizon, and the longer Anna looked at it, the more she couldn’t imagine why Diaz would purchase this place.
She pulled her car into the woods a safe distance. She needed it within running distance to get away quickly, but she couldn’t drive up to the dome without triggering every alert. Even the rumble of her engine would echo through the night.
She decided to move on foot, giving her time to think, to plan.
Anna kept her pistol in her hand as she crept through the woods, her ears straining to hear any footsteps behind her, in front of her, to the side. But all she could hear were her own.
She slowed her pace as she neared the dome. The front entrance came into view through the trees. The lights were off and there were no guards at the door.
But she had no intention of walking through the front door.
Anna continued through the woods, her heart skipping a beat as she heard voices she didn’t recognize.
She crouched in the woods, using the trees for cover.
“Is the shipment ready?” a man asked.
“Packaged and ready. These deadlines are getting tighter and tighter. We can’t keep up with this,” he said, and the other muttered in agreement.
Shipments of what?
Anna needed to get inside that dome.
“What time will Dom be here?” a third man asked.
“Half an hour.”
Half an hour until Dominic arrived. Anna needed to move fast.
She wove through the trees, holding her breath every time her feet squished in the mud. Her boots were not made for this, but she knew from experience they were surprisingly effective when they lodged in the shin of an attacker.
She moved slowly, carefully, listening for voices. Every now and then she stopped to peer through the trees, watching the men move around the dome. She’d almost completed a full circle and felt confident she knew how many men were stationed outside.
She hid her phone with her jacket and tapped the screen. She had nine minutes until Dominic was supposed to arrive.
Anna had surveyed the building and found the weakest link: the south side.
She circled back, her attention focusing on the lone man sitting by the door.
