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I peer out the open window and look at the pillow, caught in the tree branches right outside her window. A cat meows. Again. Again.
I tense.
Something’s off.
My body’s half in, half out of the window. A light breeze pushes the leaves toward me, the rustle a familiar sound. When you live this close to the ocean, the wind becomes a second language.
And it’s telling me something right now.
Instinct takes over. The amygdala sends rat-brain signals to my body. I stand up on the windowsill, look down, and coil my leg muscles. Too tight and I’ll snap a bone. Too loose and I’ll burst my spleen.
And...I jump.
You think the impact from the landing is the worst part of a long fall. It’s actually the seconds where you’re suspended in midair. With nothing to set you in space and time, you float.
You float like there is no sense of touch. Reaching out yields air. You can’t track time or measure your space. It’s like you don’t exist.
Until you land.
I dart to the left, my thighs screaming from quick, sharp movement.
I tackle the sound before I even hear it. My arms whip around the source of the noise, caging it in, pressing it against the mulch and grass, the carefully edged lawn around the base of the house.
“Mphhhh! Mmmm! Uh uh!” says the sound.
The sound is soft and hot, twisty and frantic.
And then the sound speaks.
“Fuck you, Drew!”
I sigh, as much as you can sigh while you’re taking an adrenaline bath as you straddle the woman who stole your gun and escaped from nine members of your security team.
“I love you, too, Lindsay.”
“Let me go!”
“No.”
“You can’t keep me here.”
She’s legally right, but operationally wrong.
I lighten up just enough for her to move from her side onto her back, our mouths inches apart.
Just like a few hours ago, in her bed.
A few pesky little details have changed since then.
“Where’s my gun?”
She clamps her lips shut.
Like that’s going to work.
“Lindsay,” I say in a low, even voice that is designed to scare the shit out of her. “Give me my gun or I’ll have my guys personally escort you back to that fucking island, only this time you’ll arrive by parachute in the ocean a quarter mile offshore.”
