Page 112 of Shielding Instinct

“Absolutely. And you will, too.” She stretched up and kissed him. But this wasn’t a warm lingering kiss. This was tight and cold. And somehow, that reassured Hawkeye. It wasn’t a possible-last kiss; it was a ‘let’s kick ass and take names’ kind of kiss. It must mean that in all the scenarios she ran through her brilliant head, she believed in good outcomes.

Did he?

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Petra

Petra was fine with this.

She really was.

Pulling out from the shadows, she did a three-point turn, drove past where potentially the car with Herb in it would exit onto the road, did another three-point turn, and positioned herself so she could see without being seen.

Had Quantico been a while back?

Yes.

Did she practice this kind of fieldwork on the daily?

No, not even on the annually.

Stakeouts weren’t Petra’s thing. Riding on planes next to demon-dispelling, prayer-bead-munching acolytes was her thing. Attending meetings to know what was going to be allowed on one’s person during the great vacuuming flight into the cosmos before the lizard people arrived—no plants, soil, or polyester—was her thing.

But honestly, how hard could this be?

Pull in and block their car.

Don’t put your vehicle in park but reverse. Get the steering wheel lined up properly for peeling out. Be ready to drive crouched low in the seat.

That last one was a little bit fingers-crossed thinking. Hawkeye was right that the only thing that might stop a flying bullet was the engine block.

Out and away.

Their vehicle had been a cloth top, and that top had been folded down. They didn’t need to get out of their car to use the light source.

That could be problematic—Oh! Oh! Here they came.

All right.

In Petra’s head, the plan was so much easier than the doing.

Focus. There’s a child in the hospital. She’s having seizures, and the doctors don’t know what to do.

For Petra, when she presented a couple days ago as a medical mystery, as a conversant adult with a “fiancé’s” support, they let her walk out the door unsolved. The hospital couldn’t release the child until someone fixed her, right?

The child—that’s why Petra was here.

Thiswas what she was doing.

By the light of a full moon, Petra put the SUV in neutral. Slowly but surely, the gravel began to crunch as gravity tugged and her tires rolled. After picking up momentum, she moved the shifter to L to engine brake without needing to tap her foot brake with their red look-at-me lights.

She felt a shiver go through her body as the kidnapper’s vehicle eased into the parking lot and over to the space she’d predicted.

Petra loved it when her predictions were right. And honestly, it wigged her out a bit. If she didn’t know enough about brain science, she would call this psychic.

Once her SUV edged up on the parking lot, she turned on her engine, flipped on her lights, and followed all the steps.

Car in reverse, the wheel turned, the engine as a bullet blocker, and the window goes down.

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