Page 28 of Raven Blackwood
I narrowed my eyes. “And how exactly do you think I’m going to do that?
He grinned, flashing yellowed teeth. “Simple. I send word to Raven Blackwood—either he gets out of Brislow and never looks back, or he watches you suffer.”
A chill ran down my spine, but I refused to look away. “You really think Raven will just walk away?” I laughed, shaking my head. “You don’t know him at all.”
Jenkins’s smile faltered for half a second before he covered it with a sneer. He stood, walking around the desk until he was in front of me. “I know he’s got weaknesses. And right now, you’re the biggest one.”
He reached down, gripping my chin in his calloused fingers. I yanked my head back, fury blazing through me.
“You touch me again, and I swear to God, you’ll regret it,” I hissed.
Jenkins just laughed, stepping back. “Fiery little thing, aren’t you? No matter. By the time I’m through, Raven will be long gone, and you—well, you won’t be much good to anyone.”
Fear curled in my stomach, but I shoved it down. I wouldn’t let him break me.
Raven was coming.
I just had to hold on until then.
Raven
I sent a quick message to the team to let them know someone kidnapped Hannah, and I started my sky cycle. The thrusters on my hovercycle screamed as I pushed it to its limit. Jenkins’s men had taken Hannah and dragged her off while I’d been busy cleaning up the town. Rage burned through me, white-hot and vicious. But rage alone wasn’t going to find her. The nanites would.
I called up the tracker, letting my nanites lock onto hers. A faint signal pulsed in the distance, miles away from Brislow and growing fainter by the minute. They were hauling her out somewhere remote. Somewhere, they thought I wouldn’t find her.
Fools.
My HUD displayed the coordinates, the numbers flashing in sync with my pounding heart. I opened a comm line to my team. Orion’s voice came through first, followed by Steele and Trinity. They were still sweeping Brislow.
“I’ve got her location,” I said, my voice tight. “Jenkins’s men took her to an old mining site mansion twenty miles northwest. I’m sending you the coordinates.”
“Understood,” Orion replied. “We’re thirty minutes out.”
“I’m not waiting,” I snapped. “Catch up when you can.”
“Raven—” Steele started to argue, but I cut the line. Every second spent talking was another second Hannah remained in danger.
The hovercycle’s thrusters roared as I pushed them harder, the landscape blurring beneath me.
Hannah
The hours blurred. Someone called Jenkins from the room. One of the guards posted near the window stepped outside to smoke, while the other leaned in the doorway, as if he had nowhere better to be.
I glanced toward the open window, moonlight spilling across the wooden floorboards. And that’s when I saw it.
A flicker.
Something—or—someone—moved between the trees just beyond the edge of the clearing.I froze, eyes straining in the dark.
There.
The glint of green scales. A sinuous tail vanishes behind a tree.
I blinked, stunned.What the hell was that?
A trick of the light. It had to be. Or maybe my mind was playing games with me, cracking under the pressure. I didn’t have time to question it because the sound of an engine roared in the distance, drawing closer by the second.
The guard in the doorway tensed. “What the hell…?”
