Page 28 of Edge
I barely recognized the girl wielding books like weapons, but survival didn’t care if I was soft or small. And I knew that Tatum would want me to fight dirty.
The second man lunged. I drove my elbow into his stomach, hard enough to knock the breath out of him. He wheezed, doubled over, and I twisted, nails clawing again, this time catching him in the throat. He gagged, choking as I shoved away.
For one heartbeat, I was free.
The café sign glowed just ahead, safety so close I could taste it. Customers were sitting near the window, chatting, oblivious. I sprinted two steps?—
A meaty arm hooked around my waist and dragged me back, my feet kicking the air. My scream ripped out raw. I slammed my head back, catching his chin. He cursed but didn’t let go.
“Grab her legs!”
It was two against one now, but I knew I couldn’t stop. It was Tatum’s voice in my head that practically ordered me to keep fighting. I kicked, scratched, even bit, tasting copper when my teeth sank into someone’s hand. He howled and jerked, blood slicking his skin.
“Crazy bitch!”
“Hold her still!”
My throat burned from screaming. But for a heartbeat, the grip around my waist loosened. I twisted again, half my body free, one leg hitting pavement. Hope surged hot and bright that maybe I could break loose?—
Then the second man tackled me full force. My shoulder slammed against the side of the van, pain sparking white across my vision. A knee jammed into my thigh, pinning me.
“No!” I screamed.
“Get her in!”
Together, they hauled me off my feet, my heel driving into ribs hard enough to make someone grunt in pain. But it wasn’t enough to stop them from tossing me into the back of the van.
Through the chaos, I heard the faint tinny echo of Tatum’s voice from the phone on the sidewalk. “Callie? Callie!”
The van door slammed, cutting off that beloved voice along with the rest of the world. My scream echoed back at me in the dark before I was knocked out cold with a single punch.
11
EDGE
The second Callie’s voice cut off, my world went silent.
Not quiet like calm. More like a fuse already lit. Quiet like the thin breath before impact—when you’ve left the ramp at two hundred miles an hour, and the only thing left between you and consequence is gravity.
Her last scream still echoed in my ear, bouncing around inside my skull, and then there was nothing. Dead air. I stared at the phone like I could force it to bring her voice back. But I already knew what it meant.
She’d been taken.
My pulse slowed instead of spiking, the opposite of what it should’ve done. My breath evened out, my jaw locked so tight I felt bone grind against bone. When I spoke, my voice was low and flat, stripped down to something that didn’t even sound human anymore.
“Callie.”
Static.
Then another voice broke through, rough, smug, and riding the high of power he thought he had, trying to sound like he owned something he couldn’t even hold.
“Pretty little thing stays breathing as long as you’re smart, Beckett. You know what we want. Call this number when you’re ready to deal.”
My grip on the phone tightened until the plastic creaked.
“Put her on.” My voice came out flat. Not a plea. A command.
He laughed—sharp and giddy, high on the kind of power men like him always thought was permanent. “Not how this works. You give us those plans you keep tucked away in your little notebooks. The custom tech. The blueprints. We don’t get those, you don’t get the girl.”
