Chapter 50: – The Price of Freedom

Chapter 50: – The Price of Freedom


The wind burst through the open windows of the race car, harsh and frigid outside. The engine howled as it shook the still, but here tension hung like a damp rag.

Jake leaned against Zane in the backseat, gasping heaved. Too shallow. Too much too shallow.

Zane cleaned the gash on Jake's side, fingers slick with blood. "Don't leave me," he snarled out, voice rough and commanding. "We're close. Just a little closer."

Jake's eyelids fluttered. "You say that lots of times."

Zane clamped his teeth hard. "Because it's true."

Mia's knuckles were white with tension as her tightly clenched fist gripped the steering wheel. "I don't know how far we can go. We have to stop."

Rico, the shotgun rider, shook his head. "No. Not yet. Lisa's men are on the roads. We take the side streets."

Mia gasped with venom. "He's losing too much blood. We can't wait."

Zane would not look at her. He knew that already.

Jake's head jerked on his chest to an evil cadence. Too much blood lost. Too much hurt.

Zane's fists clenched into a more compact fist. "I did not leave you to die on me. Do you hear me?"

Jake's lips curled into a lopsided, incomplete smile. "You sound concerned."

Zane exhaled from his lungs. "You don't know the half."

Lisa's Wrath

Lisa herself stood at the wreckage of her own unsuccessful coup.

Her impenetrable fortress now wore the faces of betrayal—broken glass on the floor, knocked-out guards scattered around, cartridge shells stacked.

She rubbed her jaw, knuckles bunched.

Lena rose to her feet, arms folded. "You underestimated him."

Lisa gasped, anger contained. "No. I fought with him. And now I have some idea of what he is capable of."

She was handed one of the remaining enforcers. "Bring them back. I don't care how long it takes, I want them alive."

The enforcer hesitated. "And if they're fighting?"

Lisa's smile was in place. "Break them."

Lena smiled. "I like this part of you."

Lisa's gaze cut to her. "You think there is another part."

She seethed at the blazing windows, her fists clenching tight. Jake believed he was free.

He wasn't.

Flashback: The Desire for An Eight-Year-Old's Freedom

Jake had been eight the last time that he'd ever have felt like a prisoner.

He'd sat outside a little away from the pack lines. His eyes looking up to the horizon. The moon big round one some place far off. Free.

Lisa had talked quiet alongside warm. "What're you staring at?"

Jake had shrugged. "Stars. Don't have to stay where they're supposed to. They just. move anywhere."

Lisa's face was buried in his, a tangle of hair keeping her nestled in the bend of his ear. "That isn't how it is, Jake. There's always a line. A rule. A border."

Jake scrunched up his lip. "Then I don't want to be a part of this world."

Lisa's smile never changed, but for one moment something frigid had slipped behind her eyes. "Then we'll simply have to get the world working for you, won't we?"

She'd wrapped her arms around him, kissed the crown of his head. And for one moment Jake'd thought she was.

Years went by, hands that had spilled blood now and burden of his choice on his conscience, he couldn't help but question if and when he ever succeeded in escaping her grasp.

Nowhere is Safe

Mia drove the vehicle literally into a hidden clearing, slamming the engine. The deafening silence that followed was choking.

Zane was fast, spewing Jake out of the vehicle and onto the sidewalk. His heart was weak, face spectral.

Zane had been searching for the first aid kit, but his own hands shook. "Zane, we need equipment from professional medics. We can't do anything with wounds on the street."

Rico fell back from them. "We can't afford to go to a hospital. Lisa has spies everywhere."

Zane shoved them out of the way, forehead against Jake's. Burning. Too burning. Fever had its hold now.

"You just hang in there, okay?"
Zane growled.

Jake's eyes creaked open millimeters at most. "Didn't think I was going to let you go."
Mia swallowed. "Zane, we have to get him out of here. Now."

Zane glared up at her, but before he could move—

A branch snapped.

They hung in mid-air.

Mia's gun hand, staring into the darkness. "Tell me that was a deer."

Rico drew his sabre. "That was not a deer."

The darkness undulated.

Then—red laser beams intersecting, slicing their chests in circles of death.

Zane's breath caught. "No."

A voice out of the shadows. Smooth. Cold. Familiar.

"You didn't think you'd escape us, did you?"

The enforcers stepped forward into the clearing. Guns held high.

Lisa's army had at last caught up with them.

Mia slammed her hand against her gun. "You've got to be kidding."

Rico snarled across the air, hunt growl, as he dropped into fight crouch. "Well. That was fast."

Zane, driven by animal fury, slid into guard over Jake's corpse. He would never lose again.

Top enforcer's smile broadened, a glint of sadistic pleasure. "Lower your guns. We can do this easy and nice."

Zane's knuckles whitened as he tightened his fists. "Yeah? Well hear this, my response."

He charged forward, a blur of motion, fueled by rage and desperation. The screen darkened, hung frozen in un-heard silence while the choice swayed poised in the balance.