Page 81 of Off Her Game

He stuck it in a drive and booted it up.

Please please work.

The program booted up to show lines of code. He chuckled. “Very good, Tori.”

She spun on her heel for a quick evac.

“We’re not done,” he said. “Nowhere near done.”

“You got into my head when I didn’t know what you looked like. Now all I can see is a teenager pretending to be a doped-out surfer who isn’t that great at gaming. If you need some pointers, call me.”

Run!Her heart pounded like she was at a sprint as she walked up the stairs.

An arrow landed in the dry wall near her head. Arrows?

“You and I are not done,” he growled.

She spun to face him.I really, really, really don’t want to die by bow-and-arrow.“You going to murder me in your mother’s house? Implicate her in all this shit?”

He chucked the bow and targeted her with a gun. “You and I are going for a drive.”

“Are you old enough for a license?” She bit back a smile at his aggravated groan. Probably shouldn’t aggravate him when he had a weapon pointed at her, but she was banking on him not messing up his mother’s house.

He stormed up the stairs, gripped one of her arms behind her back, and propelled her in front of him out of the house.

Everything lit up around them the moment they stepped into the front yard. She squinted against spotlights. A lot of guys in tactical gear aimed big guns their way. She made out NSA on the sleeve of one guy and SWAT on another.

Over a megaphone boomed, “Martin, drop the gun.”

“What the hell?” He pulled her tighter against him and pressed the muzzle of a gun to her head. “I’ll shoot her.”

“Drop the gun or we’ll shoot,” the megaphone voice replied.

Her body trembled to the point she thought her legs might give out. Even though terrified, a calm descended on her, the same calm that came when in the middle of the biggest gaming battles.

A gun fired. The armed men turned and began shooting at someone behind them. Her ears rang from all the gunfire.

Martin flinched and cursed. Maybe shot? But he didn’t let go of her. He dragged her to the side of the house. Years of martial arts training surfaced. Dictated by instinct and adrenaline, she head butted him and hit his wrist. The gun flew out of his hand. An elbow to his abdomen got her freedom from his grip. She swung around to launch a knee strike to his groin. Direct hit.

As he rolled on the ground she poised to strike again.

“We got it, Tori,” Quan said behind her. “Back away.”

She jumped, noticing the gunfire had stopped. “Where’d you come from?”

“Never took my eyes off you.” He rolled Martin to his stomach and cuffed him. “You get what we needed?”

“Yes.” She took the pencil-like recording device out of her hair and handed it to him. “You’re NSA?”

He yanked Martin to his feet. “I didn’t know this kid was Symphis, Tori. You figured it out.”

“You could’ve showed up a bit earlier, before he tried to kill me with a bow and arrow.”

“I missed on purpose,” Martin said.

“You have the right to remain silent.” Quan pushed him toward the waiting van where other men took Martin away.

“This way,” Quan directed. Once seated inside a plain sedan, just them, he said, “You okay? Did you get hurt?”