Evan gave one final tug on the pipe, then jumped back to the floor. “I think I loosened it that time,” he said, breathing heavily, shaking the pipe pack and forth.
Jess laughed. “I think you’ve loosened your brain."
Evan gave Jess a disapproving look. “You’re more a glass-is-half-empty kind of girl. Sarcasm is not getting us out of this room.” Evan stopped and strained his neck toward the jacket. “Shhh! The phone is vibrating!”
Jess heard the phone too. They had to get that phone before the battery could drain. It was their only chance out of the old farmhouse; otherwise Jake would return to continue his twisted game of torture. Jess started to rock her chair from side to side. Maybe if she could overturn the old, wooden chair, it would crack or break. She could then get free from its sticky duct tape clutches.
At first, the chair didn’t move much. Being duct taped in place made it difficult for Jess to shift her weight. The work she did throughout the night to loosen her wrists was paying off. A little extra movement was all that she needed. The left chair leg lifted off the floor a half an inch to the right. The progress excited her, causing her to lose her rhythm. The chair dropped down to a sudden stop.
“Come on, Jess!” Evan yelled. “You can do it! Try again!”
Jess began again, rocking the chair from side to side. Her increased blood pressure triggered the wound to start bleeding again. She used the pain in her hand as fuel to rock the chair more and more. The chair lifted, but this time, Jess was ready. She let her body float with the chair as it hung weightless for several seconds; then she followed the momentum back down, and at the perfect moment, as soon as all four legs touched the floor, she flung her body to the right. The chair lifted higher—it was going over.
Evan cringed, knowing Jess and the chair were about to crash to the floor.
As the chair hurtled toward the floor, Jess instinctively tried to break her fall, but her duct taped hands didn’t budge. The chair hit the floor, and her head bounced off the surface.
Jess didn’t scream. She lay motionless, not breathing.
Evan watched helplessly, unable to do anything as her red hair hit the floor. “Jess!” he cried, furiously tugging on his handcuffs. After a full minute of wrenching on the pipe and shouting every curse word he could remember, Evan, fighting back his tears, gave up and slumped down on his knees. His rant burned up his last bit of energy, and a wave of sadness swept over him. The phone had, once again, stopped vibrating.
Suddenly, Jess gasped for a breath, filling her lungs with air.
“Jess!” Evan shouted, blinking away the tears. “You’re alive!”
She coughed several times, sucking in deep breaths. When she finally spoke, her voice sounded weak. “For some reason,” she said, coughing again, “that was not how I saw it play out in my head.”
“Well, it’s good to know that fall didn’t crush your sense of humor,” Evan joked. “You scared the hell out of me.”
Jess lifted her head slightly. “Now I know why they have stunt doubles,” she said, tilting her head down to inspect the chair for damage.
“How does it look?” Evan asked eagerly.
Jess tried to move her arms. The duct tape held firm, and the arms of the chair were solid. Her legs were also still firmly held in place. Panic and frustration pushed Jess to the limit. She flexed her leg muscles back and forth as she let out a few choice curse words. The front right leg of the chair cracked loudly, and Jess’s leg shot away from the chair with most of the chair leg still attached.
“HA!” Evan hollered from across the room. “You’re my new hero!”
“Not yet I’m not,” she protested. “We’re far from free.”
“Baby steps, Jess. Baby steps. Can you free your other leg?”
Jess fought with the chair some more. She even tried kicking it with her free leg. It was useless; the lower cross braces were too sturdy. She would only end up hurting her free leg.
“It’s no use,” she sighed, letting her head hang at an awkward angle on the floor.
“Can you get your foot flat on the floor?”
Without lifting her head, Jess repositioned her free leg. When the bottom of her shoe found the floor, she pushed hard, moving the chair an inch or two closer to Evan’s jacket in the corner.
“That’s it!” Evan cheered.
It took all of her energy to inch the chair across the floor. She dug her heel in as she pushed.
“A little more toward the left,” Evan instructed, guiding her to the corner.
Jess stopped pushing. “I’m lying on my right side,” she said. “My left is toward the ceiling.”
“Sorry,” Evan apologized, shaking his head to get his mind straight. “You’re doing well. Can you see the door yet?”
Jess stretched her head back as far as she could manage. “Barely.”
“Good, just keep yourself angled, so you’re facing the door.”
Jess pushed a few more times. “My leg is on fire,” she said, sounding defeated, letting her leg fall free.
“You’re doing great, Jess. You’re almost there.”
Jess stretched her leg. “I can’t keep going on like this.”
“Do you think maybe you could push yourself over to flip the chair on its back?
She repositioned her leg and pressed her foot back on the floor at an uncomfortable, odd angle. She closed her eyes and pushed with all her strength. The right side of the chair lifted slightly, but fell back down immediately.
“I can’t do it! I’m not strong enough!”
“You can do it, Jess. It’s mind over matter.”
“Well, then you better get your mind wrapped around the fact that the angry vampire only kept you alive so he can have something fresh to quench his thirst when he gets back. You better get to work on that arm-chewing plan of yours. It’s mind over matter, Evan.”
“Don’t think I won’t do it,” Evan urged, wondering what he could really do to free himself. He needed to find something to motivate Jess. She needed a fresh dose of adrenaline pumping through her system.
“Jess,” Evan said, suddenly reconsidering his plan.
“Yes, Evan, my would-be rescuer. How can I help you?”
There was no other way; Evan dove in head first. “I’m the one who hacked your computer and relayed your personal information to Jake. He found your house because I helped him find it.”
Jess lay in disbelief, her anger building.
“I didn’t get your phone from the driveway outside. I got it from your crashed SUV.”
“You were there!” she snapped, slamming her foot into the floor. “You’ve been lying to me this whole time!”
“Yes. I live in Chicago, and I’m a freelance hacker. Jake paid me to track you down and hijack your info.”
“You asshole!” she cursed, lifting the right side of the chair off the floor, then dropping it back down. “Who does that!”
Evan didn’t want Jess to lose track. He wanted her to focus her anger into flipping the chair onto its back. “I did it because Jake works for one of my clients… Atmoro.”
That was all it took. Atmoro’s name infuriated Jess. “You work for ATMORO!” she roared. “Are you a vampire? You scumbag!”
Jess shut her eyes and screamed as she pushed the chair up as far as she could. Then, as the chair reached its apex, it flipped onto its back, slamming Jess’s head into the floor again.
Jess continued shouting at Evan. “You better pray you get out of here before I get my hands on you! Jake will be the least of your problems!”
“You did it!” Evan said excitedly.
“Did what?” she hollered.
“You flipped the chair! I knew you could. You just needed the right motivation.”
Jess stopped shouting and looked up at the ceiling, trying to piece together Evan’s story. The timeline added up. Her system was hacked, then Jake showed up at her front door. Evan practically put her in this situation. Her eyes flooded with tears, and sh
e allowed her emotions to show.
Evan let her cry for a few minutes before getting her back on track. “I’m sorry,” he admitted. “That’s all I can say. My conscience kicked in too late. I came to your house to warn you, but I was too late.”
Jess sniffled loud, blinking the burning tears from her eyes. “Too little, too late,” she said flatly. “You’re the kind of hacker who gives the rest of us a bad name.”
“I said I was sorry, Jess.”
“Well, I didn’t hear you because you don’t exist to me, Evan, if that’s your name.”
Evan hung his head down. “Evan is my name. My cyber name is Skywalker.”
“The same Skywalker who Jake told Atmoro to find?”
“The one and only.”
“When Jake finds out, you’re a dead man.”
Evan lifted his head, upset with himself for putting Jess in this situation. “I had no idea monsters like that existed. Atmoro was always very professional. He paid in advance… but Jake, well, he is a whole other story. He’s a maniac, and I had no idea that I was leading him to kill such a beautiful redhead.”
Salty tears burned Jess’s eyes. “Maniac is an understatement, and flattery will earn you exactly zero points with me right now. Jake is a blood thirsty, heartless vampire, and right now, he’s probably on his way back here to kill us both.”
“Well then, we better focus on getting out of here.”
“Yes, we better focus,” Jess said sarcastically, “so you can hurry back to your evil hacking empire.”
“So, my thanks for rescuing me kiss is out of the question?”
“Evan, let’s just say if we get out of this, and there were a million other guys in line for a rescue kiss, you’d be at the end of the queue.”
“One in a million is still a chance,” he smiled.
Jess burst out laughing. “If I didn’t know any better, Evan, I’d say you’re an OK guy.”
“You’re delirious and suffering from multiple concussions,” he joked. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
The chair slid a great deal easier on its back, plus Jess was in a much better position to use all her leg muscles to push.
“One more push, and you’re there, Jess.”
Jess’s head lightly bumped off the wall. She pressed her foot up against the opposite wall to turn the chair toward the jacket and pushed hard to flip back over to her side. It took a few attempts at repositioning, but she finally snagged Evan’s jacket with her right index finger.
“I’ve got the jacket,” she said, working the jacket with her fingers to search for the phone.
The tape restraining Jess’s wrist was tight, making the search slow and difficult. She repositioned the chair several times, dropping the jacket. She had to start from the beginning. The first pocket she reached was empty, and just as she worked her way to the other side, the jacket slipped from her fingers for a second time—she burst out cursing.
Jess was blocking Evan’s view. He couldn’t see what was going on. “What’s wrong?” he asked eagerly. “Is the phone dead?”
“No,” Jess grunted in frustration. “I dropped the damn jacket again. Give me a minute. I have to get back over to the other pocket.” Jess’s fingers brushed against a hard plastic inside a pocket. “Got it!”
Jess clamped the phone between two fingers, and then carefully removed it from the pocket. Several beads of sweat rolled down to her eyes, irritating them and blurring her vision. As soon as the phone was free, she gripped it tightly with her whole hand, nearly crushing the plastic. She closed her eyes and let her head fall to the floor, wishing for a nice hot bubble bath with candles and an unlimited supply of chocolate.
After a minute of rest, Jess slid her finger across the screen to wake her phone up. “MISSED CALLS” flashed in big bold letters across the bright screen. The battery indicator was down to one bar and blinking red. She didn’t have much time before the battery would die completely.
“The battery is running on fumes,” Jess relayed to Evan. “There isn’t enough juice to check the voicemail. We should send a text instead of calling. That will use less battery power.”
“Sounds like a good plan. What are you sending?”
Jess’s mind was blank from exhaustion. “I don’t even know where we are, but we need to hurry.”
Evan thought about it. He wasn’t exactly sure where they were either. “Atmoro, Jake, vampires, Chicago, HELP,” Evan said, hoping that was enough description for Jess’s friends to decipher. “Be sure to capitalize help and add a few exclamation points for good measure.”
Jess quickly typed in the text message, hoping it would make sense to Aeron, and clicked the send button. The screen displayed “SENDING” before going blank.
“The battery’s dead,” she said sadly.
THIRTY-EIGHT
My phone started vibrating in my pocket. “I’m not sure, Jade,” I said, pulling the phone out and motioning for Ember to take over explaining Jade’s complicated new life. “I don’t know enough about angels to know if you have superpowers or not.”
I stood up from the table and walked to the kitchen counter to check my phone. It was a text message from Jess. It’s about time, I thought to myself.
“Atmoro Jake vampires Chicago HELP!!!!”
My heart skipped a beat. I had to read the message again to be certain my eyes weren’t playing tricks on me.
“Get Ashes!” I shouted. My hands shook as I called Jess.
Rain bolted from the cabin to retrieve Ashes from her watch post by the pond.
“What’s going on?” Kasiah asked.
Aerona stood in the cabin’s doorway with a blank stare on her face. She felt my emotions taking a turn for the worse. “Jess is in trouble,” she said, answering for me.
The call was forwarded straight to voicemail, which, by now, was sure to be full. I contemplated sending a text back, in case Atmoro was monitoring Jess’s phone.
“What kind of trouble?” Kasiah probed.
“The Atmoro vampire kind,” I said, tossing my phone on the counter.
“What’s going on?” Ashes asked, bursting through the door with Rain.
“We need to get to Chicago,” I said, “and we need to go now.”
Aerona grabbed my cell phone off the counter and read the message. “Atmoro has Jess,” she said half-heartedly. “Who’s Jake?”
“I’d have to guess he’s part of Atmoro’s crew,” I expressed, handing Jade her bag. “Probably another vampire.”
“Atmoro?” Jade asked, looking horrified. “I thought that’s who we were trying to avoid?”
“He is,” Kasiah confirmed. “We are not going to Chicago.”
“We are,” I protested. “Jess knows everything about Jade. We got Jess in this mess, and now she needs our help. We led Atmoro right to her front door. We’re not leaving her to deal with this on her own.”
“So, we’re going to take Jade right to Atmoro,” she argued, “and then what, hand her over to the very monster we’re trying to protect her from?”
“We can’t exactly leave Jade here by herself,” I countered. “If Atmoro does get hold of Jess, then it’s going to take all of us to get her back. Besides, Atmoro is never going to stop looking for a stone. We need to stop him while we have his attention.”
Kasiah threw her hands up. “We don’t even know where Jess is for sure, or even if she’s the one who sent that message. Chicago’s not exactly a small town. Are we just going to drive around and ask if anyone knows where to find a Shadow Vampire’s secret hideout?”
I turned to Whisper. “Can you track a cell phone through a text message?”
Whisper shook his head. “Not from here with zero equipment or even a starting point. I left everything on the jet.”
Aerona pointed to his satchel. “What about your little magic purse?”
“It’s not magic,” Whisper said defensively, “and I can’t produce complex machinery or electronics from thin air.”
“Where’s Candice with the jet?” I asked Ember.
“I spoke with her less than an hour ago,” she replied, activating her phone. “She’s several hundred miles south.”
“That won’t do,” I said, pondering. “Can we get the jet to meet up somewhere with Whisper?”
“Whatever you need,” Ember said. “I’ll get Candice on the phone right now.”
Whisper reached into his leather satchel and pulled out a map of the United States. He spread the map out on the table and started looking for nearby airports. “Here,” he said, pointing to the map. “Candice can land in Casper, Wyoming. I can make it there in an hour or so.”
“Perfect. You should take Morgan with you. The rest of us can fit into the Raptor.”
“You plan on driving to Chicago,” Aerona questioned.
Ashes studied Whisper’s map. “I can get us to Chicago in less than sixteen hours.”
“Chicago is fifteen hundred miles from here!” Aerona exclaimed. “There’s no way can we make it there that fast. We should just hop a ride on the jet.”
“Atmoro has been anticipating our every move,” I reminded. “We don’t have time to wait for the jet to get back here, land, refuel, then fly to Chicago, not knowing who will be waiting for us on the ground. Even if we don’t have trouble when we land, we’d have to pick up a vehicle and drive out of the city, hoping Atmoro wouldn’t beat us to the punch again.”
“Sixteen hours? No way!” Aerona objected.
“There’s only one way to find out,” Ashes said, smiling at Aerona. “Let’s move.”
THIRTY-NINE
Driving from sunrise to sunset, Ashes pushed the Raptor’s engine hard; the speedometer only fell below 100 to stop for fuel three times. It was well into the night by the time we crossed into Illinois. The night sky was clear, and the moon, surrounded by a sea of stars, was full and high in the sky. Aerona sulked in the backseat as we passed through Rockford, Illinois at the fifteen-hour mark. We’d make it to the west side of Chicago with time to spare on Ashes’s sixteen-hour estimate.
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