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concrete
floor. They were in a small shack due west of the cabin she and Jack had been
given earlier in the night. It looked mostly empty but she couldn’t be sure.
She hadn’t had much time to examine her surroundings before she was sprawled
out on the floor.
    “Get up.” Thomas’ voice filled the room with the authority
of a natural leader. But she ignored both the tone and his words. She had to.
    She was dazed. Her surroundings were out of focus. It took
all her energy to force herself to take steady breaths while she regrouped
instead of succumbing to the comfort of passing out. Even if she wanted to,
there was no way she could obey the man. And she didn’t particularly want to
right now.
    “Are you deaf? I said, get up.”
    “I heard you.” The only benefit to being captured was that
she no longer had a role to play. Now she got to be herself. And if she was
going to die, she was going to die on her terms. “I chose to ignore the
request.”
    She gasped as she was pulled off the ground by her hair.
    “That wasn’t a request, bitch.”
    The room swam around her as she fought to remain conscious.
    “Get your fucking hands off her.” Jack’s voice sounded
rough. As if he were struggling as much as she. It wasn’t a comfortable
admission for her to make. But she wasn’t going to be able to come up with a
plan if she wasn’t honest with herself.
    “Or what?” Thomas pulled her close enough that she could
feel the heat radiating off his body and smell the alcohol on his breath. When
Jack was silent, he laughed softly. “That’s what I thought.” He turned her
around so she was facing Jack. His face looked swollen and his lip was split
but his body was tensed as if he were waiting for the right moment to pounce.
“You ain’t going to do shit to me. I’m holding all the cards.”
    “Those are pretty big words for a man with such little rank.
Don’t you have to check in before you make threats?” Jack sneered and his tone
was full of scorn. He was baiting Thomas. She’d seen him do it to enough people
to recognize the move.
    “See, if she was a prophet, you would’ve known you was
talking to the boss earlier. And you most certainly would’ve seen this coming.”
He nodded and the man behind Jack brought the butt of his weapon into the back
of Jack’s head. He collapsed like a rag doll under the force of the hit and he
didn’t move again.
    Her heart stopped and her breath caught in her lungs as the
world blurred around her. Her body no longer hurt and she couldn’t feel the
tight grasp Thomas had on her hair. She was completely focused on Jack. When
his chest rose with a breath, her heart began to beat again.
    “You’re wrong. I am a prophet.”
    Thomas laughed loudly. “And I’m the prime minister.” He
stopped laughing and pulled her tightly to him. “You’re with Special
Investigations. I know a rat when I see one. I’m not an idiot, bitch.”
    But he was. He’d proven his folly in her past. Or in his
future. She shook her head as she tried to straighten out the timeline. In the
end it didn’t make any difference. Whichever it was, he failed. There was an
escape here. Some path that got her and Jack out of here and led to Thomas’
downfall. She only had to find it. Now was the time to test her theory. She had
to try to focus on that one path and forget the others.
    She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. The fuzzy image
of a nail flashed through her mind. It poked out of the wall as nothing more
than a glint of metal in an otherwise dark room. Such a small thing. It was so
insignificant her captors probably didn’t even realize it was there. But that
one tiny glimmer of metal would save them both. She just had to find the track
that would put her next to it.
    She opened her eyes and shoved against Thomas as she brought
one of her heels down on his foot. She didn’t weigh much but she hoped the
element of surprise would work in her favor. Since she’d done little to fight
back