Page 133 of Jonesing for a Spy

But I fight to keep my focus concentrated on the meaningful thing I’m supposed to understand because Hello starts cackling maniacally. He’s like a bad movie villain complete with overacting. He’s not right in the head. When this is over, we’ll get him the help he needs.

“Make me famous, friends. Promise? Wait—I need really good last words.” His thumb is on the detonator switch in his hand. His others tap his lips as if that will help him find the words.

Fighter looks confused and spends a moment staring at the man in the vest.

I don’t wait for more. I run.

Sally does the same.

Unfortunately, I know the sound and the feel of the ground shaking beneath me… when everything around becomes shrapnel on a trajectory. The force knocks me to the ground, and I land all wrong on my bad knee.

A scream pours through the air, but it’s not mine.

My knee getting fucked again means nothing. Pain means nothing. My arms pull me in an army crawl across the earth faster than any time before in my life.

I know what I have to live for.

I know the future that lies on the other side of this clusterfuck of an op.

And I’m fighting for it with every tug and every pull.

Strider

Fitzgerald Young’s orders be damned, I run.

I have trained for this my whole life. Middle school, high school, college, and since.

The man at my side runs full out, but he knows—he knows—she is mine. Mine to save. Mine to protect, however bad I’m failing at it.

Three hundred yards, through flying debris, fiery metal crashes and clings to my skin, and I run.

I scoop up Mirren as if she weighs nothing, tossing her over my shoulder and run until I can lay her in the grass someplace safe. Someplace away from falling bits and fireballs. Jamie does the same for the man who ran at her side. I’m trusting the rest of the team to get the latecomer.

Swelling and bruises to her face send me into anger faster than even the most unforgivable of lies. Her mouth opens in a silent scream of pain as she writhes on her left hip.

“Baby? Mirren, can you hear me? Talk to me.” Caressing her face, I brush the grass and gravel from her good side. I know I hurt her when I pull the metal singed into her skin off of her.

“Scooter,” Jamie bites, standing between me and the man he holds at gunpoint, blocking my view.

“Mirren?” the man queries. “As in Jones?”

“What the fuck?” Jamie focuses on me for a quick moment before turning back at the man. “You want to talk? Spill, but not about her.”

“Fuck you.”

I know that voice. Why do I know that voice?

“I’ll give you something to fuck with,” Jamie starts.

Shouting across the field steals my attention. Young is frog-marching a guy whose hands are tied behind his back toward us. The whole time the man is trying to push in the other direction, as if his doom awaits him here.

Aaron? What the fuck is my lead commercial project manager doing here? In all the it’s-a-small-world fuckery, I wouldn’t put a trillion-to-one bet on this.

The man in question hits his knees to refuse going any farther. Young simply drags him across the ground, without looking like he expended any effort at all, and dumps him near our huddle.

“You suck at taking orders, Anderson.”

Unless they’re from the woman I love, that’s true. And even then, I’m not great at it. “You’re right.”