I always thought that people were meant to live their lives in pairs, picturesque couples who would walk hand in hand through the perils and travails of life. Now I’ve found out that two are never truly made into one. They become closer or not. Friends. Companions. Compatriots. Fellow travelers. But at best, we are twisted branches, sometimes intertwined and growing as if from the same source. One in purpose. One in direction. One in aspirations. Not one in essence. Thank God. Because even though I have been extricated from a tangled configuration, I continue to exist. I am still whole. Maybe battered and bruised, but not crushed or snuffed out. I go on. -Felicity’s Journal, April 21

Do you know if something is wrong with your little brother? He’s been so closed off for the past couple of weeks, ever since you left. I’m worried that he might be into some shady business. Apparently, you have a stabilizing effect on him. – Email to Felicity from her mother, April 3

Felicity stared after Jase’s retreating form as he strode casually into the cabin where certain danger awaited him. Part of her wanted to yell after him to come back, but she had meant what she told Briel. Felicity trusted Jase to do what he could to help Felicity, and he certainly had more expertise than she could even pretend to have. Still, “sending” him in to a deadly situation felt akin to abetting a murder. Hard enough with a stranger, but sickening for someone she cared about. Just another contrast between Brendon and me, she mused sardonically.

As he approached the cabin, Jase headed toward Felicity’s patio, hurdling the rail with one smooth motion. Felicity realized that she could hear the whispered conversation between Briel and her crew. They seemed as uncertain about what to expect from Jase as Felicity did, and the fact brought a smirk to her lips.

“You used to work with him, though,” Adam insisted to Briel. “Don’t you know how his mind works?”

Briel shook her head. “Jase doesn’t know how his own mind works,” she countered. “In training, he used to manage things instinctively that we all had to spend weeks of repetition to make our own. Because of that, he thinks several moves ahead of everyone else – but also in an unorthodox manner. Usually, his different thinking means he wins. When he doesn’t though, he can fail spectacularly.”

The thought brought a shiver to Felicity’s spine before Briel’s two-way radio sparked to life.

“Look,” Jase was saying, “I didn’t see her. I had nothing to do with her escape.”

Looking up, Briel nodded toward Felicity. “Get her in the car,” the operative commanded.

At least it was true that he hadn’t helped her escape. If anything, Felicity had saved Jase, though Jase didn’t seem to want saving at the time. More accurately, he had left with her because she needed protection – a probability proven true when they ran into Briel and her team. And now he was back where she had found him, back with ProtoComm,

“And you expect me to believe,” Brendon’s voice came through the radio, “that you saw no sign of her.”

“I saw signs of lots of people. Could have been her. You have women on your team. She lived here for several days before we sent her south. I don’t know what she was wearing today, what kind of shoes, whether she was wearing perfume. I can’t track someone without knowing I’m tracking them – “

“Likely story,” Adam mumbled.

“But Brendon doesn’t know that,” explained Briel. “He has no training. It sounds reasonable.”

Felicity agreed – it did sound reasonable. She certainly would have bought the story.

“ – not letting you in,” Brendon was saying. “Bill still thinks the verdict is out on you, but I decided a long time ago.”

Jase laughed. “At the party, when I met your wife?”

“Met?” Brendon complained. “You practically seduced her.”

“It was my job. Bill wanted a profile. I needed to talk to her to get a sense of how to proceed. Besides, you were literally done with her, about to throw her away. Why did it matter to you?”

“A man who could do that to another man’s wife – there’s something broken about him.”

As opposed to a man who would do that to his own wife? Felicity seethed.

“True,” retorted Jase. “You only do things like that to your own wife – much better.”

Felicity snorted. Apparently, she and Jase thought alike in this at least. Awakened by the noise, Briel reached over and shut the door to the jeep. For the next half hour, Felicity could make out almost nothing that was said. Until Briel’s crew started running, Felicity had no idea what was happening. Once the dirt started to fly, Felicity’s heart sped. Something had happened. Could be good; could be bad.

Because they rushed to the cabin, no one bothered to lock Felicity in the car. She threw open the door. Nessa, the woman who had helped Felicity most, had stayed behind to keep an eye on her, and Felicity began to hound the other woman with questions.

Finally, “Is Jase alright?” elicited a nervous headshake from Nessa. Felicity could read the tension on her companion’s face, and the concern of each mirrored the other.

“We heard gunshots,” Nessa lamented. “We have no idea who shot or if anyone was shot, but Briel had to go in.”

“To save Jase?”

Nessa scoffed. “Not likely. She wants Brendon. He’s the key to ProtoComm, and if she saves one of them, she saves Brendon.”

“Saving a criminal…”

“To nab a worse criminal. Brendon is a pretty face. He knows a lot, but he doesn’t do a lot. That’s all Bill and the system he has built up around him.”

Felicity gritted her teeth. “And so Briel will leave Jase behind.”

“It’s the nature of the business.” Nessa did not sound like she appreciated that nature.

A moment later, the cabin exploded with resonating cracks that rang artificial in the arcadian woods. Nessa and Felicity both stepped toward the cabin, but Nessa pulled up short, restraining Felicity by the arm.

“You can’t go in there, Felicity! You are as likely to get Jase killed as to help him.”

“I’m not going to sit here!”

“You are,” Nessa corrected, and Felicity suddenly found her arms pinned behind her, the surprisingly strong Nessa shoving her to the open door of the jeep.

“Don’t do this,” Felicity begged.

“If I let you go in there, Jase will never forgive me. And I’m not comfortable with that.”

“If you don’t let me go in there, it may be a moot point. I can distract Brendon.”

Nessa scoffed, digging under the seat with one hand as she held onto Felicity with the other.

“You can distract Jase and Briel, which might undermine everything they’re trying to accomplish. Including save your kids.”

Felicity felt the fight leave her, and a minute later, Nessa had latched Felicity’s hands to the wheel of the jeep with a zip tie.

As Nessa started toward the cabin, Felicity fanned the flame of her irritation, a buffer against despair. She had no desire to sit fused, immobile, to a car.

Nessa seemed to think better of it for a second, though, and spun back toward Felicity.

“I know you hate being stuck out here, and I don’t blame you, but it can’t be helped.”

“But it can - “

“No,” Nessa interrupted. “And I did not come back to argue with you. I want to know: would it make it better to hear what’s going on inside,” she held up the radio that she had worn on her belt, “or not to hear?

“To hear it, please!” Felicity begged. “I would rather know if you guys lose so I can know what to expect.”

Rolling her eyes, Nessa set the radio down on the center console of the vehicle. “Thanks for your vote of confidence.” She shut the door and sprinted up the drive and around to the front of the building.

The initial burst of gunfire had ceased, and Felicity had heard nothing from the house since. Nessa had stood too far away for Felicity to make out the words spoken after the guns discharged.

Now, though, Felicity could hear everything clearly.

“…seems Bill isn’t so concerned about you when his own skin is on the line,” Briel charged.

“Why would he be?” Brendon replied. “I didn’t get into this business for the altruism.”

Even though you want to look altruistic, Felicity fumed.

“Works for me,” Briel continued. “He’s not the one I came in for.”

From what Felicity could make out, Bill had somehow gotten away from Briel and her crew. They still had Brendon, though, and Felicity let a small seed of satisfaction blossom in her chest with the thought. At least until she realized that she hadn’t heard Jase’s voice since the gunfire.

Felicity pushed the radio dialogue to the edge of her consciousness while she concentrated on getting her hands free. At home, she would have reached into her purse and clipped the zip tie with her sewing kit scissors. How would she manage it when she couldn’t reach into anything? Instead, she turned primitive and started to gnaw at the plastic with her teeth. She could tell right away that the task would take a while. What else did she have to do besides listen to the radio, a passive observer. It was like torture. Better to find a way to do something proactive.

After 30 seconds of chewing, her jaw started to ache. Still, she had made a small nick in the plastic. If she could manage another 30 seconds, she might weaken it enough to break it.

“How is he?” Briel demanded, and Felicity went stiff so she wouldn’t miss what came next.

Nessa’s slightly heated tone answered tersely. “He’ll live.”

Felicity read between the lines that Jase had been injured. For whatever reason, Nessa had a connection with Jase. It’s hypocritical for me to be jealous, right? she asked herself. She shook her head. Jealous or not, longing or not, Jase was not hers – because she wouldn’t have him.

When she felt the impact, time stopped. Her entire body floated upwards and sideways toward the passenger seat, until her shoulders felt ripped from their sockets, arrested in their momentum by the steering wheel and the adjoined zip tie. Her right elbow wrenched and twisted, and she feared something had torn. After an eternal moment, her body settled down into the seat again.

The force on the zip tie had, after its initial resistance, snapped it in half, and Felicity’s right arm fell to her side. Any attempt at moving even her fingers sent stabs up her arm all the way to her shoulder. Her right hip was bruised from where it crashed into the center console, and she had banged her ankle against the gas pedal as she lurched sideways. Once her mind processed the state of her body, it turned its attention to the source of the explosion. The source of danger.

A sedan, black and unassuming, was wedged partially under the driver side door of the jeep. Standing nearby, a hulk of a man leered at Felicity, stalking up to the sedan and climbing across its hood to Felicity’s door. Finally waking up, Felicity pushed her body, as well as she could without the use of her arm, up and over the console. The wedged car was partially blocking the jeep door, and the hulking man was forced to scrape the metal doorframe across the car’s black hood. It slowed him down enough to let Felicity make it over the console.

With her left hand, she twisted and grabbed the handle, throwing the door open and trying to get her legs out to catch her when she tumbled out. They mostly performed their job, though she stumbled, painfully dashing her injured shoulder against a treetrunk. By the time she recovered from the pain, the goon had slid around the jeep and barreled to within a few feet. Felicity rolled around the tree and started across the path of her pursuer, just out of his reach. Her change in direction surprised the man, and he stumbled as his fingertips brushed her jacket.

Running proved painful, the impact of her feet jarring her arm with every step. The run to the main road was a full half mile, and she knew she would never maintain her speed for that long. She would have to lose the man among the trees.

Maybe the idea would have worked, but just as she entered the treeline, a clatter arose on the patio of her room. The noise pulled her up short, giving her pursuer time to catch up and wrap her in his grip. Still, her capture didn’t rip the scream from her throat. It was the sight on her patio.

Two men held Jase, his sleeve soaked in blood, down on his knees, a gun to his head. When he turned toward the cry, though, his eyes sparked to life. Felicity’s captor began to drag her, kicking and scratching, back toward the front of the cabin. She tried to watch Jase, terrified at what she would see, but the spark she had seen in his eyes seemed to stir a fire in him

Dropping to his uninjured side, Jase rolled onto his back. His hands were bound behind him with tape, but he somehow kicked out, and next Felicity saw, one of his captors lunged inexplicably toward the other, both stumbling away from Jase before recovering. In the meantime, Jase had regained his footing, and he lowered his uninjured shoulder, lurching toward the closer captor with incredible speed and strength. The captors had not had time to recover their balance, and Jase finally knocked them to the ground. Felicity watched him leap over one of the men’s outstretched arms before rushing back into the bedroom.

Though Felicity felt grateful that Jase had escaped, the distraction his capture had provided her evaporated as soon as he disappeared through the door. She abruptly realized that she had quit struggling against the arms that pinned her, and the man had only to mount the few steps to the front door to finish her imprisonment. Swallowing her fear, she breathed a steadying breath as the man pushed open the door.

The scene inside stood frozen, a standoff moment between soldiers.

Briel held Brendon on the ground, her knee forcefully in his back while she pointed a gun at his head. On the other side of the room, a large man had forced Adam to his knees and held a gun on Briel’s right-hand man. While Felicity had run from the damaged jeep, Bill seemed to have returned, and he and Aimée stood on one side of the room. Seemingly unused to the chaos, Aimée gaped in obvious shock, and Nessa and Briel’s white-haired teammate stared grim-faced at the scene before them. Jase had just stumbled into the room, his exhaustion palpable, Felicity could hear his overthrown pursuers rushing toward the room.

Once everyone saw Felicity, the room erupted into motion. Adam took advantage of his captor’s distraction, dropping to his back and kicking at the hand that held the gun. The weapon discharged toward Bill and Aimée, and Brendon’s assistant screamed in terror. Felicity’s captor released her and lunged toward Bill, obviously trained to protect the CEO at all costs. Jase ran at Felicity, knocking her to the ground behind the sofa. She could no longer see anything that was happening, but Jase rolled back to his feet, prepared to reengage.

Considering her options, Felicity let herself breathe for just a moment. Bill would not hesitate to shoot or kill anyone on Briel’s team, and Felicity could not deceive herself that she could effect any great benefit to them or to Jase. She did have one ace, though. Pulling up her phone, she typed off a message to her brother. He answered a few seconds later, and she quickly dialed back to him for a phone call over Wi-Fi. She carefully placed the phone on the ground and pushed the speaker button, turning it to full volume just before a motion drew her attention away.

“No!” she yelped, angry at her distraction, but Jase had already stepped out and established himself in some kind of aggressive stance. Felicity couldn’t stand the blindness of her position, and she crept to the edge of the couch to peer around the corner. Jase’s captors had made it into the room, and the numbers no longer favored Briel’s team, especially not with the bleeding Jase.

Briel had not moved – Felicity doubted anything would convince Briel to give up her prize.

The large guards who had lost Jase redirected their efforts upon entering the room, and one had Nessa by the hair while the other tussled with the white-haired operative.

“Let me leave with Brendon, Bill,” Briel suddenly shouted. “My team and I will leave you and your crew alone.” Nessa stopped struggling, and the white-haired man managed a headlock on his combatant. Jase still stood at attention, and Adam had moved out of reach of his opponent.

Bill glared at Briel, somehow still seeming superior. “Do you think I’m an idiot? If you walk out the door with Brendon Miller, my company won’t last a week.”

“If you don’t let me leave,” Briel countered, “I shoot him here and come after you next.”

Shocked, Felicity tried to glance at her children’s “nanny.” Felicity had heard Jase’s assertion about Briel and her cold professionalism, but hearing it first hand was still shocking.

“You shoot him, and your friend is dead,” Bill smiled smugly, his arm sweeping to the guard who held Nessa. Briel’s confidence faltered, and Felicity’s stomach dropped. The problem with having morals was that it limited one’s choices. Where Bill would sacrifice life without a qualm, Briel would hesitate, and that would likely cost her.

Apparently, Jase had the same concern.

Felicity didn’t even see him move. Before anyone could react, Jase held his bound arms around Bill Henry’s neck. Felicity had seen similar situations in the movies, but they had never stolen her breath. It was one thing to threaten someone with a gun or a punch, but Jase looked as if he could snap Bill’s neck like a twig. As automatons, every one of Bill’s gang transferred his attention to where Jase held their boss in a death grip. The ones who weren’t restrained trained their guns on Jase.

“Take him, Briel,” Jase commanded.

Utilizing the guards’ inattention, Adam glided over to Briel and helped her haul Brendon to his feet. The two moved toward the front door, and the white-haired op dragged his captive with him as he backed toward the exit.

“Shoot him!” Bill instructed, and a couple of the men seemed to twitch in preparation.

“Don’t!” Felicity screeched, standing to her feet from behind the couch. She heard Jase curse under his breath. It was her leverage. It was supposed to get her to safety and back to the kids. But she couldn’t let Jase die, not when she could save him. Not after everything he had done for her. “Nick, now!” The room froze as the garbled sound of a recording playing through a phone and from under a couch. Still, the words were clear.

“That is you, papa…” gasped Aimée, suddenly coming alive. The room sucked in a breath with her, their shock at the revelation seizing everyone so that they missed several seconds of the recorded conversation. That explains so much, Felicity snickered to herself. Sleeping with the boss’s daughter…

“…supply-side issues,” the voice on the recording was saying.

“There is never a shortage of slaves, Jack. Get in contact with that Nigerian chairman. His LGA has a pipeline through Tunisia to several European countries, and you can use my Tunisian contact to move the cargo into the Balkans.”

“We’ll lose inventory in the passage.”

“Just the weak, the sick…the elderly who can’t work anyway. Acceptable loss, within the margin.”

Jack’s voice growled to someone near him before he addressed Bill again. “I’m sorry I had to involve you in this, Bill. I just know you don’t deal in children, and the Somali contact sent nothing else. I needed a solution for our buyers.”

Felicity hadn’t heard the recording before Nick played it, and she thought she would vomit. Everyone on Briel’s team, Jase, and even several of the guards wore expressions that matched her own. Still, she had to move. “And there’s more, right, Nick?”

After a pause, Nick replied. “A list of folders I’ve named the Who’s Who of ProtoComm: Bill, Jack Buckley, David Farnham, Anna Waters, Brendon Miller.” Everyone grew even more still, if that were possible, and the sound of breathing ceased. That was when people began to notice Bill’s choking gasps.

“I appreciate it, Nick,” Felicity offered. “Now you guards know who you are working for, if you didn’t already. If you let us go, you will probably have time to get out of here before this team calls in law enforcement. I doubt they checked your ID when they busted in.”

Several of the guards backed toward the exits, and within a minute, the numbers had evened again. Felicity paused, glancing at Briel who seemed to rein in her shock and reengage her mind.

“Now if you’re left, I suggest you lower your guns,” she instructed, “and my team is going to back to the door with Brendon Miller. Jase is going to hold onto Mr. Henry until he releases him to Aimée at the door.”

“Do what she says,” Aimée commanded, and Felicity noticed a sudden movement in her peripheral vision.

“Aimée!” Brendon gasped, obviously surprised.

Felicity had almost forgotten about Brendon, and the realization brought a grin to her mouth.

“Apparently, you’re not as important to her as you thought. Maybe it wasn’t true love. Maybe she chose Daddy’s money over substance.”

With almost comical caution, Aimée followed Felicity to the main doorway, obviously intent on not spooking anyone. Once they had passed the couch where Felicity had crouched before, Jase stood beside her with Bill, and Felicity noticed a bloody smudge on the older man’s shirt where the bullet wound had slowly leaked blood. Releasing Bill, Jase wrapped his good arm – the tape that had bound it ripped through – around Felicity, pulling her backwards and toward the door after Briel and the others. He shoved Bill toward Aimée, and using the distraction, Jase yanked Felicity outside.

Without a pause, Jase twisted around and dragged Felicity to the waiting jeep. The crew had arrived in two vehicles, and with three people added to their party, they had to cram into a single jeep. The white-haired operative jumped in the driver’s seat, and Nessa and Briel crammed into the front seat together. They had no time to worry about seating arrangements, because by the time they reached the vehicle, shots had begun to ring out behind them. Adam had taken over Brendon, and he shove Felicity’s husband into the car before climbing in behind him. Jase handed Felicity up, scrambling in behind her as quickly as he could with his injury. Once inside, he shut the door and pulled Felicity onto his lap.

“I don’t trust him,” Jase murmured, and Felicity stifled a giggle.

“He once said the same thing about you,” she smirked into the dark.

As they raced away from the cabin, Brendon turned to his wife. “Felicity,” he began.

“Don’t talk to her,” Jase leveled. “And if you touch her, I kill you.”

Reprimanded, Brendon leaned away, turning his attention to the road outside Adam’s window.

Despite the awkwardness of the situation, Felicity found herself forgetting about the man who had taken up the majority of her energy and attention for the past fifteen years. Instead, she settled comfortably into Jase’s embrace, lulling into sleep for the half-hour ride to Briel’s headquarters. Felicity awoke to the hulking angular shape of The Lodge.