Bending Fate

Shadows obscured the myriad nebulous phantoms Dani’s imagination conjured sliding underneath the water’s stygian surface. For someone who’d lived her life under the radar, she didn’t want to consider the consequences of her actions while committing criminal activity.

Choppy waves’ rhythmic slapping against the decking’s underbelly kept time with her quiet inhalations as the first frozen flakes of snow melted on her bare neck. An icy chill spiraled down and curled around each of her vertebrae. Tendrils of naked fear snaked outward in a labyrinthine crawl to disrupt her previously steady hands as she once again prodded her conscience with the justification for borrowing the small skiff.

I have to warn Jake about the foreign bastards after his girl, Callie. Deliver the message and get out. What could go wrong?

Cursed with extraordinary intelligence and a talent any government would kill to control, Callie deserved a chance at freedom, even if it entailed constant vigilance.

Dani’s trust in technology fell short of using a phone considering the limitless electronic reach of the foreigners. They didn’t care who they killed in their quest to kidnap their objective.

Old-fashioned stealth was safer when many could demolish privacy with a few clicks at their keyboard. The group she intended to expose considered laws for the mass populace a bogus endeavor. She hadn’t spent years hiding in plain sight to act recklessly now when her demons, guided in the form of a previous foster family, were equally desperate to reacquire her.

Tonight, stealth included significant risk.

Gloves, a shield against the cold and from leaving fingerprints behind, made it difficult to untangle the cleat hitch securing the small wooden boat bumping against the dock. Improperly secured, the rope wrapped each horn twice in defiance of her need for a speedy departure. Using her flashlight now might hasten her departure but also might alert someone in the nearby home to her presence.

This legal infraction signified nothing in the grand scheme of things. If the foreign asshats tracking Callie came across Dani, her life would be forfeit in the time it took to pull the trigger. If her plan succeeded, she’d bring the wooden craft back before midnight after delivering her message. A nice, quiet, unassuming life was all she wanted. Taking the small dory from a private dock had seemed to make sense at the time, with no security personnel, no gates, and no discernable alarms.

A racing heart and shaking fingers brought her sanity into question. The cold breeze swept away the perspiration dotting her brow.

With the release of the last knot came a frustrated sigh. If she was late to the rendezvous, Jake would leave and her warning would go undelivered. She’d risked much in the past month in her bid to free Callie, a young woman previously held prisoner in the bowels of a think tank due to her extraordinary mind. It didn’t matter that they’d never met. After learning of Callie’s unique psychic abilities, so similar to her own, the compulsion to see her free had overpowered rational thought.

If all had gone well three nights ago, Callie was now free of the Institution, yet the wardens who’d raised her would go to the ends of the earth to recapture the young genius. Still, she was unaware of the foreigners plotting her abduction and deserved at the very least, a fighting chance.