THE PERFECT TEN (Boxed Set)

tripped on a thick stem and went down hard, scraping her palms.
    She gulped a deep breath. Listened for shouts, boots splashing across wet ground, any sound of being hunted.
    Still clear. 
    Jumping up, she lunged into the blackness, running hard, fighting the panic exploding in her chest.
    Heel to toe, heel to toe. Don’t smack the ground .
    Finally, the big elm came into view during a quick flash of lightning. She stepped around the tree, sucking in short gasps of air. Running a marathon was easier than racing a hundred feet through the dark, expecting to get shot. Her heart hammered with terrified beats. She had to calm down and stick to her plan. Her hand shook violently as she made two stabs to press the button that illuminated her watch face.
    Four minutes and twelve seconds.
    Plenty of time if everything stayed status quo.
    For the past ten days she’d pretended to be afraid of her shadow. Maybe the ruse had paid off. As long as no one rushed to be Mr. Efficient and cranked the generators ahead of schedule.
    She sprinted eight big steps forward and stopped. Drenched to the bone, trembling from fear, she reached out in the darkness to grasp the ten-foot-tall security fence. Survival instincts stayed her hand at the last second, but there was only one way to know if the electricity was activated.
    She stuck a finger on it.
    No tingle.
    She glanced up at the angry heavens. Thank you .
    The current normally surging through the steel mesh could toss a grown man like a discarded rag doll. She grabbed a handhold on the fence.
    Kenner’s roar of anger from the balcony reached her.
    He’d found her empty bed.
    Clenching one handhold then another as fast as she could, she struggled up the fence.
    Freedom was only a foot away. She hauled herself over the top. Her hand slipped. Soft flesh tore on the twisted ends of the chain link. She bit down hard to swallow a cry of pain. No sense giving Kenner a tip on which direction she’d run. He’d find out soon enough anyway. She slipped, kicking frantically for any foothold. Falling from this height could mean a snapped ankle, and speed was her best weapon right now. She caught a toehold, scrambled down the other side, and leaped away from the fence.
    Lights blazed on across the compound. Two minutes early.
    She froze. Wet chain link sizzled with renewed power.
    Every survival instinct she had screamed at her to tear through the woods like a madwoman. But hitting a tree might knock her out or daze her. Instant capture. Instead, she backed away from the fence, her feet on autopilot when she turned and plowed forward. Every time lightning streaked across the sky and lit up the woods, she raced ahead, dodging trees. Thick underbrush clawed at her arms. Pain from the cuts burning her skin demanded attention.
    She pushed harder.
    Sheets of rain blasted through breaks in the trees. Thunder boomed overhead.
    How far could Mason’s men track her?
    Would the storm interfere with the bracelet’s signal? She hoped for that miracle since God had been accommodating so far.
      A jagged branch snagged the edge of her thin shorts and ripped a searing gash across her thigh. An adrenaline spike masked the pain, but her lungs begged for oxygen.
      She was an endurance runner, not a sprinter.
      At an unexpected opening in the brush, she stumbled to a stop, sucking air. Snatching the gold paperweight from between her breasts, she flipped it to the compass embedded in the top. She got her bearings during the next brilliant lightning display.
    The small airfield she’d seen on a map in Mason’s office should be dead ahead.
    Tucking away the compass, she started to move then jerked around at a noise.
    Distant barking and howls broke through the deluge. Mason’s dogs trained by expert trackers. Between the animals and the stupid bracelet, they were on her trail. She pushed on with one thought – surely someone at the airfield would help her.
    What if they knew Mason? What if someone at the airport worked for Mason? At the very least, he flew in there and might be a client who paid for hangar space.
    “What ifs” would get her killed if she slowed down.
    She ran her fingers compulsively over the band of coins strapped around her waist. Those eight rare coins were as important as her next breath.
    She’d sworn once that she would never go to jail again. Her one and only conviction had not been her fault. The police hadn’t believed her story then.
    They’d laugh in her face this time