Read Rush (Phoenix Rising) for Free Online Page B

her ears and sing la, la, la, la, la . She couldn’t do this. Couldn’t let herself hope. Hope always led to despair.
    In her world, despair led straight to alcohol, cocaine and heroin.
    And just one more time down that road would lead her straight to the grave.
    No one will take care of you if you don’t take care of yourself first.
    This was possibly the hardest thing she’d ever done short of rehab. To give herself the strength she needed, she envisioned a steel pole replacing her spine.
    “We’re done here.” She crossed her arms, squeezed herself tightly against the slicing pain of her next demand. “Get out . . . of my office.”
    Jessica met Keira’s stare with her own expression of rock solid conviction.
    Teague took Keira’s arm and guided her toward the door. Keira’s gaze turned worried, even a little panicked.
    Teague simply nudged her out the door with, “I’ll be right there.”
    It took everything Jessica had left to hold onto that steadfast commitment to her own needs, her own safety when Teague turned back to her.
    “I’m so sorry, Jess.” He came toward her, head down with that pitiful, sorry-I-brought-a-frog-in-the-house remorse and the coin turning over and over between his fingers. “We didn’t mean to hurt you. Really, we . . .”
    He lifted his head and met her gaze. The anguish and hopelessness there twisted the knife already stabbing her heart.
    “No.” She reached out and grabbed hold of his forearms. Tears she’d been holding back flooded her eyes and spilled over. “ I’m sorry. I’m sorry for a million things. But I can’t do this to myself. It would break me.”
    “I understand.”
    He took her face between his hands and kissed her forehead. Then he laid his palm over her heart. The thermo-kinetic abilities he’d acquired at that terrible fire infused heat and healing. The pain dimmed, but didn’t disappear. It would never disappear.
    “Take this.” He pressed the coin into her hand. “It’s rightfully yours.” Teague kissed her head one more time before he turned to leave.
    The coin pulsed with heat and energy. Powerful, vibrant sensations shimmied up her arm and spread through her body. Sensations of love. Of hope. Both so long forgotten they stole her breath. She turned toward the windows, moved around her desk and slumped into her chair. Blue lightning crackled across the sky, making the charcoal clouds glow.
    A roll of ground-rocking thunder passed through the streets. A millisecond later, one quick strike of lightning split the sky. The jagged bolt speared the glass and smashed against the coin, refracting directly into Jessica’s eyes.
    She yelped and shaded her face, but the luminosity intensified, showering her with heat, engulfing her in a cone of golden light. Sizzling tingles traveled across her body, matching the effervescent sound rising in her ears. A sense of weightlessness made her dizzy. Then she was moving, a rush of air and pressure and prickles over her entire body. She grabbed for the arms on her chair, but found nothing. Panic seized her chest. She gasped for air, but her lungs clamped down tight. And just when she thought she’d lose her mind to the hovering terror, she slowed. The pressure eased. The light’s intensity faded at the edges. The fizzing in her skin calmed.
    Her heart thudded hard. Air scraped in and out of her throat. She squinted past the light still shining off the coin and the foreign sight of pine trees drifted through.
    “Oh, no,” she whispered. Shit no. Another doorway. Only this time, she’d gone through the damn thing. Hell, no . She hadn’t signed up for this.

T HREE
    B eneath the tires, the ground turned from cracked asphalt to gravel. The car’s front right tire took a deep divot at forty-two miles per hour. Q could calculate their speed by feel. His body jerked side to side, his shoulders knocking the men flanking him in the backseat of what he guessed was a Ford Taurus by the construction of the bench