Chapter 5
Chloe bolted from the hedge just as a heavy hand lunged through the leaves, grazing the fabric of her denim shorts. She sprinted blindly across the sprawling lawn toward the perimeter security fence, ignoring the stinging scratches from rosebushes and thorny vines that whipped against her bare legs. Behind her, Julian’s shout pierced the night air, followed closely by the rapid crunch of heavy footsteps on gravel.
The towering wrought-iron security fence loomed ahead, its spiked tips gleaming ominously under the amber glow of the perimeter floodlights. There was no gate nearby, only a sheer twelve-foot barrier designed to keep intruders out and residents trapped inside. Desperation fueled her as she reached the base of the fence, dropping the satellite phone into her pocket and grabbing the vertical bars with both hands.
She jammed the toes of her sneakers into the decorative scrollwork, scrambling upward with frantic speed. Her fingers slipped twice on the rain-slicked iron, scraping the skin off her knuckles, but she hauled herself higher, refusing to look down.
From the shadows of the garden path, Elena appeared, her black sleeveless dress soaked and stained with mud, her elegant updo completely unraveled into a wild tangle of dark hair. Her face was twisted in an ugly snarl of rage. She lunged forward, her fingers catching the hem of Chloe's grey t-shirt just as the girl reached the top of the fence.
"Give me the phone, you little thief!" Elena screamed, abandoning all pretense of composure as she yanked downward with all her weight.
The fabric of the t-shirt strained and tore, but the momentum carried Chloe over the top rail. She threw herself forward, tumbling awkwardly onto the damp asphalt of the public service road outside the estate. A sharp spike of pain shot through her left ankle as she hit the ground, but survival instinct overrode the injury. She scrambled to her feet, limping heavily as she sprinted toward the cover of a dense pine forest lining the deserted road.
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From behind the iron fence, Julian emerged into the floodlight's glare. He did not chase her further. Instead, he raised his wrist to his mouth, speaking rapidly into a hidden two-way radio clipped to his collar. He watched her flee with a cold, predatory smile that promised the hunt was far from over.
Chloe plunged into the dark tree line, the thick canopy blocking out the moonlight and plunging her into near-total darkness. She leaned against the rough bark of a giant pine tree, clutching her bruised ribs and gasping for air. The satellite phone in her pocket buzzed again. She pulled it out; the blinking red dot of the safehouse coordinates was moving, but another larger, blue dot was converging on her position from the north road. Someone was coming to intercept her, and they were already closer than she realized.
