Chapter 4 Playing with Fire

A agonizing burn in my throat was the first thing that brought me back to reality.

I coughed violently, my lungs screaming for oxygen as the freezing night air hit my face. My cheek was pressed against wet, muddy grass. Rain poured down on me, washing away the lingering, sicky-sweet taste of the gas.

"Breathe, Avery. Come on, breathe."

Strong hands rolled me onto my side. I squinted through the downpour, my vision blurry and swimming with dark spots, until Jaxson’s face came into focus. He was soaking wet, his dark hair plastered to his forehead, coughing rough and hard. He had dragged me out of the cabin.

"I... I can't," I choked out, my chest tightening in panic.

"Yes, you can. Look at me. Listen to my voice." Jaxson grabbed my face with both hands, his thumbs wiping the rain and tears from my cheeks. His gray eyes were fierce, burning with a terrifying mix of fury and fear. "In and out. Do it with me."

I focused on the steady rise and fall of his shoulders, matching his breath until the cold air finally filled my lungs, clearing the fog in my head. The adrenaline kicked in, and with it, a sudden, sharp realization.

"The drive," I gasped, pushing against his chest to sit up. "The laptop."

Jaxson’s expression darkened. He stood up, offering me a hand and pulling me to my feet. The oversized hockey jersey I wore was soaked and heavy, clinging to my shivering body.

I looked toward the cabin porch. The living room window was completely shattered, shards of glass glinting like diamonds in the rain. Inside, the warm, cozy fire we had started was nothing but dark, smoking embers.

I stumbled back up the porch steps, Jaxson right on my heels.

The living room was in ruins. The coffee table was overturned, the laptop smashed into pieces on the hardwood floor, its screen shattered and useless.

But the flash drive was gone.

"No, no, no," I muttered, dropping to my knees and desperately brushing aside pieces of broken glass. "It’s gone. It’s all gone. Everything I needed to clear my brother..."

A sob caught in my throat, hot and bitter. I had been so close. Six months of planning, of playing the quiet, invisible scholarship girl, all wiped out in a single breath of toxic gas.

A shadow fell over me. Jaxson knelt down, his hand wrapping around my wrist to stop me from cutting my fingers on the glass.

"Hey. Look at me," he commanded softly.

"What?" I snapped, glaring at him through my wet lashes. "We lost it, Jaxson! Whoever took your sister just took my only leverage!"

Without a word, Jaxson reached into his pocket. He pulled out a sleek, black metallic object and laid it in my palm.

My jaw dropped. It was the flash drive.

"How?" I whispered.

"When the glass broke, I didn't just jump to cover you," Jaxson said, a ghost of a smirk playing on his lips despite the bruising forming on his jaw. "I grabbed the drive off the table. The bastard who threw the canister thought they got everything when they grabbed my laptop, but they walked away with a decoy. I always keep an empty dummy drive in my laptop bag."

Relief washed over me so fast I felt dizzy. I looked at the small piece of plastic in my hand, then up at Jaxson. The raw protectiveness in his eyes made my chest ache with a completely different kind of tension.

"You're smarter than you look, Wilde," I murmured.

"I play hockey, Avery. I know how to protect the asset," he rasped, his gaze dropping to my lips. The air between us grew heavy, charged with the lingering adrenaline of near-death and the undeniable heat of being this close.

But the moment was broken when I saw something glinting on the floor near the broken window.

I stood up, stepping over the shattered glass, and knelt by the sill. Sitting right in the center of the frame, as if left deliberately, was a heavy, silver lighter.

I picked it up. Engraved on the polished metal was a pair of crossed hockey sticks and the number 17.

My blood ran cold.

"Jaxson," I said, my voice barely audible. "Who wears number seventeen on your team?"

Jaxson walked over, his eyes locking onto the lighter. The color drained from his face, his jaw clenching so hard a muscle ticked in his cheek.

"Miller," he whispered.

"Your golden boy teammate," I said, the anger returning, hot and sharp. "He didn't just happen to be at the admin wing tonight. He was tracking us. He followed us here."

"Miller doesn't have the brains to pull off a coordinated hit like this," Jaxson growled, shaking his head. "He’s a puppet. Someone is pulling his strings, and they used him to get to Chloe—and now, to us."

Suddenly, the headlights of a car swept across the cabin's driveway, illuminating the dark trees outside.

Jaxson grabbed my arm, pulling me away from the window. "We have to go. Now. If they realize they took the dummy drive, they're coming back to finish the job."

"We can't use the bike," I said, looking out at the pouring rain. "They'll hear us coming from a mile away on these quiet roads."

"Then we take the back trails," Jaxson said, his voice dropping into a hard, commanding tone. He grabbed a set of keys from the kitchen counter. "My family keeps a vintage Jeep in the shed. No GPS, no tracking devices. We go back to the academy, find Miller, and make him talk."

He looked down at me, his eyes sweeping over the soaked jersey that barely covered my thighs. He reached into a closet, pulling out a dry, heavy black hoodie and tossing it to me.

"Put this on. We're going to war, sweetheart. And you're going to need to stay warm."