One glance over my shoulder shows me Tim Weathers lying facedown on the pavement. Fear and anguish blast through me, but I force my feet to move, aiming for the house. While my eyes search for Mia and Serenity, a sledgehammer smashes into my right shoulder blade, driving the air from my lungs and numbing my whole right side. I try to cling to Annie, but all I can manage is to twist as I fall, so that my weight doesn’t crush her when we hit the sidewalk.

“Daddy, watch out!” Annie yells, but another blast booms between the houses, or maybe even two. Annie screams, but Mia’s scream overrides hers, and then I hear Serenity shouting something that sounds like orders until another blast silences her.

The frantic whine of an overdriven engine cuts through the din, then the screech of brakes punctuates the whine. I’m trying to move, but whatever hit me scrambled my nervous system. I try to tell Annie to get into the house, but nothing comes from my throat. She’s on her knees beside me, looking down into my eyes with utter terror on her face. I want to comfort her, but the pain arcing through my back has paralyzed my vocal cords.

“There she is!” shouts a male voice. “Get her! Grab the kid!”

The predatory eyes of Snake Knox fill my mind, and I pray that voice did not come from his throat.

“Annie, get back in the Yukon!” yells a man who sounds like our driver. “Get inside NOW!”

He’s right, I realize. The Yukon’s armored. It’s the closest safe place—

But it might as well be the moon. Annie has hardly turned toward the vehicle when a man clad in black leather grabs her beneath the arms and snatches her bodily into the air. Filled with rage and terror, I try to roll over, but I can’t do it.

The man carrying my daughter runs toward the open door of a gold minivan parked in the middle of Washington Street. Annie is screaming “Daddy!” at the top of her lungs, but I can’t even get to my knees, much less my feet.

A man in a black business suit suddenly materializes at the rear of the Yukon—our driver. He’s pointing a pistol at the man carrying Annie.

“PUT THE GIRL DOWN!” he yells.

Confident that Annie will serve as a human shield, her kidnapper ignores the order.

Shoot him! I yell silently. Shoot now or she’s lost forever!

Then the familiar pop-pop of a handgun echoes between the houses, and our driver falls facedown in the road, blood pouring from his head.