Chapter 4 - The Hunted
By the end of the week, the threats turned physical. A brick was thrown through my window, wrapped in a note that read: Return the asset. The "asset" being Noah. I didn't wait for the police to assign protection; I grabbed what we needed and fled.
We moved between motels, hiding in the anonymity of the highway, living off the meager savings I had. Every shadow looked like a threat, every engine noise sounded like pursuit. Noah was surprisingly resilient; he knew the game. He knew how to read license plates, how to watch for tails, and how to stay hidden. It was a skill set that made me cry whenever he utilized it.
"You're good at this, Noah," I said one night, as we hunkered down in a low-rent motel on the outskirts of the state.
"I had to be," he replied, his face devoid of emotion.
May you like
That night, I realized the full scope of what the Bennetts had done. They hadn't just used him; they had fundamentally altered the way he viewed the world. He didn't see a road; he saw escape routes. He didn't see people; he saw potential threats. I realized that my task was not just to keep him alive, but to help him rewire his perception of reality.
I reached out to Miller again, this time using an encrypted line he’d provided. "We're being hunted," I said. "And I know where the rest of the list is. It’s in the server room at their security firm’s headquarters. If we get that, we end this."
