After the Golden Age (Golden Age 1)

ONE

CELIA took the late bus home, riding along with other young workaholic professionals, the odd student, and late-shift retail clerks. A quiet, working bunch, cogs and wheels that kept Commerce City running.

Only a block away from the office, the person in the seat behind her leaned forward and spoke in her ear:

“Get off at the next stop.”

She hadn’t noticed him before. He was ordinary; in his thirties, he had a rugged, stubbled face, and wore jeans and a button-up shirt. He looked like he belonged. With a lift to his brow, he glared at her over the back of the plastic seat and raised the handgun from his lap. Without moving his gaze, he pushed the stop call button by the window.

Damn, not again.

Her heart pounded hard—with anger. Not fear, she reminded herself. Her fists clenched, her face a mask, she stood. She could hardly move her legs, wanting only to turn and throttle the bastard for interrupting her evening.

He stood with her, following a step behind as she moved forward toward the door. He could stop her before she called to the driver for help. And what could the driver do, but stand aside as her kidnapper waved the gun at him?

She was still two miles from home. She could try to run—in pumps and a dress suit. Right. Really, she only had to run far enough away to duck into a corner and call 9-1-1. Or her parents.

9-1-1. That was what she’d do.

She didn’t dig in the pocket of her attaché for her phone. Did nothing that would give away her plan. She stepped off the bus, onto the sidewalk. Her kidnapper disembarked right behind her.

“Turn right. Walk five steps.”

She turned right. Her muscles tensed, ready—

The bus pulled away. She prepared to launch herself into a run.

A sedan stopped at the curb. Two men jumped out of the back, and the kidnapper from the bus grabbed her arm. The three surrounded her and spirited her into the car, which rolled away in seconds.

They’d planned this, hadn’t they?

In the backseat, one of the men tied her hands in front of her with nylon cord. The other pressed a gun to her ribs.

The one from the bus sat on the passenger side of the front seat and looked back at her.

“You’re Warren and Suzanne West’s daughter.”

Not like this was news.

“What will the Olympiad do to keep you safe?”

“You’ll have to ask them,” she said.

“I will.” He grinned, a self-satisfied, cat-with-the-canary grin that she recognized from a half-dozen two-bit hoodlums who thought they’d done something clever, that they’d figured out how to corner the Olympiad. As if no one else had tried this before.

“What are you going to do with me?” She said it perfunctorily. It was a way to make conversation. Maybe distract him.