Excerpt: World Enough and Time

Elaina Michaels pulled the brim of her fedora further down to shield her face from the streaming rain of the Amazonian jungle. She was making good time through the underbrush, but her pursuers no doubt were as well. A quick glance over her shoulder told her just how close they’d gotten. She saw the glint of a rifle barrel the instant before a shot rang out in the jungle—a shot meant for her.

She ran.

As fast as she could go, she cut through the dense foliage ahead and charged forward. She slipped in the mud, and branches caught painfully at her face and arms, but she could hear them behind her, matching her step for step, pursuing faster and faster through the path she’d cut. She’d never be able to outrun them.

Her lungs burned and her limbs ached, but she pushed onward, barely able to see through the torrential rain. There it was, the clearing near the river that would lead her to her escape. She could make it if only she could run for a few more minutes.

Suddenly, the jungle floor lurched beneath her feet, and a blinding light ripped through the downpour.

The blinking red lights on the treadmill in front of Elaina Michaels told her that she’d completed her five miles, and in record time.

“Hey!” called Jensen from the weight machines across the room. “You were running like you were being chased.” He grinned and gave her a thumbs up.

She smiled to herself and shook her head. If it took imagining being chased through a jungle to make her finish her run for the day, so be it. The life of a New York City cop wasn’t always quite so exciting, though. No jungles, anyway.