Risk by Jamie Freveletti

stayed frozen during this exchange. She didn’t want to grapple with both the woman and him. She took a step toward the woman.
    â€œBut I don’t know better, and I’m telling you one more time to leave. Now. And take your companion and absurd talk of zombies with you.”
    The woman raised an eyebrow. “Ahh, the scientist in you doesn’t believe? Be warned. You have no idea what you’re dealing with here. With one word from me he’ll cut you to ribbons. There’s no negotiating with him.”
    â€œI don’t recall offering any negotiation. I said leave. Both of you.” Emma kept the man in her peripheral vision. With the machete in his hand, he didn’t need to be a zombie to hurt her. Flesh and blood human would be enough.
    The woman flicked her hand. “Kill her,” she said.
    The man burst into motion. He raised the machete and sprinted to her, closing the distance between them in seconds. His hair hung in thick Rasta braids down his back, and his face was contorted in a strange spasm. His eyes pointed straight to the sky even as he ran toward her, swinging the machete. It was as if he was not in control and that his body was responding to a force outside of his mind. His tongue whipped right and left, adding to the horrific sight. He started screaming in a high-pitched wail.
    Emma spun and ran toward the villa. She heard the priestess’s harsh laugh and the man’s feet on the gravel driveway behind her. She had the fleeting thought that the man was insane and if he were to catch her would show no mercy.
    She made it to the French doors and wrenched them open, tumbling through the entrance and slamming them behind her. She turned and flipped the dead bolt just as he crashed into the glass with his hands. The machete’s blade made a clanging sound on the pane.
    He stood there, breathing heavily, his weirdly canted eyes still staring upward. She crossed to the phone on the kitchen counter, dialed the emergency number and glanced back.
    He was gone.

 
    Also by Jamie Freveletti
    Emma Caldridge Series
    Dead Asleep
    The Ninth Day
    Running Dark
    Running from the Devil
    Robert Ludlum’s Covert One Series
    Robert Ludlum’s The Janus Reprisal

 
    Copyright
    This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
    Excerpt from Dead Asleep copyright © 2012 by Jamie Freveletti.
    RISK. Copyright © 2012 by Jamie Freveletti. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
    EPub Edition DECEMBER 2012: 9780062264718
    10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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