Hadley

At first I thought I was hallucinating, that I’d finally broken and was seeing things. Then the word the man had spoken penetrated and it dawned on me what was happening. The man, dressed in all black and wearing a large pack on his back, was really here to rescue me. My dad hadn’t left me here to die. He’d sent someone to take me home. He could have only been sent by my father because nobody but my parents knew about the puppy I’d owned for one week when I was five years old before we realized I was allergic to her. I’d named her Fluffy and had refused to even so much as consider another name, much to my dad’s dismay.

“Thank God,” I breathed, the sound muffled by his hand.

The man, Brecken he’d called himself, moved his hand away when the tension left my body. He slid the bag from his back and pulled out a long-sleeved shirt, cargo pants, socks and boots. All black, a perfect match for what he was wearing but much smaller considering his muscular build.

“Take off your night shirt and put these on.” His voice was somehow both gentle and abrupt.

“I can’t,” I admitted softly, moving my wrist and making the chain attached to it clang, drawing his attention to it.

“Fuck,” he hissed, eyes sliding to the door my captors used when they needed to come into the room. He was clearly furious on my behalf, and it alleviated some of my embarrassment at my current condition. I was filthy and stinky, dressed in the same oversized nightshirt with a cartoon character on the front and panties I’d worn to bed the night I was taken, and I was chained to a wall in God only knows where. He pulled a tool of some kind from a pocket of his cargo pants and got to work on the lock. Even though I looked and smelled awful, I could have sworn Brecken’s eyes flared with desire as he worked to free my hand from the band wrapped around my wrist.

When he was done, he turned his back and gave me privacy to dress. The moment I sat back down after pulling the pants and shirt on, he swiveled towards me and helped me with the socks and boots. We were in the least romantic setting ever, but my heart raced as he kneeled before me. My fingers itched to smooth back a lock of dark hair which had fallen onto his forehead, but I resisted the temptation. It was neither the time nor the place, and I didn’t know anything about this man except for his name and that my father trusted him enough to send him after me. Once I was laced up, he touched a button on the watch at his wrist and the face lit up with a countdown showing two minutes remaining.

“Ready to go?”

“Yes.” I swallowed down my fear and tried my best to reply in a clear tone, but my voice still wavered. I wasn’t sure I would make it far since I hadn’t eaten for at least three days, but I was beyond ready to leave this hell hole. He searched my eyes, and I steeled myself to show none of my doubts. I didn’t want to give him any reason to leave me behind.

He must have seen what he needed because he nodded his head and led me to the wall next to the bed.

“Wait here.”

Here? I looked around the room, confused about how we were going to leave until he dropped to his stomach and slowly eased two boards off the wall. I sunk down to my knees, already tired from the small amount of energy it took to dress and stand. I rested my head on my knees until Brecken reached his hand back through the hole and helped me slink out. Once I was out, he propped the boards against the building and checked the counter on his watch again.

“We need to hurry, precious.”

I’d usually argue about a guy using a nickname like precious on me, but it wasn’t exactly the right time to say anything. Besides which, I wasn’t sure I really wanted to because hearing his rough whisper drop a notch on the word sent butterflies off in my stomach. There hadn’t been any chance of me developing Stockholm syndrome over my captors, but it seemed hero worship for Brecken was a definite possibility.

With my hand clutching the back of his shirt, I followed him into the jungle. Brecken radiated so much warmth, I felt it through the material. Even with the long pants and sleeves of the shirt he’d given me and the unrelenting heat outside, I was chilled. It seemed like forever ago since I’d felt warm. I stifled a laugh at the image of me using Brecken as a blanket. The one my captors had given me hadn’t been much help, but I was pretty sure the feel of his arms around me would heat me up in no time flat.

Biting my chapped bottom lip, I scolded myself for my thoughts as I followed behind him. If he had a plan to get me out of here, I wasn’t going to do anything to slow him down—and that included paying attention to where we were going instead of ogling his ass. In an effort to limit the temptation he presented, I moved my hand from his shirt and placed it on his backpack instead.

We moved quickly, reaching the protection the jungle provided without detection. I breathed a sigh of relief and then gasped for air when Brecken stopped dead in his tracks and held up one hand. When he placed a finger towards the bottom of his ear and cocked his head, I realized he was in contact with someone else and hadn’t come alone. I glanced over my shoulder, terrified that one of the guards would notice I was missing before we’d gotten far enough away.

“Fuck!” Brecken hissed, drawing my attention back to him and freaking me the fuck out.

“What?” I whispered when he dropped his hand to his side, my heart pounding so hard it felt like it was about to jump out of my chest.

“A member of my team is a mile out in the same direction I’d planned to take you,” he replied, pulling me in front of him and turning me to the left. “She spotted a convoy headed this way.”

He nudged me forward until we were standing next to a large tree. “What kind of convoy?”

“She couldn’t get close enough to tell without running the risk of giving her position away. All I know is that three vehicles are heading in as fast as they can on the shitty ass road,”—he stopped to point over his shoulder—“about a quarter of a mile that way. The road dumps straight into the compound, so this has to be their destination. And we can’t afford to be here when they arrive.”

The answer seemed obvious to me. “Then let’s go meet up with your friend and get the heck out of here.”

“We can’t.” His tone brooked no room for argument, not like I was going to disagree anyway. He was the expert here. “It would take us too long to reach her, and that’s the direction they’re most likely to assume we’ve gone since the closest town is that way. She’s already on her way to warn the other two men I brought with me, and we’re moving to plan D.”

“Plan D?” What happened to B and C?

“We’re going to circle part-way around the camp and head into the deepest part of the jungle.”

I swatted yet another bug away from my neck and cringed at the idea of spending even more time in this God forsaken jungle. “Okay.” My voice shook with fear, and Brecken reacted by bending down to stare straight into my eyes while reaching for my hand and giving it a squeeze.

“As long as we’re careful to limit the tracks we leave behind, this is the last route they’ll expect us to take because it’s the hardest and longest one.”

Hard and long. My gaze dropped to his crotch and then I lowered it to the ground like that was what I’d intended all along. Geesh! What was it about this guy that was making my hormones go crazy? He was talking about marching me through the jungle in my weakened state for who knew how long, and I’d actually taken the time to check out his package. It was official—either I was an idiot or I really did have a white knight complex.

“Stay right here.” He squeezed my hand one more time before letting go and pulling my nightshirt from his pack. “I’m going to lay a false trail but it will only take a few minutes.”

Watching him walk away was one of the hardest things I’d ever done. I wanted to beg him to take me with him, to let me help. The only thing holding me back was the knowledge that I wouldn’t be any help to him at all, only a hindrance. Freezing my muscles in place, I closed my eyes and thought about the periodic table of elements. It was something I’d taken to doing since I’d been taken. For some odd reason, reciting it in my mind helped to calm me down each time I’d started to freak out. It wasn’t until I’d reached Iodine that I felt his hand on my elbow and opened my eyes again.

“Ready?”

I nodded swiftly.

“I won’t lie to you, the next couple days are going to be tough as hell, but I’m going to get you through this and back home safe and sound.”

Safe and sound was an excellent concept, but I didn’t think a place like that existed for me anymore. I wasn’t sure how much he knew about my dad’s business, so I kept my mouth shut and offered him a weak smile instead.

He turned away from me and placed my hand on his lower back, his body heat warming my hand once again. “Stay right behind me.”

“You’re not about to lose me. I’ll follow you anywhere you take me.”